AI art
In plain wordsImages, music or other artworks made with the help of AI — from early computer drawing programs to today's prompt-based image generators — and the debate over whether and how such work counts as art.
Art produced with artificial-intelligence systems as a principal tool or collaborator, from fully generated pieces to works in which AI handles only some stages — today most often images made with text-to-image modelstext-to-image model, n.: An AI system that creates a picture from a written description, such as 'a fox reading a newspaper, in watercolor', usually within seconds. such as Stable DiffusionStable Diffusion, prop. n.: A widely used image-generating AI whose model files were released for anyone to download, so people could run it on their own computers and adapt it., DALL·EDALL·E, prop. n.: OpenAI's pioneering series of image generators, named after the painter Salvador Dalí and the robot WALL·E, which showed in 2021–2023 that AI could draw almost anything described in words. and MidjourneyMidjourney, prop. n.: A popular paid AI image generator, first used by typing prompts into the chat app Discord, known for its polished, painterly look; it can also animate images into short videos., and by extension AI-made video and music. Practices range from typing a single promptprompt, n.: The message or instructions you give an AI system — a question, a request, some examples or a document — that it responds to. Clearer prompts generally get better results. to elaborate workflows that combine iterative prompting, seedrandom seed, n.: A number that fixes the 'random' choices a computer makes; reuse the same seed and settings, and an image generator produces the same picture again. selection, inpaintinginpainting, n.: Filling in a missing or erased part of a picture so it blends seamlessly with the rest — removing a stranger from a photo, or repairing a damaged one., ControlNetControlNet, prop. n.: An add-on for image generators that makes them follow a guide image — a sketch, a stick-figure pose or a depth map — so the layout comes out as intended. guidance, custom fine-tunes and manual painting. The category predates generative AI: Harold Cohen's rule-based drawing program AARON (from 1972), Google's DeepDreamDeepDream, prop. n.: A 2015 Google program that exaggerates whatever patterns an image-recognition network detects in a picture, producing hallucinatory images full of eyes, dog faces and swirls. (2015), style transferstyle transfer, n.: Repainting a photo in the style of an artwork — your street as Van Gogh might have painted it — by keeping the photo's content and borrowing the painting's colors, strokes and textures. and GAN artworks came first. AI art is among the most contested uses of AI. Critics, including many illustrators and concept artists, argue that models trained on scraped artworks without consent or payment exploit artists and flood platforms with low-effort images (AI slopAI slop, n.: Low-quality content churned out in bulk by AI — bland articles, fake-looking images, filler videos — posted to grab clicks or fill space, with little care for accuracy or value.); supporters compare it to photography as a new medium that changes rather than eliminates skill. Legal questions include whether training is fair usefair use and AI training, phr.: The unsettled US legal question of whether AI companies may copy books, articles, pictures and music to train their models without permission, under the rule that allows some unlicensed uses of copyrighted work. and who, if anyone, owns the outputs: as of October 2026, the US Copyright Office registers only the human-authored parts of works containing AI-generated material (see AI authorshipAI authorship, n.: The question of whether a work or invention produced by AI can be protected by copyright or patent, and if so who counts as its author or inventor: the AI, the person using it, or no one.).
The gallery labeled the piece as AI art, listing the model alongside the artist's own overpainting.
Origin
Harold Cohen began AARON in 1972, and neural-network art spread after 2015. In October 2018 the GAN-made 'Portrait of Edmond de Belamy' by the Paris collective Obvious, built largely on code by Robbie Barrat, sold at Christie's for US$432,500; in 2022 a Midjourney-made image won a Colorado State Fair art prize, igniting public controversy.
Usage note
Distinguish from 'generative art', an older practice of art made by rule-based or autonomous processes, which need not involve AI. Tools such as Glaze and NightshadeNightshade, prop. n.: A free tool for artists that subtly alters their images so that AI image generators trained on them without permission learn the wrong things — associating 'dog' with pictures of cats, say. let artists perturb their images to hinder style imitation or to poison training data. In March 2026 the US Supreme Court declined to review Thaler v. Perlmutter, leaving in place the ruling that a work credited solely to an AI system cannot be copyrighted.
Related
- text-to-image modeltext-to-image model, n.: An AI system that creates a picture from a written description, such as 'a fox reading a newspaper, in watercolor', usually within seconds.
- AI slopAI slop, n.: Low-quality content churned out in bulk by AI — bland articles, fake-looking images, filler videos — posted to grab clicks or fill space, with little care for accuracy or value.
- AI authorshipAI authorship, n.: The question of whether a work or invention produced by AI can be protected by copyright or patent, and if so who counts as its author or inventor: the AI, the person using it, or no one.
- fair use and AI trainingfair use and AI training, phr.: The unsettled US legal question of whether AI companies may copy books, articles, pictures and music to train their models without permission, under the rule that allows some unlicensed uses of copyrighted work.
- style transferstyle transfer, n.: Repainting a photo in the style of an artwork — your street as Van Gogh might have painted it — by keeping the photo's content and borrowing the painting's colors, strokes and textures.
- DeepDreamDeepDream, prop. n.: A 2015 Google program that exaggerates whatever patterns an image-recognition network detects in a picture, producing hallucinatory images full of eyes, dog faces and swirls.
- MidjourneyMidjourney, prop. n.: A popular paid AI image generator, first used by typing prompts into the chat app Discord, known for its polished, painterly look; it can also animate images into short videos.
- NightshadeNightshade, prop. n.: A free tool for artists that subtly alters their images so that AI image generators trained on them without permission learn the wrong things — associating 'dog' with pictures of cats, say.
Sources
- U.S. Copyright Office (2025). Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability.
Mentioned in
MidjourneyMidjourney, prop. n.: A popular paid AI image generator, first used by typing prompts into the chat app Discord, known for its polished, painterly look; it can also animate images into short videos., text-to-image modeltext-to-image model, n.: An AI system that creates a picture from a written description, such as 'a fox reading a newspaper, in watercolor', usually within seconds., AI authorshipAI authorship, n.: The question of whether a work or invention produced by AI can be protected by copyright or patent, and if so who counts as its author or inventor: the AI, the person using it, or no one., generative artgenerative art, n.: Art in which the artist invents a process — dice rolls, software, written instructions — and lets that process make the work; the phrase now also loosely covers pictures from AI image generators., music generationmusic generation, n.: Using AI to compose or produce music — from melodies written as notes to complete songs with vocals — often from a short text description like 'upbeat jazz with saxophone'., style transferstyle transfer, n.: Repainting a photo in the style of an artwork — your street as Van Gogh might have painted it — by keeping the photo's content and borrowing the painting's colors, strokes and textures., SunoSuno, prop. n.: A popular AI service that writes and performs complete songs — music, lyrics and singing — from a short text description., AI handsAI hands, n.: The tendency of early AI image generators to draw hands badly — extra or missing fingers, twisted joints — which became a running joke and a quick way to spot fake images., DeepDreamDeepDream, prop. n.: A 2015 Google program that exaggerates whatever patterns an image-recognition network detects in a picture, producing hallucinatory images full of eyes, dog faces and swirls., GhiblificationGhiblification, n.: The March 2025 craze for turning photos into pictures in the style of Japan's Studio Ghibli using ChatGPT's new image tool, and the debate it sparked over AI copying artists' styles., Harold CohenHarold Cohen, prop. n.: A British-born painter who wrote AARON, a program that made its own drawings and paintings from the early 1970s, making him a pioneer of art produced by AI., Heart on My SleeveHeart on My Sleeve, prop. n.: A 2023 song that used AI to imitate the voices of Drake and The Weeknd without their involvement; it went viral before being pulled, becoming a landmark case for AI voice cloning in music., Italian brainrotItalian brainrot, n.: A 2025 internet craze of absurd AI-generated creatures with fake-Italian names — such as a shark wearing sneakers — narrated by AI voices and hugely popular with young children., VQGANVQGAN, n.: An image compressor that turns a picture into a small grid of codebook 'tiles' while keeping it sharp, used as the vocabulary of many image generators and of an early wave of AI art.