Hajjaj Salama

What if Artificial Intelligence controlled humans? And will AI control the fields of arts, visual creativity, and literature? Could AI programs become a substitute for the artist’s brush and the writer’s pen? This question is no longer just a question asked in science fiction movies, but has become today a realistic question raising much controversy in the visual and literary scene. The most pressing question today is: what future for humanity if we surrender the lead to chatbots that paint paintings, compose books and musical pieces, and think on our behalf? In this survey, "Ahwal Al-Marifa" magazine explores the opinions of a number of Saudi female visual artists whose views varied on this subject.

Initially, artist Amal Filimban saw that no matter the spread of digital art and digital media, visual art created by the creator’s brush will remain the most enduring.

A Reality We Have No Choice In

However, artist Amal Al-Qahtani considered that AI has become a reality we have no choice in, and an unavoidable matter, now leading the helm for all existing knowledge, especially arts. She added that devices have even taken over making and preparing food without minimal human intervention, as well as navigation devices, human identity detection, and everything related to media production and science fiction. Al-Qahtani predicted that the coming years will witness the marginalization of manual production, ing so far as to say it might reach extinction, noting that the prices of manual artworks will be low. She expressed hope that there will remain tasters of true human art.

The Human Spirit

Writer and visual artist Sakina Al-Sharif said that art and emotion have a close relationship, and that art expresses the secrets that wandered in our emotions and then came out in an innovative and elegant artistic way. She saw that art can inspire emotions and express them in ways that make us feel and interact with them with sophistication and depth. Al-Sharif considered that generative AI for images has witnessed a new electronic boom people are not used to yet. She emphasized that the technology that facilitated the work of doctors and engineers is the same that may facilitate for the artist the presentation of creations carrying new and unusual artistic features and visions, and the same applies to writing and literature, noting that art and literature are very sensitive subjects and cannot be limited in their creation to AI; emotion and human feeling must be present. She added that the human spirit remains the master of the situation in art and literature, and we should not forget that AI is a human creative craft!

A Double-Edged Sword

Artist Ahlam Al-Mashhadi said that technology is naturally a double-edged sword. It is possible to exploit AI technology in many matters that bring benefit and rapid productivity in the field of designs and others. She pointed out that what we must warn against is the exploitation by some of this technology in copying and imitating artists' works. She stressed that it is impossible to do without the artist's hand, skill, and the impression of their soul in the artwork. She noted that if we assume AI dominance, the era of the painting might vanish and it might have no value in the future.

The Brilliance of Feelings

Visual artist Maryam Al-Shamlawi saw that AI, even if it dazzles us with perfected works and inspiring ideas that smoothed difficulties for those lacking talent and accuracy, it is undoubtedly a rigid artificial product lacking the human touch, the artist's delicate feeling, the brilliance of their feelings, and their soul which they embody with the ink of deep feeling on the white of the canvas. She stressed that it is very difficult to replace the human artist with AI, "as if you are replacing feeling with rigidity and the renewable overflowing sense with dullness and stereotypical patterns." She emphasized that AI cannot be a competitor that will steal the sense from her as an artist, and from other artists and writers, ruling out that AI could steal the recipient's amazement at a purely human painting painted in the colors of feeling away from technical intervention. She added that art is not just dazzling color, but a spiritual feeling that overflows from a human onto a canvas to be caught by the spirit of another human.