From Pigments to Pixels: A Comparison of Human and AI Painting

From entertainment to medicine and engineering, artificial intelligence (AI) is now being used in a wide range of fields, yet the extent to which AI can be effectively applied to the creative arts remains to be seen. In this research, a neural algorithm of artistic style was used to generate six AI paintings and these were compared with six paintings on the same theme by an amateur painter. Two sets of paintings were compared by 380 participants, 70 percent of whom had previous painting experience. Results indicate that color and line are the key elements of aesthetic appreciation. Additionally, the style transfer had a marked effect on the viewer when there was a close correspondence between the painting and the style transfer but not when there was little correspondence, indicating that AI is of limited effectiveness in modifying an existing style. Although the use of neural networks simulating human learning has come a long way in narrowing the gap between paintings produced by AI and those produced in the traditional fashion, there remains a fundamental difference in terms of aesthetic appreciation since paintings generated by AI are based on technology, while those produced by humans are based on emotion.