AI and the Artist: Imagination and Toil
AI and the Artist: Imagination and Toil
Heather Walworth
Honors Program Seminar
Professors Nofziger and McQueen
December 2, 2024
This piece was a submission for an assignment that allowed students almost complete freedom with what they chose to investigate. I decided to write this paper. As many have already noted, the recent technological advancements of artificial intelligence may transform the academic, artistic, and occupational worlds in ways we haven’t seen before. I think that we have seen this before. This paper analyzes how AI could affect the artistic world by applying a lens of Romanticism to current sources. I hope this will be enlightening.
by Heather Walworth
AI and the Artist: Imagination and Toil
The concept of Artificial Intelligence has circulated through academic conversations for the past few years, but the most recent development of this technology may change society’s work, creativity, and academia for the future. In 2022, ChatGPT took the world by storm. This Large Language Model (LLM)’s particular use of AI has started a kind of technological revolution in which industry leaders add AI platforms as the newest additions to their progressive toolboxes. These tools scrape information from the internet and pool that knowledge, generating seemingly new things based on the given prompt. In light of such a recent significant technological development, perhaps it is wise to look backwards to gain insight on how and to what extent such a socially transformative tool should be used.
The writers and thinkers of the Romantic era hold distinct ideas on how to view the world and humanity. When the Industrial Revolution took their world by storm, these thinkers looked backwards at a more ancient view of the world. Reacting against the coldness of 18th century neoclassicism, the Romantics used themes from Ancient Greece and Medieval Europe to evaluate the changes occurring in their historical context (Poetry Foundation). Romantic poets are still well known today, and many of their works refer to warnings about the pitfalls of the Industrial Revolution. This paper will use a Romantic lens to analyze the current academic conversation about the future use of AI tools, specifically in art. The art world is experiencing change as a result of AI, which has benefits and drawbacks. It is important to recognize both. Several AI tools have been designed to enhance rather than replace the work of artists; this use is markedly different from that of image generators. Tools with uses such as photo editing, coloring black and white images, and turning sketches into 3D models can be extremely helpful to artists (Martin, 2024). Regardless of these notable advantages, AI should not take over the entirety of the creative process because it would deplete two artistic necessities: imagination and toil.
Imagination
Over the last few years, Artificial Intelligence has begun to be used to generate art, so it is important to consider how much value can be assigned to original human creativity and how this could interact with AI. The Romantics had a high view of the creative imagination. Samuel Taylor Coleridge describes imagination as synonymous with worldview, defined as “the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a repetition of the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM” (qtd in Lynch, 1962, p. 496). Coleridge believes that imagination flows through the entirety of reality, tying the separate details of reality into coherence. This finite mind that Coleridge refers to is the human mind, which uses imagination to receive the world around it. William Wordsworth, a close associate of Coleridge, explains how this definition of imagination as a perception affects art, particularly poetry. Wordsworth believed that when a poet uses imagination, “ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way” (qtd in Lynch, 1962, p. 305). These two romantic poets believed that the value of art comes from the imagination of the human mind that created it. To incorporate this view with AI art, it would mean that the only creative way for AI to participate in art would be through a human imagining something and using AI as a tool to communicate their vision, just as how a paintbrush is used to create art on a canvas. However, there should be a limit to how much of the process depends on AI to communicate a human-made concept. From a Romantic perspective, AI should not take over the creative process because the idea should originate from the mind of an individual artist.
John Ruskin, a Victorian inheritor of the Romantics, firmly believed in the individuality of human creativity. Ruskin criticized the industrialization of factories, in which people would have to create objects with the goal of each object being as similar to its counterpart as possible; the goal is perfection. Ruskin
instead valued the imperfection, or uniqueness, of the human creative work: “Let him but begin to imagine, to think, to try to do anything worth doing; and the engine-turned precision is lost at once. Out come all his roughness . . . shame upon shame . . . But out comes the whole majesty of him also” (qtd in Robson, 1962, p. 392). This is why Ruskin was a lover of Gothic architecture—because it is imperfect and unique. He would be horrified at the idea of using ChatGPT to conjure up an image that is a conglomerated copy of other images because this takes away from the individuality of the produced work and idea. Ruskin would prefer a human be in charge of the creative process to make the art unique and original.
More recent thinkers would agree that AI should be used as a tool and only a tool. When Roberto Car, an AI-supporting scientist, was asked if using human reasoning to analyze data is better or worse than AI’s reasoning, he responded, “I agree that the new data from AI tools can provide insight, but when you get these data, it still requires a human scientist to decide what kind of further analysis needs to be made. That is what AI cannot do” (Zhao, 2024). While AI can be used as an aid for science, human reasoning should not be taken out of the equation. This applies to art as well. In an article discussing AI’s encroachment on the art world, Jared Boggess emphasizes the Romantic value of imagination. He warns against taking the creativity out of art, “When we cut out the creative processes, we diminish what gives art its true value” (Boggess, 2024, p. 26). Imagination is a deeply human attribute that AI does not possess. Therefore, if AI is used as a digital aid in digital art, human creative involvement should be prioritized. Instead of an artist conjuring up an idea only to sit back and watch how their original idea translates through ChatGPT’s internet scrapings, the artist should be closely involved with the creative process, which will include difficulty and artistic toil.
Artistic Toil
As mentioned before, artificial intelligence can be used as an artistic aid or tool but should not take over the entire artistic process because creativity is a deeply human attribute that contributes to the beauty of art. Part of the creative process includes mental and physical toil. The word toil may possess a negative connotation, but the Romantics valued putting in the work to create art. While the widespread use of AI can take away harmful toil from humans, it can also take away harmless and valuable toil from forms of creative work. The Romantics believe that toil is essential to creation, but if AI is allowed priority over the actual artist, then this valuable toil is depleted.
John Ruskin, in his speech “The Work of Iron,” highlights this concept as it relates to art and work. Ruskin noticed that the human tendency to prioritize efficiency had become increasingly prevalent in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution. He specifically disliked when this approach is applied to art, and instead he argues for the importance of the toil that goes into creation. Ruskin defines good art, saying that, “All art worthy the name is the energy . . . good craftsmanship and work of the fingers joined with good emotion and work of the art. There is no good art, nor possible judgement of art, when these two are not unified” (Ruskin, 1997, p. 122). Good art requires the work of the hands, which can still apply to digital art with the substitution of mental toil. In Ruskin’s opinion, toil and imagination must combine to produce good art.
Ruskin worries that the way the new artists of his time view art will lead to a devaluation of toil. He describes a new kind of artist, saying, “Our amateurs cannot be persuaded but that they may produce some kind of art by their fancy or sensibility, without going through the necessary manual toil” (Ruskin, 1997, p. 122). Ruskin’s concern with the artists of his time was their desire to use only the
imagination and to exclude the toil. This same problem can easily arise in the use of AI generators when it comes to art. If an artist can simply come up with an idea, put it into a generator, and AI will produce something similar to what they had in mind, one should consider if that is truly good art. Ruskin would argue that it is not good art because the artist did not go through the necessary toil to produce the work. When using an AI tool to create digital art, it should remain an aid and not be considered equal to the work done by the actual artist.
In the current conversation on AI, there seem to be two modes of thought when it comes to the extent to which AI should influence the art world. On one side, several researchers believe that AI should apply to almost every aspect of life, including promoting severe change in the art world. One research group argues that AI can be applied to “all artistic domains” and that “Large Language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT can change all aspects of society” (Tartar et al., 2024, p. 293). Many believe that, in the name of progress, AI should be utilized in every artistic domain. They explain that in the art world, a shift from a singular artist’s genius to a communal work is a result of AI (Tartar et al., 2024, p. 294). Art is moving from originating in the creative mind of an artist to a group effort using AI. On the other side of the argument, Boggess explains how toil is essential to creative work, “We are robbing ourselves of this gift of toil — the creative process of ideating, developing, and producing — when we take too many shortcuts or automate our work” (Boggess, 2024, p. 26). He claims that using AI to automate our creative work results in an increase in quantity but a decrease in quality. The first mentioned current school of thought thinks in utilitarian, efficient, and quantitative terms, and the latter thinks in qualitative. The value of a piece of art, whether it is a painting, song, or novel, is usually weighed upon the artwork’s quality, not how easily it could be replicated. This is where society could heed
Ruskin’s warning that eliminating harmless toil can do more harm than good, especially when it comes to art.
AI Should Not be a Substitute for Human Creativity
According to the Romantics, imagination and toil are essential to the creative process. Unfortunately, many will allow AI to take over the entire creative process, generating creatively deficient pieces of art. Boggess talks about how this has already happened in advertisement campaigns. The ad agency Design Army used only generative AI to create an advertisement for eyewear (Boggess, 2024, p. 26). While this is a cheaper and faster route to creating an advertising video, there will be negative implications if this becomes the norm.
To take a cue from the Romantics, the value of art should come from its beauty, which stems from the artist’s creativity. John Ruskin provides an effective parallel to the implications of allowing AI to take over art by explaining the importance of beauty. In his speech “Work of Iron,” Ruskin warns against analyzing the value of iron by considering only its usefulness and instead argues that iron receives its value from beauty. He argues that the Victorian perception of rusted iron is a harmful philosophy because it declares rust as inherently negative as it makes iron tools useless. He instead explains that rust, or oxidized metal, is what accounts for much of the earth’s natural beauty. Oxidized metal is important to the earth’s beauty; this can be paralleled to the importance of creative processes of toil and imagination in art. Ruskin warns his audience against viewing rust as useless and urges them to instead consider the beauty that rust brings: “Think first of your pretty gravel walks in your gardens, and fine, like plots of sunshine between the yellow flower-beds; fancy them all suddenly turned to the colour of ashes. That is what they would be without iron ochre” (Ruskin, 1997, p. 118). Think first of your pretty oil paintings in your local gallery, and how each one is unique to the one next to it; fancy them all suddenly turned to slightly
variated copies of each other. That is what they would be without human creativity.
As emphasized before, the benefits of AI should not be ignored, but neither should the drawbacks. Because AI seems to be taking the world by storm similar to the way the Industrial Revolution did, it is wise to take the advice of those who saw the pitfalls of the Industrial Revolution: the Romantics. Coleridge and Wordsworth believe that human imagination is essential to creating something beautiful. Ruskin argues that artistic toil and creativity must work together in creative process. These thinkers provide a warning against taking AI too far because using AI to replace human creativity will devalue art.
The use of AI should be regulated. If it is meant to be a tool to help human artistic work, then it must remain a tool or an aid — not as a crutch or a complete substitution.
Bibliography
Boggess, J. (2024, August 1). How ai short-circuits art. Christianity Today. https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2023/december/how-artificial-intelligence-shortcircuits-art.html
“British Romanticism.” Poetry Foundation. Accessed March 17, 2025. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/152982/an-introduction-to-british-romanticism.
Lynch, D. S. (1962). The Norton Anthology of English Literature (10th ed., Vol. D). W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Martin, Luke. “15 Essential A.I Tools for Artists, Case Study and Reviews.” Learn my Craft -Animal Art Tutorials For Color Pencil Artists, April 17, 2024. https://learnmycraft.com/15-essential-a-i-tools-for-artists/?v=0b3b97fa6688.
Robson, C. (1962). The Norton Anthology of English Literature (10th ed., Vol. E). W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Ruskin, J. (1997). John Ruskin: Unto This Last and Other Writings (C. Wilmer, Ed.). Penguin Classics.
Tartar, K., Ericson, P., Cotton, K., Torres Nunez Del Prado, P., Batlle-Roca, R., Cabrero-Daniel, B., Ljungblad, S., Diapoulis, G., & Hussain, J. (2024). A Shift in Artistic Practices through Artificial Intelligence. Project Muse.
Zhao, W. (2024, March 26). A panel discussion on AI for science: the opportunities, challenges and reflections. Oxford Academic. https://academic.oup.com/nsr/pages/about