A bespoke film starring you in the leading role, a dream painting in five seconds, or a book about grief that a machine writes for you. Art has never been so easy — and so awkward. Artists, platforms, and tech companies are experimenting enthusiastically with generative AI. Yet I keep returning to the same nagging question: do people really want to be moved by something that has no soul? Can “effortless” simply be beautiful? In this article, I dive into that question.
At the TEFAF art fair in Maastricht, I recently overheard someone standing before a painting say, “There’s so much soul and passion in it.” The Picasso on display was created with great care, effort, and life experience. It isn’t perfect, but it really feels alive. That sense of authenticity is missing from much AI art. An algorithm has no childhood memories, no sorrow, no Monet-like view of a French lily pond. So, critics say, it can’t produce real art.
But reality is more complicated. A 2023 MIT study found that 40% of people cannot distinguish AI-generated art from human-made work. Platforms like ArtStation, Spotify, and TikTok are overflowing with wildly popular AI content — sometimes openly, sometimes covertly. Apparently, origin doesn’t always matter; if the result resonates, that’s all that counts.
Collaborating with the machine
Fortunately, it’s not a choice between human or machine. More and more creatives see AI not as a threat, but as a creative partner. Dutch DJ Reinier Zonneveld experiments live with AI in his techno sets. Together with an algorithm, he builds beats, reintroduces loops, and improvises based on audience energy. The result is a hybrid set born of two collaborators rather than one! Artists like Sougwen Chung use AI as a brush: they train models on their own work so the machine becomes an extension of their style. It’s not replacement — it’s a new form of collaboration.
People often talk about AI’s dangers in art. But I believe there are equally compelling arguments in its favor. AI can broaden access to creativity. You don’t need an expensive art school education or a record label to make what’s in your head. With generative AI, anyone can shape ideas into text, image, or sound — even without technical expertise. In that sense, AI democratizes art by lowering the barrier to expression.
Writing books
Over the past few years I’ve published three books, one of which took four years of research. I’m already working on a new one, and I often get the accusation: “You must be letting AI write it for you.” Partly true. I do use AI to conduct research for my books — running analyses on dozens of other books, studies, and discussion forums like Reddit, yielding incredibly interesting insights for my writing. But I still enjoy the actual writing too much — and it genuinely enriches my daily work as a speaker and coach.
Moreover, AI can stimulate rather than stifle human creativity. Artists collaborating with AI are sometimes confronted with unexpected patterns, ideas, or distortions they never would have conceived on their own. That can lead to fresh perspectives on their own work. Oxford professor Marcus du Sautoy sees it as an opportunity:
“AI can jolt us awake from our automatic routines. People often behave like machines, and AI helps pull us out of that.”
You could say the algorithm isn’t there to replace the artist, but to serve as a playful antagonist, challenging you to think further.
Starting a new chapter?
Then there’s the more philosophical argument I read recently: art has always been a mirror of its time. The Industrial Revolution brought both realism and abstraction. The advent of photography freed painters from the obligation to depict reality. Now, in an era dominated by technology in our daily lives (just look at your phone or the internet), it makes sense that art would respond in kind. Perhaps using AI in art is not the end of an era, but the start of a new chapter.
Concerns
Still, I have serious concerns about these developments. One of the greatest is the blurring line between real and fake. In the Netflix documentary What Jennifer Did, altered photos were presented as authentic. The filmmaker admitted parts of the images had been manipulated but remained vague about how and with what tools. In my view, this raises not only aesthetic questions but ethical ones. If images no longer represent what was real but only what seems plausible, we undermine trust in visual information — especially in journalistic or documentary contexts.
I also see a real risk of artistic mediocrity — a kind of bias. AI relies on existing data: what’s popular, recognizable, and average. It’s ideally suited to reinforce what we already know. In my experience, it rarely surprises or shocks. Film critic Gwilym Mumford warns of a future of tailor-made AI films in which you star in a romantic comedy with Marilyn Monroe:
“A film that only follows your wishes will never surprise you.”
It’s the unexpected choices of an artist that give art its layers and meaning — something AI doesn’t yet master.
There’s also the economic angle: increasingly, film studios, publishers, and platforms use AI to cut costs. Posters for major series are no longer designed by illustrators but generated in Midjourney. Tyler Perry halted his $800 million studio expansion when he saw Sora:
“Jobs are going to be lost.”
Even music platforms are experimenting with AI DJs. For Reinier Zonneveld, AI is a playful partner on stage — but for many artists, the same technology threatens their livelihood. The question is: who truly benefits from effortless art? And who is quietly displaced?
The core questions we need to start asking ourselves are: what do we seek in a painting, a novel, a film? Solace, wonder, recognition? Does it matter whether that feeling is evoked by a human or a machine? Maybe it does — maybe it doesn’t.
The problem begins when we stop questioning
Because as long as AI remains a tool and not the story itself, there is room for human expression. The problem only arises when we stop asking questions — when we mindlessly accept that “good enough” is truly good. When we confuse ease with meaning.
“Effortless art” sounds appealing: art without sweat, without struggle, without time pressure. Yet it’s precisely in the effort, the not-knowing, the searching, that the soul resides — the soul that woman at TEFAF spoke of. If art demands nothing of its maker, what does it ask of its audience? Perhaps the value of art lies not in how quickly it’s created, but in how long it lingers within us.
