Visual Poetics: Semic, Asemic, Nonsemic . . . and AI

Palimpsests of the Digital Age: Reconfiguring Contemporary Humanities, 2025

This article examines the unyielding resistance to AI-generated poetry within contemporary literary discourse, with particular attention to poetry's privileged position as the supreme manifestation of human creative consciousness. While other artistic domains have largely accommodated technological innovation, poetry—long revered as the highest expression of human interiority and creative excellence—remains singularly entrenched in its defense against algorithmic incursion. Through a critical examination of recent developments in Large Language Models (LLMs) and their poetic outputs, this study demonstrates how AI-generated poetry fundamentally destabilizes traditional conceptualizations of creativity, authorship, and poetic production. Drawing on posthumanist theory and recent empirical evidence suggesting AI-generated poetry's imperceptibility from human-authored works, the article advances a theoretical framework that encourages a reconceptualization of AI poetry as a collaborative, multi-agent enterprise rather than an artistic threat to human creativity and an existential displacement of their agency. By situating contemporary resistance to AI poetry within historical patterns of an unjustified technological anxiety in the arts—from photography to cinema—this study illuminates how the embrace of AI as a poetic co-creator aligns with broader shifts toward posthuman subjectivity and distributed ingenuity. The article ultimately argues for reimagining poetic creation as an inherently hybrid practice, one that acknowledges humanity's increasing integration with technological systems while expanding poetic expression and giving it a set of new and historically necessitated directions for its future. This intervention not only contributes to ongoing debates about AI and creativity but also suggests new paradigms for understanding poetry's role in an age of posthuman poetics, challenging us to reconsider what constitutes the "human" in this traditionally untouchable form of human verbal craftsmanship.

Since the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, their pervasiveness has rapidly grown to the point of gaining access to one of the most typical among human activities, the one of art. In the latest years we have indeed witnessed advances outlining AI’s “creative” abilities, now finding applications in the fields of visual art, literature, poetry, and music. As a matter of fact, in many cases, people are no longer able to easily discern what is AI-made from what is human-made and show often a negative bias towards artistic products that are declared to be AI-made. Even though such technologies are capable of rapidly and efficiently generating images, texts, and music, that often are also pleasant, the history of art and aesthetics suggests that the works of art – those that we recognize as such over the centuries – have little to do with technical ability, and rather rely on aesthetic principles, of which the artwork per se is merely representative. We therefore propos...

Proceedings of theEuropean Society for Aesthetics, 2022

In this paper, I will argue that developments in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) applied to aesthetics have relevant implications for philosophical aesthetics, in particular concerning the discussions about the nature of creativity and authorship. The automatic generation of aesthetic artifacts, as well as the development of software increasingly supporting the work of artists and designers, call into question the uniqueness of individual creativity and artistic imagination in an unprecedented way. Moreover, in a scenario in which formal properties of artifacts seem to be easily replicable by machines, the debate on the relationship between aesthetics and the nature of art seems also revitalized. Overall, diverging positions on this issue oscillate between the view of the machine as an Other competing with human capabilities, and, on the contrary, an interpretation of technology as an extension of human potentialities through the externalization o f mental processes. AI and machine learning would be in this sense a direct practical manifestation of an extended aesthetic mind, in which traditional cognitive limits of the biological mind can be overcome also in areas related to aesthetic creation.

Artificial intelligence has brought about significant changes in various creative domains, sparking discussions about the nature of art and its authenticity in the era of AI. Some scholars assert that the computer monitor now serves as a canvas, a brush, a musical instrument, and even an art tutor, leading us to explore deeper connections between AI and creativity. However, in this presentation, we wish to emphasize the humanistic dimension of creative processes once more. we acknowledge the role of AI in enhancing creative endeavors, but we firmly believe that human creativity remains paramount in the production of artistic works. The current notion of machines replacing artists is, in our view, more of a media sensation than a reality. Examining the history of electronic arts, our paper argues that claims of AI's artistic superiority are not novel; they echo similar trends from the past. The current enthusiasm mirrors earlier media frenzies. While the sciences have made significant strides in unraveling the mysteries of the human brain, our understanding of the intricacies of our remarkably creative minds, their origins, and their fulfillment in our brains This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (CC BY NC), which permits distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

Proceeding of the European Society of Aesthetics Conference, 2023

Consider this scenario: you discover that an artwork you greatly admire, or a captivating novel that deeply moved you, is in fact the product of artificial intelligence, not a human's work. Would your aesthetic judgment shift? Would you perceive the work differently? If so, why? The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) in the realm of art has sparked numerous philosophical questions related to the authorship and artistic intent behind AI-generated works. This paper explores the debate between viewing AI as a tool employed by human artists and perceiving AI as a new form of artistic expression with minimal human involvement. While we often seek a human mind behind certain artwork, we may still appreciate and engage with works that lack this element but have aesthetic value nonetheless. The paper also considers the traditional concept of "implied author", suggesting that readers or artwork viewers might construct an authorial presence from the work itself, regardless of its actual origin. It will be finally suggested how AI-generated art might change our perceptions of human authorship itself.

Conflict, Justice, Decolonization: Asia in Transition in the 21st Century, 2025

Artificial intelligence (AI) has matured and developed rapidly since 2022, bringing new opportunities as well as challenges to various aspects of society. It has forced people to view many things in a new light, including artistic creations such as texts, images, and sounds. These are being redefined or imbued with new meanings, challenging two dimensions primarily: appreciating and understanding. The significance of the human creator is diminished or even removed in the creative process, raising questions about whether such creations can still be considered art. Roland Barthes' announcement of "The Death of the Author" has thus become a reality, while Walter Benjamin's concept of "Aura" is also under threat. In light of this, this article will first categorize different kinds of AI-based creations according to the degree of human input, and then analyze how AI's involvement affects the appreciating and understanding of artworks within each category. This will help clarify the potential for new receptive and interpretive possibilities arising from these changes.

Arts & Communication, 2025

Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a significant influence in the art world, prompting reflection and introspection. This phenomenon raises the question: how could this have happened? This article explores the interrelation between AI-generated art and the concept of artwork's aura, particularly in how art profoundly engages with otherness. The inquiry into whether AI relates to otherness is central to this discussion. The research methodology employed in this study combines scholarly research and literature review with the author's personal experiences in painting, artistic observation, and experimentation with various art techniques. The methods used include descriptive analysis, classification, observation, and interpretive analysis of examples of AI-generated images. The conclusion drawn from this investigation is that AI-assisted works cannot be considered art as long as AI simulates the language of other artistic media.

Vidyawarta: A Peer Reviewed International Journal, 2025

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force in creative arts, rede fining the way artists, musicians, and writers produce and experience art. AI-driven tools, from generative adversarial networks (GANs) to natural language processing (NLP) models, are now capable of creating paintings, composing music, and even writing literature with unprecedented sophistication. This paper examines the profound impact AI has had on these domains, questioning traditional notions of creativity, authorship, and artistic value. In visual arts, AI powered programs such as DeepArt and DALL·E produce paintings and illustrations that challenge human artistry. AI-generated paintings, like those created by the Obvious collective, have even been auctioned for thousands of dollars, sparking debates on artistic authenticity (Anantrasirichai and Bull). In music, AI-based composers such as AIVA and OpenAI’s MuseNet generate compositions that blend classical and contemporary styles, raising questions about human intervention in creative processes (Boosa). Literature, too, is undergoing a transformation with models like GPT-4 producing poetry, fiction, and screenplays that blur the line between machine and human authorship Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force in creative arts, rede fining the way artists, musicians, and writers produce and experience art. AI-driven tools, from generative adversarial networks (GANs) to natural language processing (NLP) models, are now capable of creating paintings, composing music, and even writing literature with unprecedented sophistication. This paper examines the profound impact AI has had on these domains, questioning traditional notions of creativity, authorship, and artistic value. In visual arts, AIpowered programs such as DeepArt and DALL·E produce paintings and illustrations that challenge human artistry. AI-generated paintings, like those created by the Obvious collective, have even been auctioned for thousands of dollars, sparking debates on artistic authenticity (Anantrasirichai and Bull). In music, AI-based composers such as AIVA and OpenAI’s MuseNet generate compositions that blend classical and contemporary styles, raising questions about human intervention in creative processes (Boosa). Literature, too, is undergoing a transformation with models like GPT-4 producing poetry, fiction, and screenplays that blur the line between machine and human authorship

Journal of Perceptual Imaging, 2021

Recent developments in neural network image processing motivate the question, how these technologies might better serve visual artists. Research goals to date have largely focused on either pastiche interpretations of what is framed as artistic “style” or seek to divulge heretofore unimaginable dimensions of algorithmic “latent space,” but have failed to address the process an artist might actually pursue, when engaged in the reflective act of developing an image from imagination and lived experience. The tools, in other words, are constituted in research demonstrations rather than as tools of creative expression. In this article, the authors explore the phenomenology of the creative environment afforded by artificially intelligent image transformation and generation, drawn from autoethnographic reviews of the authors’ individual approaches to artificial intelligence (AI) art. They offer a post-phenomenology of “neural media” such that visual artists may begin to work with AI techno...