Can AI Replace the Arts?

 By Jordan Harrington

EASTON - Artificial intelligence is reshaping creative fields, leaving Stonehill students in the arts and writing disciplines to navigate new technological challenges.

According to the World Economic Forum, Artificial intelligence could automate up to 26% of tasks and creative fields such as design and media. For students preparing to enter these industries, the question is no longer whether AI will play a role, but how.

Julia Johnson, a graphic design student at Stonehill College, said that AI has become part of her workflow, but not in the way that one may assume.

“I’ve learned to integrate AI in my work as a tool,” Johnson said. “I don’t use it for idea generation or as a replacement for original thought and art.”

Johnson uses AI to help execute her ideas that might be difficult to achieve through traditional resources. “AI has helped me bridge the gap between vision and implementation,” she said.

Johnson said that it improves the efficiency of getting her projects done, but not the creativity of creating her designs.

“If you rely completely on AI models to create content and don’t make edits, it won’t align with the fundamentals of good design,” Johnson said. “And it isn’t original thought.”

The distinction between the two is extremely important in critique-based classes like graphic design, as students need to explain their decisions to their professors.

Adam Lampton, the Studio Arts Program Director at Stonehill College, said that the impact of AI is different across the creative disciplines. As for studio arts, like painting and sculpting, the influence of these is limited.

“People like making things and find pleasure in the physical nature of art,” Lampton said. “That can’t be farmed out to AI just yet.”

Lampton said that the conversation around AI raises deeper questions about the purpose of art, as it is rooted in human experience and interaction.

“Maybe the better question isn’t whether AI can create emotional art, but whether it can bring experience, intellect, and emotion to what it’s making,” Lampton said. “I think that answer is no.”

Lampton shares his concerns about the creative economy. As AI takes over more tasks, it could reduce job opportunities, especially for entry-level workers.

“It has the potential to devalue art generally,” Lampton said, pointing to possible effects on jobs in design, illustration, and arts administration.

He believes that it will lose its popularity over time. “I feel like it’s a party trick,” Lampton said. “Eventually, people will grow tired of it.”

However, Lampton said that AI has the potential to become a great tool in the creative process rather than replacing it altogether.

“As long as art is understood as human expression, AI on its own does not replace that,” Lampton said.

Audrey Spears, a journalism minor at Stonehill College, said she stays away from AI as a writer.

“I have not used AI in my writing process, and I make a conscious effort to avoid doing so,” Spears said. “I refuse to use AI for academics aside from citation organization and outline synthesis.”

Spears expressed her concerns with the rise of misinformation and public trust stemming from AI usage.

“There is already a crisis of media literacy,” Spears said. “Misinformation can run rampant on platforms with bots and AI accounts.”

However, it doesn’t stop there.

AI-generated writing is becoming very difficult to identify, as “some generated pieces can be extremely convincing,” Spears said.

With the rise of AI in the writing industry, Spears and other students have to take new approaches to their work.

“AI makes me more wary of my own grammar… like I have to convince my audience that I’m real and the story they’re reading is legitimate. AI has brought more attention to the fact that writers are competing not only against each other for readership, but with generative machines,” Spears said.

Despite her worries about the use of AI, Spears said that the work of journalism must remain human at all costs.

“Interviews and real-world connections are crucial to the industry,” Spears said. “In retaining these, the heart of journalism is preserved, and AI could never replace that.”

Kat Leblanc, music technology minor at Stonehill College, tries to avoid AI altogether in her creative process.

“I personally avoid AI at all costs,” Leblanc said. “The best music comes from a truly personal place.”

Leblanc has tried some platforms that offer automated tools for mixing and mastering music, but she prefers the traditional methods.

“AI tends to spit out what it knows is popular,” Leblanc said. “That’s demeaning to a lot of artists.”

Leblanc said music should depend solely on originality and collaboration with others.

“I hope students in our generation can recognize that piecing something together on a screen is never going to elicit the same feeling as connecting musicians face to face and creating something together,” Leblanc said.

Across the different disciplines, students and professors can see that AI is changing how creative work is produced. Still, many will believe it cannot replace the human experiences that give art its meaning.

The future of creative fields remains uncertain. For now, students are learning to adapt while holding onto what makes their work original and not generated.

“Real creativity comes from the designer,” Johnson said.