How artificial intelligence could trigger an art revolution bigger than Impressionism

In 1872, Claude Monet sat down at his easel in Le Havre and painted what he would later call Impression, Sunrise. The painting was initially mocked by critics for its visible brushstrokes and seemingly unfinished composition, but it birthed a movement that would revolutionise art. Impressionism came in response to the emergence of photography, which offered the promise of replicating landscapes and portraits in far more realistic detail than even the most masterful painter.

Now, 150 years later, artists are once again being confronted by a new technology that is disrupting not just painting, but every artistic field. Artificial intelligence is remarkable at generating everything from songs to videos at a prolific rate, and it is already proving to be both inspiring and infuriating for artists. This week, a group of photographers, cartoonists and other visual artists launched legal action against Google for allegedly using their work to train its AI image generator “without consent, credit, or compensation”. It is the latest of dozens of similar lawsuits.

But from these tensions and disputes, a brand new artistic movement may well emerge. What the camera did for Impressionism could well be what AI is about to do for a coming art revolution.