Algorithmic Aesthetics: Cognitive Perspectives on AI-Generated Art

In recent years, the use of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) has proliferated across various domains, ranging from advertising and social media to the generation of artwork for presentation at esteemed art exhibitions and for sale on the art auction market. Despite its growing prevalence, empirical data show that people maintain a clear bias against AI-generated art. Here we explore why this bias might exist, and whether its existence dooms the eventual acceptance and even celebration of art generated by artificial means. We do this by bringing together recent empirical evidence from the disciplines of neuroaesthetics, social cognition, art history, and human-machine interaction to develop several new perspectives that are ripe for empirical evaluation. Given the growing momentum and outlook of AI-generated art in today’s society, our aim with this paper is to provide novel evidence-based propositions for understanding the relationship between art and artificial intelligence with a clear focus on social cognitive neuroscience perspectives.