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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Cognitive Science
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1497469

Human Perception of Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Provisionally accepted
Jules Van Hees Jules Van Hees Tijl Grootswagers Tijl Grootswagers Genevieve L Quek Genevieve L Quek Manuel Varlet Manuel Varlet *
  • The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Penrith, Australia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Recent advancement in Artificial Intelligence (AI) has rendered image-synthesis models capable of producing complex artworks that appear nearly indistinguishable from human-made works. Here we present a quantitative assessment of human perception and preference for art generated by OpenAI's DALL•E 2, a leading AI tool for art creation. Participants were presented with pairs of artworks, one human-made and one AI-generated, in either a preference-choice task or an origin-discrimination task. Results revealed a significant preference for AI-generated artworks. At the same time, a separate group of participants were above-chance at detecting which artwork within the pair was generated by AI, indicating a perceptible distinction between human and artificial creative works. These results raise questions about how a shift in art preference to favour synthetic creations might impact the way we think about art and its value to human society, prompting reflections on authorship, authenticity, and human creativity in the era of generative AI.

    Keywords: Visual Perception, Generative AI, DALL.E, Artworks, appreciation, Discrimination

    Received: 17 Sep 2024; Accepted: 19 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Van Hees, Grootswagers, Quek and Varlet. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Manuel Varlet, The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Penrith, Australia

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.