For years, the Colorado State Fair has held its fine art competition under little media coverage. But when its judges picked an artificial intelligence-generated work "Théȃtre D'opéra Spatial" as a winner in August, 2022, this event immediately received different comments.
"Théȃtre D'opéra Spatial" is an example of AI-generated content (AIGC), created with a text-to-art generator (生成) program. Several other AI-driven art-generating programs have also appeared in 2022, and the variety reflects a wide range of artistic styles. Stable Diffusion, for instance, is focused on western-style artwork, while Baidu's ERNIE-ViLG produces images influenced by Chinese art. Meanwhile, AIGC can also include articles, videos, and various other media offerings such as voice synthesis (合成), which can be applied in voice navigation (导航) for digital maps.
As AIGC becomes increasingly common, it could make content creation more efficient by getting rid of repetitive tasks for creators. For instance, filmmakers have long had to pay money for countless hours of video editing. AIGC may soon make that unnecessary.
Besides increasing efficiency, AIGC could also increase business growth in content creation and demand for personalized digital content. Insight SLICE forecasts that the global digital creation market will on average grow 12% annually between 2020 and 2030. AI has the potential to meet this massive demand at a tenth of the cost.
AIGC can also serve as an educational tool by helping children develop their creativity. StoryDrawer, for instance, is an AI-driven program designed to improve children's creative thinking. When a child describes an imaginary picture to the system, it then generates an image while providing prompts to inspire the child to expand on the image.
As with every new technology, it's anybody's guess how AIGC will develop. But just as past technologies have helped expand art, AIGC is set to put the power of creativity into the hands of more people.
