Navigating the automation of the arts: Values, beliefs and emotions of arts practitioners using narrow AI

AI-generated art has its roots in the 1960s, driven by pioneering artists experimenting with algorithmic and rule-based systems. In contrast, over the past decade, new AI art generators, fuelled by increased computing power, are often associated with extractive data practices spearheaded and monopolised by big tech companies. Both historical and contemporary approaches involve learning patterns from existing data to generate new content; however, early work was primarily artist-led and exploratory in nature, whereas today’s generative AI is largely shaped by big tech for-profit interests. This shift has provoked both excitement and scepticism in the creative industries, while raising concerns around authorship, privacy, forgery, discrimination, and the ethical implications of unjust machine learning techniques which erode creators’ rights, under the guise of technological progress and the democratisation of artistic creativity. This paper examines how values, beliefs, and emotions shape UK arts practitioners’ engagement with narrow AI and artistic automation. Through thematic analysis of interviews and focus groups with artists, curators, and organisers, three major narrative themes emerge: (1) a critical perspective on tech-driven artistic automation, (2) calls for improved human-machine collaboration, and (3) tensions arising from personal values, beliefs, and emotional responses. These findings highlight that arts-led AI practitioners offer a necessary counterbalance to the widespread adoption of tech-centric automation in art, advocating for more ethical, collaborative, and value-driven approaches as automation becomes increasingly pervasive in the creative sector.