Seminar Series in Analytic Philosophy 2025-26: Session 14
AI Art and Artists: What They Are, What They Could Be, What They Should Be
Dominic McIver Lopes (University of British Columbia)
13 February 2026, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)
Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa
Sala Mattos Romão [C201.J] (Departamento de Filosofia)
Abstract: Generative AI systems provoke important practical questions, but they also provoke existential anxieties, which arise in response either to the reality or the possibility of AI art made by genuinely creative AI artists. This paper first reviews recent arguments that existing AI systems do not make art and are not genuinely creative. It then argues that existential anxieties are not warranted if possible AI artists are just like human artists. Finally, it argues that, if they are not just like human artists, then we should design them to benefit us by satisfying an interest in aesthetic diversity. The upshot is that no existential anxieties are justified. In making this argument, the paper draws lessons about AI art and artists and also about our values and interests.
This event is funded by Portuguese national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., within the project UID/00310/2025, Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa (https://doi.org/10.54499/