YouTubers, housewives, influencers, journalists, artists, critics, football players, fortune tellers: everyone is talking about artificial intelligence (AI), everyone is going crazy over ChatGPT, and those who aren’t… are simply afraid.
Digital art is also undergoing its own small but significant revolution thanks to the impact of new AI technologies. A large number of artists, or aspiring artists, have jumped into the field to shape their creative ambitions, flooding the digital art market—especially the market for non-fungible tokens (NFTs)—with works partially or entirely produced by artificial intelligence and related tools.
But what do I think about all this? Why is it happening?
Let’s start with the basics: who is an artist? Why do they create art? It is often said that an artist is someone driven by a strong creative and expressive impulse, almost irresistible, leading them to produce works that reflect their aesthetic, emotional, and philosophical vision of the world. In this sense, the artist experiences an inner conflict that finds some form of satisfaction—or at least a small recognition—in the response of the audience that follows them. Is it about money? Not necessarily. The response a true artist receives is primarily emotional, and only in some cases does it translate into economic reward.
So what changes with digital art and NFTs? Unfortunately, crypto art is strongly tied to the world of financial assets and grows in a context where the value of a work is often measured by its price. This happens in “traditional” art too, but in digital art the distortion is more apparent. The result? An invasion of pseudo-artists motivated solely by profit, ready to create digital works purely to make money. This phenomenon is probably the heaviest burden the crypto art world needs to shed as soon as possible.
And where does AI fit in? In a landscape dominated by digital creators chasing profit, the average level of creativity can be rather low. When creativity is insufficient, the tool comes into play… in this case, artificial intelligence. This explains the overproduction of AI-generated works flooding the NFT market, often in a repetitive, already-seen style, given the nature of the processes that generate them.
What happens to the market then? After the initial excitement of collectors who purchased these works, the market has had to absorb abnormal quantities of work produced easily and quickly by AI artists. The consequence is the devaluation of many works and collectors left with portfolios full of devalued NFTs. Much like a bursting bubble, the mechanism is similar: initial FOMO becomes a boomerang hitting the market.
But should AI-generated art be demonized? Absolutely not. It is an extremely powerful tool, and like all tools, the result depends on the skill of the user. An experienced artist with something to convey will achieve completely different results from an amateur or a marketer seeking easy profit. The history of art is full of tools and techniques initially undervalued that only over time gained recognition—consider photography, for example.
Ultimately, AI or not, the core of the artistic experience always lies in the mind and hands of the creator. Expressive honesty and a genuine need to communicate are what give a work its value. Where there is a need for expression, there is authentic creativity, and where there is authentic creativity, there is always value. Not everyone is Picasso or Bosch, which is why many artists would do well to develop personal and private work before entering the market: even immaterial art has a cost, occupies digital space, and generates an environmental impact.
Artists, look within yourselves: producing art—is that truly what you want most, even in a world where no one will buy it?
