Robot arms that sketch the face of the human before them like in a life-drawing class.
This is one of the works created by Belgian artist Patrick Tresset using artificial intelligence, and one that best illustrates the duality between machine and human. Where does one begin and the other end? Is the robot that observes the human seated across from it an artist? A co-creator?
The E-AI 2025: Reinventing creativity, rehumanizing AI conference, which took place in Montreal on February 26 and 27, raised many fascinating questions about artificial intelligence. And the beauty of it was there were plenty of answers.
A replica of our world?
For digital artist Sandra Rodriguez, “AI is a material, like clay. It can be a subject in itself, or a technology – but it’s not a co-creator.” Nevertheless, we’re witnessing the birth of works entirely created by AI, like The Heist, a short film created using Google’s Veo 2 tool. According to Ross Goodwin, founder of the start-up Secret Level, this is the future of Hollywood: a future where all images will be generated using AI tools. Should we be afraid? Perhaps.
Meanwhile David Usher (yes, that David Usher, the musician) is of a different opinion: “The change that artificial intelligence represents is exponential. Think of the Internet back in the beginning; it was horrible, full of bad websites and bad ideas. This is exactly the stage we’re at with AI. But it can only get better. And in this context, human creativity becomes a competitive advantage.” What’s more, the singer-turned-entrepreneur has created a fascinating work of art that pays tribute to a friend with cancer: Lucy AI, a digital alter-ego of his friend, is fed with images, stories and personal memories of the real Lucy. The result is astoundingly universal, like a distant echo of the woman who inspired it.
Raised by algorithms
But artificial intelligence has dark sides, too. Destiny Tchéhouali, a professor in the Department of Social and Public Communications at UQAM, says we’re entering an era of “algocracy”, where algorithms determine which content gets seen and which gets forgotten. “On platforms like Netflix and Spotify, there’s a bigger and bigger gap between the diversity of what’s being offered and the diversity of what’s being consumed,” he says. “Our cultural tastes are prefabricated and predetermined. We’re at the mercy of the most popular content.” The consequences are very real, especially in terms of cultural diversity and representation.
Tania Kontoyanni, actress and president of the Union des artistes, believes that artificial intelligence could amplify social disparities and differences in living conditions. She says only a handful of artists will benefit, and half of all jobs will be threatened by artificial intelligence by 2027. “Don’t forget that these are collective choices,” warns Sandra Rodriguez. These predictions are not inevitable, and we live in a free country. Dolly, the cloned sheep, never gave rise to a flock of lab-made sheep. And neither should AI replace all accountants, coders and translators – if we properly manage it.
How can we manage AI?
Safeguards against AI already exist, such as copyright law. As law firm Lavery points out, if artificial intelligence is used to create a trademark, for example, it can be copied. People will want to think twice about using AI in this context.
Several conference participants pointed out that other safeguards still need to be built and made law.
In the meantime, artificial intelligence looks like a vast playground that creators can explore at will. Musician Alex Braga believes that it’s neither the beginning of a new dark age nor a revolution, but a moment of transformation and experimentation. “Music that’s entirely created by AI isn’t art, it’s data. Only those who don’t know what art is can mistake it for art. Because art comes from the heart.”
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