AI can be both a powerful tool for artistic creation and a risk to artists’ ownership of their work. So, what can be done to protect artists while enhancing their creative possibilities?
Almost one year ago, in March 2025, social media feeds were flooded with pictures turned into Studio Ghibli-style illustrations.
Most animations, inspired by films such as Howl’s Moving Castle and Princess Mononoke, were easily created with the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT, sparking discussion about the relationship between AI and art.
What ethical principles should AI companies follow to preserve artists' work? What can we truly call art?
To answer these and more questions, Euronews Tech Talks spoke with artist Sofia Crespo, comicbook artist Francesco Archidiacono, and lecturer and researcher in digital humanities at King’s College London, Eleonora Lima.
AI and art: Not a predictable relationship
Crespo and Archidiacono have strikingly different relationships with AI.
Crespo’s work focuses on how humans perceive the natural world and is created thanks to technological tools. Specifically, Crespo started using AI in 2018, well before the launch of ChatGPT in 2022. “I see it as a means to an end, not as an end in itself,” Crespo explained.
The artist stated that she doesn’t use AI to make her work easier or faster; rather, it took her time and study to understand how to integrate this tool into her artistic practice.
“One thing that drew me to working with AI is that I could extract patterns from data,” she said, highlighting how AI allowed her to analyse her visual images and uncover patterns within them.
Differently, Archidiacono works for Marvel Comics, drawing comics based on stories created by other people.
Archidiacono doesn’t use AI at all in his artistic process for several reasons. First, for political reasons: he has chosen to boycott major AI companies because, he said, they steal the work of fellow artists to train their models. Second, because as a commercial artist working for Marvel, he is not allowed to use AI; and last but not least, because AI would take away the most challenging and interesting part of his work.
AI and art, both an opportunity and a risk
According to Lima, Crespo, and Archidiacono's experiences represent the multiple advantages and disadvantages of integrating AI in the artistic process.
On the one hand, AI can boost artists’ creativity. “Artists have always used technology to explore the concept of authorship,” Lima said, explaining how AI can be a useful tool in the artists’ hands.
On the other hand, AI could damage artists’ work conditions. Lima does not believe AI will halt humans’ creativity.
“The risk to me is under which conditions artists will be able to make art and who will be allowed to have a creative job,” she said.
The three guests agree that using AI for art is not bad per se. What truly makes the difference, however, is how authorship is understood and investigated: who develops, guides, and uses AI tools, and in what way.
“AI in itself has never been a problem,” Archidiacono said. “The problem is the business model of a couple of [AI] companies.”
“I can only admire and praise someone who takes authorship into their own hands and uses AI in a creative way.”
So what can be done?
According to the guests, protecting artists while allowing them to experiment with AI requires both strong regulations and careful narrative framing.
Lima emphasised that journalists and researchers must be careful not to treat AI as a human being. “Whenever we talk about AI as an artist and a creator, we’re erasing the work that human artists do,” Lima said.
She also stressed the importance of strengthening regulation, despite widespread fear that legislation could hinder innovation.
