Introduction

The cyberspace is a worldwide virtual forum – a stage, where everybody can showcase their achievements, as well as an arena where they can compete against each other. As such, it is conducive to fostering fusions of new media and artificial intelligence, or AI. This connection not only changes the existing cyberculture, redefining the notion of art and the role of the artist, but also impacts the employment prospects. These issues will be the key themes discussed in this paper, which serves as an overview of the situation, while offering an analysis of some examples of new media art, the creation of which was aided by artificial intelligence. The presented examples concern computer-generated art, as well as music and audio-visual materials, namely music videos illustrating human and AI-created works. The author presents fictitious collaborations presenting new works by deceased musicians, as well as artists who would not collaborate with each other for a variety of reasons, created by Internet users with the help of AI-powered tools. The key question that the paper is trying to answer is whether and how AI impacts digital art, as well as the ever-changing job market.

Cyberspace as an environment of artistic creation

Before moving on to other issues, the notion of cyberculture needs to be defined first, as the manifestation of this phenomenon will be covered in this paper. According to the French philosopher Pierre Lėvy, the concept is based on three fundamental premises, namely the possibility to combine anything with everything, the idea of a virtual society, as well as collective intelligence (Lėvy, 2001). On the other hand, Ryszard Kluszczyński sees cyberculture as a “multifaceted conglomerate stemming out of the social experience of life in the world dominated by information and communication technologies” (Kluszczyński, 2001, p. 72). Piotr Zawojski notes that cyberculture is a new “cultural mutation that emerged due to the societal upheavals resulting from the growing use of new technologies and communication media” (Zawojski 2008, p. 28). Thus, the above-mentioned new media play the role of tools of its creation. The scholar notes that the concept is a new cultural paradigm, which emerged due to the development of new digital technologies. As such, it undergoes constant and dynamic changes. It “comprises a set of technologies, material and intellectual, practices, attitudes, modes of thought and values developed along with the growth of cyberspace.” This, on the other hand, denotes “a new medium of communication which arose through the global interconnection of computer networks” (Lėvy, 2001, p. XVI). In the age of access, wealth is not determined by ownership, but by the access. The internet, which Edwin Bendyk (Goban- Klas, 2004) understands as a networked superutility, which leads to the emergence of a noosphere – an information web wrapped around the world. The deluge of information makes it increasingly harder to find valuable and worthwhile content. This will become increasingly complex and difficult, with new phenomena – such as fake news – amplified by AI and AI–generated deep fake images, which boost their perceived credibility.

Any deliberations on digital art and new media art, as well as artificial intelligence and its impact on the labour market, are bound to involve technological determinism. Let us recall that in his book The Engineers and the Price System, American sociologist Thorstein Veblen stated that technology is the primary driver of social change (Marshall 2004). According to Katarzyna Wiejak, technological determinism is “an intellectual attitude that encompasses the belief that technology ultimately determines people’s social organisations and their outlook on reality” (Wiejak, 2001, p. 209). The issue of the global societal consequences of the media was raised by both Harold Adams Innis and Marshall McLuhan. In line with the aforementioned theory, technology is said to determine social behaviours.¹ Paul Attallah disputes this claim, pointing out that technologies are first and foremost used as vehicles for social interests that precede and cancel them out. However, he adds that technologies have an impact on the changes occurring in society and its transitions, as they transform universal human competencies (Attallah, 1993).

Technology redefines art and impacts social growth

The aforementioned Marshall McLuhan, who is considered a media personality, or – as Prof. Piotr Zawojski put it – a “seasoned master of ceremonies” (Zawojski, 2005, p. 7), saw the history of culture from the point of view of media evolution,² and in his attempt to establish the typology of periods in the history of humanity, he came up with the ages of typographic civilisation, mechanical civilisation (Gutenberg) and electronic civilisation (Marconi). With these categories in mind, one might assume that digital art and the use of artificial intelligence in virtually all areas of life is yet another stage of the development of human civilisation, as new inventions drive change. As Azeem Azhar notes: “ Since the days of flint axes and wooden digging sticks, humans have been technologists. We seek to make life easier for ourselves; and to do so, we build tools – technologies – that help us achieve our goals. These technologies have long allowed humans to redefine the world around us” (Azhar, 2023, p. 6). He also notes that “When rapid technological change arrives, it first brings turmoil, then people adapt, and then eventually, we learn to thrive” (Azhar, 2023, p. 10). As of today, humanity is at such a threshold, as this new technology – in this case, AI–based text and image generation tools, as well as other tools – has been known for several years, but was made available for public testing on a mass scale at the end of 2022. At that point, internet users started using the ChatGPT³ text generation tool provided by OpenAI, as well as the Midjourney image-generating tool.

By observing the history of art and technology, which impacted its development, one can notice some parallels which enable the conclusion that AI should be seen as a tool. Art and technology are inextricably tied to each other. From the invention of pigments and sculpting tools in ancient times to the medieval tempera and oil paints and the mass-produced synthetic pigment used during the Industrial Revolution, as well as acrylic paints, computer software and online image– generating applications used in new media art, which are now joined by tools such as DALL E 3, Midjourney and Lensa, the history of the development of art is also linked to the history of the evolution of technology and media. Every age has new tools and materials used by artists. For the contemporary digital and new media artist, the virtual space – cyberspace – serves as their canvas, where they create their digital works, embedded in cyberculture, which they create with the help of symbolic surrogates such as new technologies, software and web–based tools. The use of artificial intelligence is yet another stage of the development of technology. As such, it may be considered as a mere tool, which changes the idea of art. This begs the question concerning its impact on the development of human civilisation, as well as the job market.

In the 1960s, Marshall McLuhan, a proponent of technological determinism, one of the theoretical approaches in communication studies, pointed out that “electronic technology – as the medium of our time – is transforming and changing the nature of social relations and influencing all spheres of our lives” (Goban-Klas, 2004, p. 286). The Toronto–based scholar pointed out that media serve as symbolic prosthetics, constituting an extension of a person’s mental and physical abilities, all the while “extending any sense changes the way we think and act – the way we perceive the world” (Goban-Klas, 2004, p. 286). On the other hand, Elilhu Katz insisted in his works that “mass media influence the civilisational development of societies not only by the content they convey, but also by their very form and characteristics” (Katz, 1990, pp. 37-38). The changes in technology and mass media undoubtedly had an impact on the development of society, which changed from the industrial, through information and connected society, eventually becoming a media society. The proponents of technological determinism pointed out that all history is in fact the history of the media and their bilateral interaction with the civilisation. It is important to note, however, that the pace of technological development has accelerated significantly over the past two decades, and continues to do so. One could even speak of exponential growth at the current rate, which results in apparent discomfort and concern among internet users.

Human-Machine Collaboration

New media art, as well as cyber art, abounds with examples of human-machine collaborations, all due to the growing use of artificial intelligence by artists. According to Aleksandra Przegalińska, artificial intelligence is a broad term, concerning an interdisciplinary field of engineering, which encompasses many subfields, including robotics, neural networks, machine learning, artificial life and fuzzy logic (Przegalińska, 2023). Many scholars see John McCarthy as the founding father of the field, thanks to his 1955 paper on artificial intelligence, which discussed a machine that could behave in a way humans would refer to as intelligent, if the same behaviour was exhibited by a human (McCarthy et al., 1995). As of today, artificial intelligence models are able to generate images and designs, create faces of people who do not exist, as well as compose music and record albums. The event, which sparked a debate concerning ethics and copyright, was Jason Allen’s victory in an art contest during the Colorado State Fair in the United States. Allen, a video game designer, generated the winning work titled Théâtre D’opéra Spatial. After winning the first prize, he admitted to using artificial intelligence tools in the process, namely Midjourney. He wrote the prompt, which included key phrases concerning lighting, perspective and composition, among other aspects. In total, he generated 900 images, from which he selected the three best works and paid $11 for each of them. He then processed the final images in Photoshop and upscaled their resolution using the Gigapixel tool (Winfrey, 2022). The organisers of the competition concluded that Allen did not break the rules, but this event would result in the rules changing for the next edition of the competition. Given the above example, one could conclude that we can expect further dynamic development of artificial intelligence in art in near future, resulting in tools facilitating the creative process, but also new forms of art stemming from the interplay between human imagination and algorithmic precision.

Another example of the use of AI in the context of art is Daddy’s Car, a 2016 song by The Beatles, created by researchers at Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Paris aided by AI tools. Daddy’s Car is believed to be the first pop song composed using artificial intelligence. Using machine learning algorithms, the Flow Machines system analysed 13,000 songs. The researchers then used Flow Composer, a software with a database of music scores, to create a new song based on the data. In spite of using advanced technology, the project would not have succeeded without human intervention – the main melody and lyrics were created by musician Benoît Carré. Sony Computer Science Laboratory researchers Gaetan Hadjeres and Francois Pachet used the same system to create a cantata reminiscent of works by Johann Sebastian Bach. Meanwhile, the Canadian non– governmental organisation Over the Bridge recorded an album titled Lost Tapes of the 27 Club, featuring songs by deceased musicians, including Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Amy Winehouse, using similar methods (losttapesofthe27club.com).

A similar event took place in Israel, where Session 42, an Israeli technology company, analysed songs by two celebrities, namely Zohar Argov, dubbed the King of Mizrahi music (who committed suicide in 1987), and Ofra Haza, also known as the Madonna of the East (she passed away in 2000) to create a fictional collaboration⁴ – their first joint song, released in May 2023 to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Israel. Even though the artists never performed together during their lifetimes, the AI– generated song quickly hit the radio charts shortly after its release. Another example is the 2017 album I AM AI, a collaboration between singer Taryn Southern and producer Amper – an artificial intelligence, which composed the music. As Drew Silverstein, owner of Amper Music, announced, the future would make these human–AI collaborations an everyday occurrence (Wernio, 2017). AI was also used to generate music featured on SOMAI by Taconafide – Although the album features the voices of Taco Hemingway and Quebonafide, they did not record these songs. In 2018, the musicians recorded the Soma 0.5mg together. The project was initiated by Dawid Blachura, YouTube artist running the yachuprodukcja channel, who created these songs with 32 Discord users, as well as artificial intelligence tools. The same method was used to create the 2023 AISIS album, featuring songs by Oasis, which broke up in 2009. In reality, the songs were not recorded by the Gallagher brothers, but by artificial intelligence.

Every Internet user can be an artist today

These days, any internet user can take advantage of artificial intelligence tools to compose their own songs. The available generators – loudly, soundraw, boomy and soundful – enable them to do so. What is more, AI–based tools can be used not only to create music, but to record music videos as well. An example of this is Ganesha, a song by Patricia Kazadi and Kayah, as well as the music video for Zebranie zarządu by rapper Aleksander Kozłowski, also known as Kopruch, Miss Americana, a video for the song by another Polish singer, Bryska (Gabriela Nowak-Skyrpan), the video for Die Antwoord’s Age Of Illusion, which resembles animations by Studio Ghibli, and the music video accompanying Happy Ever After by Chinese pop singer Chris Lee.

There is certain duality to artificial intelligence – it is both a tool that makes things easier, as well as a threat. It streamlines processes, speeds up the creation of digital artwork, but its use is fraught with numerous consequences. What is more, there are numerous dangers stemming from the misuse of AI algorithms, as well as from using them for nefarious purposes, including dissemination of fake news and misinformation, as illustrated by the case of the former President of the United States Donald Trump and the fabricated news item concerning his arrest. A photograph depicting the arrest, created using the so–called deep fake technology, was released online on 20 March 2023 by Eliot Higgins, founder of the investigative outlet Bellingcat. It quickly became apparent that it had been generated with Midjourney. Before long, social media was abuzz with news of President Trump’s arrest, as he was expected to face a bribery charge (for paying a woman with whom he was allegedly having an affair in exchange for her silence) and abuse of power (Devlin et al., 2023). The fake news became a viral video. Although the information was debunked, additional photographs were generated to give more credence to the lie, which was possible because the tool enables manipulating photographs, like the paparazzi did in the past, and internet users quickly began testing its capabilities at a massive scale. As a result, the developers of Midjourney disabled the free trial option (Nelson et al., 2023). Furthermore, selected keywords (including arrested) in connection with personal data of a real person were blocked (Stanley-Becker et al., 2023).

Artificial Intelligence and its impact on the job market

The agrarian revolution, as well as the later industrial, scientific and technological upheavals, all resulted in the changes concerning the employment structure. The latter is referred to as the third Industrial Revolution. As of today, the labour market is undergoing another upheaval in the face of the emerging new technologies. According to Katarzyna Śledziewska and Renata Włoch, authors of Gospodarka cyfrowa. Jak nowe technologie zmieniają świat (The Digital Economy. How new technologies change the world), we are at the cusp of the fourth technological revolution⁵, which is also referred to as the digital revolution or the fourth Industrial Revolution. It is based not only on new inventions, but also on rapid economic, social and political changes, stemming from the popularisation of new technologies – networking and communication, the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence. According to the scholars, “the digital economy expands the internet economy, but constitutes amajor change. New technologies, including artificial intelligence, cloud computing, the Internet of Things⁶ , autonomous robotics and blockchain – are accelerating the process of datafication⁷, or the development of digital representations of real–world areas, all while fostering networking. Society, economy and politics are undergoing digital transformation”

(Śledziewska et al., 2020, p. 9). Jacek Męcina (2023) specifies that this phase in the history of economic development began almost three decades ago.

As technology develops, the world of work is also changing. As Męcina (2023, pp. 9-10) points out, citing the Being Human-Human-Computer Interaction in the year 2020 report: “Whereas only a few decades earlier, humans were the only intelligent element in the economy and they could control machines and equipment, which improved their efficiency, artificial intelligence changes not only the place humans have in the organisation of work, but also the nature and character of work, as humans increasingly work with machines, rather than with other human beings.” The proliferation of AI forces creators to learn and foster their technical competencies, as well as to adapt to the changing working conditions in the digital environment. The development of technology opens up previously unknown possibilities, enables innovative solutions, and frees them from having to perform repetitive tasks, thus allowing them to exceed their limits and create new kinds of art.

The changes in the labour market are also linked with the changes in the current model of work, as well as preferences concerning the types of contracts concluded with the employer – instead of employment contracts concluded for an indefinite period of time, more and more people choose occasional work, as well as working remotely from a home office, as well as other options. The COVID–19 pandemic popularised remote, as well as hybrid working models, as the pandemic spurred many companies to abandon their offices and switch to a fully remote way of working. Some of them continue with this model to this day due to the operational cost reduction resulting from its implementation. One also needs to keep gig economy (also known as freelance economy) in mind, which emerged from “temporary work, comprising one–off jobs” (Ostoj, 2020, p. 17). The growth of this field is linked to digital communication platforms. As Izabela Ostoj (2020) points out, in modern economy, based on widespread digitalisation, regular work is replaced by projects and specific tasks, and their allocation is made possible by online platforms. The scholar also points out that these developments enabled “requesting services on a massive scale, and connecting the customers to a crowd of service providers waiting for the next assignment” (Ostoj, 2020, pp. 17-18). This category can be referred to as micro-jobs. Thus, the gig economy is the outcome of labour market changes occurring in response to the development of new technologies. Izabela Ostoj also points out that there will be no regular jobs in the economy of tomorrow, as they will be replaced by projects or tasks. Reflecting on this issue, Jacek Męcina (2023) mentions the paradigm of the flexible network, determined by digitalisation, automation and gig work platforms enabling finding new jobs. The ongoing digitalisation of the economy also leads to the establishment of new working models, as well as new organisations. One could focus on the emergence of a new division into synchronous and asynchronous work, the latter featuring flexible working hours and work models, that is relevant for innovative workplaces, as well as for freelancers – including artists, programmers, graphic designers, as well as advertising and marketing specialists, namely independent professionals. This transition is also impacted by the generational change – Generations Y and Z seem to prefer flexible forms of employment.

Another change concerns automation and popularisation of robotics. According to World Economic Forum experts, as many as 85 million jobs worldwide could be replaced by machines and automation tools by 2025. At the same time, 97 million new jobs will also be created in connection with this change, which the report described as “better suited to the new division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms” (WEF, 2020). The report also points out that we are facing the threat of massive unemployment and skills shortages, which is to be expected. Moreover, the Organisation for Economic Co– operation and Development (OECD, 2016) estimates that as many as 65% of children who currently start their education, will be doing jobs that do not exist as of today. According to these forecasts, the jobs of tomorrow might require continuous improvement and learning, as well as self-discipline and determination to acquire more skills. One may thus wonder about the competencies and skills required by the education of the future. Will artificial intelligence become an integral part of the art education curriculum and will algorithms merely be a tool for the artist or will they become sources of inspiration in their own right, bringing about new styles and trends in art? The World Economic Forum (WEF, 2020) report points out that some of the most in-demand skills in the 2025 labour market will include:

In the reality of Economy 4.0, a desirable employee will be a multi-tasker, who can easily adapt to change, who is also empathetic, self-managing, eager to acquire new competences, knowledgeable in a variety of fields, and able to perform various tasks and change careers.

The changes in the labour market stemming from the popularisation of AI not only force people to adapt to using new technologies, all while pushing the envelope of our thinking about classic art forms. Artificial intelligence is thus not a threat, but a catalyst for a creative revolution, the impact of which becomes apparent every day. AI enables the automation of routine activities and accelerates the creative process. At the same time, this process should not be viewed uncritically, as it will shape the future labour market. The popularisation of artificial intelligence tools will leave its mark on the creative professions, which will require digital training. In the context of the creators of the future, this also requires a discussion on the new status of artists, who will play the role of both curator and programmer, co-creating not only the works, but also the algorithms that generate them.

Conclusions

One could conclude that artificial intelligence is redefining digital art, all while having an enormous impact on the labour market. The outcome of its dynamic development will impact artists, as well as many other people, as AI tools are now able to compose music, including composing scores and simulating singers, take care of mixing, and even become a star, which has been the case in Japan, where digital avatars remain popular in the music industry⁸. Although these changes are occurring rapidly and might seem revolutionary, they are a natural consequence of the evolution of society and the development of technology. The term revolution in the context of the labour market was merely used to refer to the ongoing fourth technological revolution.

The new stage of civilisational and technological development spurs the need for new jobs and professions. Over the next few years, new and specialised jobs will emerge, concerning the design, implementation, maintenance and development of AI–based tools, which will adapt to the evolving needs of the market and society. The new professions will require interdisciplinary skills, as well as combined knowledge from the fields of art, data science, ethics and engineering to harness the potential inherent in new technologies. This will force revision of the primary, secondary and tertiary education curricula, as well as introducing new classes aiding the development of social (teamwork, leadership, entrepreneurship), cognitive (creativity, logical reasoning, critical thinking, complex problem solving, flexibility), as well as digital and technical competences – information technology, programming, cybersecurity and soft skills (Śledziewska, Włoch, 2020). Art education, on the other hand, will have to put more emphasis on new technologies, media and multimedia, including working with AI-powered applications and programming, in addition to the classical art history course and the implementation of the concept of the correspondence of arts, combined with a practical work.

As of today, artificial intelligence is yet another tool in an artist’s toolkit; however, it remains to be seen whether AI will set the new trends in the future as a result of the changes in the labour market and the further development of technology. The future of professions such as graphic designer, illustrator, singer, composer, journalist or actor is also uncertain. The concerns regarding jobs in the entertainment industry are hardly new, and to date resulted in a strike by the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA), which lasted from 14 July to 9 November 2023. Artists raised concerns about the replication of their image using artificial intelligence tools without adequate compensation (Koblin, 2023). As a result of the development of new technologies and their use in the film industry, there is a risk that some actors and extras might lose their jobs. The same may be true for musicians or graphic designers.

The analysis of the links between art and artificial intelligence needs a closer look at the sheer number of issues and challenges not only for the creators, but also for scholars. These include copyright law, which so far does not regulate works co–created by AI and humans, as well as the issue of the secondary nature of such works resulting from the fact that AI creates works based on existing ones, using combined parameters in its databases. Another issue concerns vocaloids and their influence on the formation of musical taste of the audiences, as well as the emergence digital, computer–generated popular music stars. The analyses concerning digital artists should also take a closer look at work ethics, as well as personal style of the artists, uniqueness and creativity, as algorithms analyse texts, images and sounds in databases and create new works on their basis.

Technology is advancing. The vision of the future proposed by futurologists and scientists alike sees humans and machines working in harmony, co– creating not only works of art, but also art forms, ushering in a new age of digital collaboration between humans and machines. This vision is perfectly illustrated by one of the scenes in Alex Proyas’ I, Robot, based on Isaac Asimov’s series of novels and short stories on robots. Del Spooner, a skeptical detective portrayed by Will Smith, tells a humanoid robot that it is a machine, an imitation of life, and asks it if it can write a symphony or turn a canvas into a masterpiece? The machine – Sonny – responds by asking: “Can you?” The film is set in 2035, which suggests that this scenario might play out in reality. Max Tegmark, professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote about preparing to submit to increasingly intelligent machines, suggesting that we need to change from Homo sapiens into Homo sentiens – a sentient human, since this will always put us apart from machines. The process of technological change and the transformation of society inherent in it goes on. The final outcome, however, remains unclear.