There is a key difference in the way these models are trained - Chess and Go have clearly defined win conditions, so a model can be taught to explore the possibility space and try to reach victory by any means necessary, potentially with strategies which have never been seen before. With art on the other hand there is no objective measure of quality, so the models are instead taught to treat already existing art as the benchmark to strive towards, making them trite by nature.
As I see it AI can absolutely find innovative solutions, but only if you can clearly and explicitly define the problem it needs to solve.
With art on the other hand there is no objective measure of quality, so the models are instead taught to treat already existing art as the benchmark to strive towards, making them trite by nature.
Isn't this reminiscent of the arguments that were made at the dawn of photography as an art form? Some were afraid that portraiture was finished as an art form, but we got Impressionism, Cubism, and a host of other innovative forms to take its place. Never mind that portraiture was not in fact killed by photography, nor was any other visual form.
Others swore that cameras and film would never be valid implements of art, but they got awfully quiet when Adams and Weston and others showed up on the scene, and you don't hear much from them at all these days.
If nobody was afraid of AI -- if nobody was screaming bloody murder about how urgent it was to stop it -- only then could we safely say that it will have no role or relevance in art.
I use diffusion models and other generative tools to give me inspiration for works. While these aren’t solutions, per say, the tools do help me define (and refine) my approaches and offer visual options to consider.
As I see it AI can absolutely find innovative solutions, but only if you can clearly and explicitly define the problem it needs to solve.