What Art Is Now

What Art is Now: Creativity in the Age of AI explores one of the most urgent questions of our time: What happens to human creativity when machines can generate music, paintings, poetry, and design? This thought-provoking book examines how artificial intelligence is reshaping the way we define, create, and experience art. Blending philosophy, law, neuroscience, and cultural history, the authors investigate how AI challenges traditional notions of authorship, originality, and artistic value.
Written for a broad audience-from artists and educators to tech developers and curious thinkers-What Art is Now invites readers into a conversation that spans centuries of creative thought and confronts the promises and perils of machine-made imagination. Can AI be truly creative, or is it only mimicking the human mind? Will artists be replaced, or will they find new ways to collaborate with algorithms? And what rights do humans have over works produced in partnership with machines?
Timely, accessible, and deeply interdisciplinary, this book offers a roadmap for understanding the rapidly shifting terrain of art and technology. At stake is more than just the future of the arts-it's how we understand ourselves as creative beings in a world where intelligence is no longer uniquely human.

For decades, Michael E. Jones has taught courses at the University of Massachusetts Lowell andauthored books on the intersection of technology, intellectual property, law, and art. He has a Bachelor's from Denison University, an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania, and a law degree from the University of Miami. He later continued his studies at Harvard.
Michael Caballes is a photographer and curious explorer of artificial intelligence and virtual worlds. He earned his Bachelor's from the University of San Carlos. He lives in Rochester, NY and explores the creative possibilities of AI in art and narrative within virtual environments.

Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
One | What Art Was
Two | Redefining Art in the Digital Age
Three | Creative Divide: Human vs. Machine
Four | Beyond the Algorithm: The Essence of AI
Five | Borrowed Brushes: AI Training, Infringement and Fair Use
Six | Cultural (Mis)appropriation in the Age of AI
Seven | Faces in the Machine: Artistic Innovation or Invasion
Eight | What Art is Now: Creativity in the Age of AI
Index
About the Authors