Still today, our sense of wonder is struggling to find meaning from age-old cave or rock paintings — to find answers that might be revealed in just a few seconds with the use of AI.
All my life, I’ve looked at Bhimbetka’s cave shelters and wondered how that oxide survived thousands of years, and how those tiny sketches have witnessed the evolution of the human race. Art, or expression, found us even before language.
Why did Homo sapiens draw on the walls of caves? Was it some kind of message to future occupants? Answers we may never know. We all can have our interpretations. We have seen the evolution of art along with the human race. Was it some sacred cipher meant to convey something, or just a decorative attempt?
Our association with all art forms is very contextual. Our experiences — social, emotional, spiritual, sexual, political — everything found its space in art, be it a painting, a musical piece, or a dance form. It has always been an extension of oneself.
As humans, we have been curious, adventurous, but most importantly, accommodative. We change as per requirement — and that’s how we survive.
The new change — the evolution of AI — has put us at a juxtaposition: to accept the change or defy it. Let us understand how AI works. AI collects information from the constantly busy space of the internet, where everyone is asking, sharing, uploading their bits of information — its own accumulating data creating a kind of consciousness.
There was a wonderful lecture by Geoffrey Hinton, a famous scientist, who said it was not like the nuclear bomb that only had catastrophic effects. But still, what AI can do when it comes to arts has changed the way art is made. It borrows, accumulates pieces of information, and meticulously calculates everything — keeping the golden ratio, balance, and contrast in place. It’s perfect — maybe too perfect. The irregularity of being human is missing.
It can be a great learning tool, but I guess experiencing art may become a thing of a previous era. Art is what lies beyond the obvious — it makes the journey between the seen and the unseen.
Can we really afford to turn our backs on evolution, which is crawling into our lives quietly? Or do we embrace it with absolute awareness and learn to distinguish between experience and expression?
Recently, I saw a crude version of an AI-generated Mahabharata on ott platform — an absolutely distasteful mockery of such an epic. How can we save ourselves from this? Will art remain a secure-safe space for artists to be true to themselves? Do we even want that anymore?
Can we just blame AI’s intervention for this, or are we the ones now seeking ease in everything? Art was a personal journey — to be, to express, to share, to be vulnerable, to extend oneself and be open to scrutiny.
The only thing that will be missed is imperfection — the very thing that makes us unique. is AI incapable of finding that bit, our unique identity — the reason a painter from Goa is different from a painter from Visakhapatnam.
Are we striving for perfection, or do we want to remain human? AI is an invention — but that invention cannot replace experience, and we cannot allow that to happen.
It’s like a baby and a mother — a super-intelligent, multidimensional system being used by a unidimensional being. Expression is no longer an extension of oneself, but the result of a command given.
Are we being used by AI, or are we exploring it? That’s the question we should dwell upon.
Art is no longer a unilateral individual story to share — it’s now a combination of keywords put to use. How do we save ourselves from this? Or do we learn to distinctively separate the image from the expression — that’s the new way of looking.
We can’t ignore it, and we can’t surrender to it. The only thing we can do is learn to coexist.
Ruby Jagrut is an Ahmedabad-based artist, designer, writer and natural dye visionary whose practice bridges ecology, emotion, and design. As the founder of Abir India, she has built a movement supporting emerging artists through exhibitions, mentorship, and digital platforms like AbirPothi.com and AbirSpace.com. Her multidisciplinary work continues to redefine India’s art landscape in a myriad of ways.
