Artificial intelligence is transforming the creative industries, bringing new possibilities, as well as the need to protect artists’ rights. A film director, architect, and street artist share their thoughts on the topic.
“First, we need to be clear that AI is not replacing creativity.” That’s the opinion of Nezar Al-Rawi, director, producer, and founder of Gutt Land Productions, a Luxembourg-based film and audiovisual company. “It’s reshaping how we reach it and how fast we can act on ideas.” In film and photography, AI can help with tasks like pre-visualisation, rotoscoping, colour-grading, or generating moodboards, in seconds. “It’s like giving every filmmaker or photographer a digital assistant that never sleeps.”
Image generation is often used in architecture, real estate, and construction, says architect Ivan Badiarov, who employs AI on a daily basis at his firm RECAST. “One of the simplest tasks is image refining and iteration,” he explains. “This is super useful in the early phases of design.”
AI tools can also determine the ideal dimensions and shape of a building, says Badiarov, presenting the example of a project in Thailand. “The task was to merge traditional principles of local architecture, but to calculate the shapes in the most efficient way possible. We knew that we would be doing a conic shape with an overhanging roof, but we didn’t know what shape exactly. And we wanted the air to flow naturally from the building,” he adds. Once the parameters were defined, “the machine could test hundreds of options per second” to find the most suitable solution. “This is something very hard to do manually.”
“Tasks that took hours, or even days, like background removal or organising huge photo libraries, AI can now handle in minutes. This doesn’t mean we’re cutting our crews. I would call it freeing up artists from repetitive work to focus on what matters: creative decisions,” says Al-Rawi. Small studios and independent creators can now compete visually with big players, he argues. “We use and depend on AI a lot. It was experimental work, but we’ve used it for storyboarding, we’ve used text-to-image tools, we subtitle, and we make translations for international releases.” He has also used AI to produce a film version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, something that “would cost millions if we did it in a traditional way.”
Artificial intelligence is “definitely transforming” the visual arts industry, says street artist Sumo, known for his iconic “Crazy Baldhead” character. Some people, he warns, “misuse” AI by printing canvases with AI-generated images, creating “passionless decorations.” But it’s not all bad and there are positive aspects, he adds, like allowing artists to do things that were not previously possible or were too complex. For now, he uses AI tools for administrative and text-heavy tasks like writing proposals, but not yet for his art. “I would love to,” he says. “I have a lot of ideas. I want to make my art more immersive, but I need to find the right people to help me develop that, a way to really dive into my paintings, instead of just [looking at] a 2-dimensional piece.”
Protect artists’ rights
AI relies on data inputs, and many writers, artists, musicians, and actors have spoken up against the unauthorised use of their work to train AI models.
“This is really important,” says Al-Rawi. “Their concerns are completely valid, and I agree with them. Training AI on copyrighted work without compensation raises ethical and legal issues. Creativity shouldn’t be treated as free raw material.” Transparency is crucial. “We must respect and protect creators’ rights; otherwise, we risk de-valuing human artistry, and that would be a huge cultural loss.” New licensing frameworks and opt-outs should be implemented, but public discussions between the government, artists, and other players are also key.
It’s a complex topic, says Sumo, but “artists’ works should be respected, not copied, or blatantly used to train AI.”
Remember that AI is only a tool
It’s also essential to recall that AI is just a tool. For the past 13 years, the street artist has been working on an idea where all of his pieces are all “linked,” allowing viewers to “zoom in infinitely.” “With AI and technology, it should be possible to make everything more seamless, to generate ‘paths’ between those paintings that would make it possible to ‘navigate’ through my paintings however you want. You could zoom through my elements and get lost in the piece, then perhaps use augmented reality and virtual reality glasses to enhance the experience,” says Sumo. But “even if AI helps me do this, the idea comes from me. I’m in control of it,” he underlines. “AI is just a tool. I’m not going to rely on AI to give me ideas.”
Film director Al-Rawi has a similar point of view. “AI for me is a tool, not a storyteller. You can say it’s the brush, not the painter,” he says. “The soul of storytelling in our field, the emotion, perspective, sense of humour, and cultural meaning still belong to humans.” And “in the end, the emotional impact will always be a human gift.”
“For me, there is one thing that ultimately can’t be replaced, even by general AI, and that would be the care” that a human delivers, concludes Badiarov. “It reminds me of the stonecarvers in Gothic churches. In a Gothic church, you see that there are very beautiful ornaments, on all the elements, on all the corners. But what many people don’t know is that often, there are carvings on top of certain elements which are not visible, but for the workers, it was seen by God. So that’s a very philosophical aspect. They cared, and it totally changed the way they worked.”
This article was published in the Silicon Luxembourg magazine.
