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Grace Thomas, Wrexham University, United KingdomAbstract
AI has been integrated into a wide range of systems and online spaces in the last year, and an increase in AI generated artwork being used by companies, including art and creative content. This theoretical presentation will explore, through the lens of the Social Model of Disability and Critical Disability Studies, the positive and negative aspects of AI art in relation to disability. While AI is being promoted as an accessibility tool for disabled people to engage with and create art, this presentation will investigate how algorithmic bias and promotion of harmful stereotypes are present within AI systems and their defenders’ arguments.
Natasha’s Stovall’s 2021 essay Eugenics Powers IQ and AI, examines the links between AI with the promotion of specific, rigid ideals of intelligence and “usefulness”. As argued by Stovall, artificial intelligence promotes a rigid, ableist ideal of intelligence. In regard to the arts, AI poses challenges to the creative industries and disability activists, as the medical model of disability has informed how we engaged with the topic and how AI systems are built. Discourse around disability and arts has focused on optimisation and productivity, prioritising output over creative exploration and artistic processes. Defenders of AI art are arguably dismissive of existing disabled artists and use disabled people to condone creative theft. The presentation will argue that including disabled artists and audiences in the implementation and ethical decisions surrounding AI and the arts is a crucial tactic for the creative industries moving forward, to avoid these challenges.
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