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Updated: May 31, 2025

Perceptual and Category Processing of the Uncanny Valley Hypothesis' Dimension of Human Likeness: Some Methodological Issues
Published on: June 3, 2013
Human perception of art in the age of artificial intelligence
Jules van Hees1, Tijl Grootswagers1,2, Genevieve L Quek1
1The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour, and Development, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, Australia.
Abstract:
Recent advancement in Artificial Intelligence (AI) has rendered image-synthesis models capable of producing complex artworks that appear nearly indistinguishable from human-made works. Here we present a quantitative assessment of human perception and preference for art generated by OpenAI's DALL·E 2, a leading AI tool for art creation. Participants were presented with pairs of artworks, one human-made and one AI-generated, in either a preference-choice task or an origin-discrimination task. Results revealed a significant preference for AI-generated artworks. At the same time, a separate group of participants were above-chance at detecting which artwork within the pair was generated by AI, indicating a perceptible distinction between human and artificial creative works. These results raise questions about how a shift in art preference to favour synthetic creations might impact the way we think about art and its value to human society, prompting reflections on authorship, authenticity, and human creativity in the era of generative AI.
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