But for those artists willing to explore cameras as tools in their work, the aesthetic possibilities of photography proved inspiring. Indeed cameras, which became more accessible to the average user with advancements in technology, offered another technique and form for artistic endeavors like portrait-making.

Art matters because as humans, we all have the ability to be creative. With time, the art we create evolves, and technology plays a crucial role in that process. History has shown that photography, as a novel tool and medium, helped revolutionize the way modern artists create works by expanding the idea of what could be considered art. Photography eventually found its way into museums. Today we know that cameras didn’t kill art; they simply provided people with another way to express themselves visually.

This analogy is crucial to understanding the potential for artificial intelligence to influence art in this century.

As machine learning becomes an increasing part of our everyday lives — incorporated into everything from the phones we text with to the cars we drive — it’s only natural to ask what the future of art in such an A.I.-dominated society will be. This question becomes even more relevant as machines step into the artistic realm as creators of art. In summer 2019, the Barbican Centre in London presented A.I.-produced pieces in a show called “A.I.: More Than Human.” And in November later that year, over one million people attended an exhibition exploring art and science at the National Museum of China in which many works were created using algorithms.

I founded the Art and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Rutgers University in 2012. As an A.I. researcher, my main goal is to advance the technology. For me, this requires looking at human creativity to develop algorithms that not only understand our achievements in visual art, music and literature, but also produce or co-produce works in those fields. After all, it is our capacity to expand our creative skills beyond basic problem-solving into artistic expression that uniquely distinguishes us as humans.