Artificial Intelligence (AI) is developing at a rapid pace and is finding its way into more and more aspects of our daily lives. Where AI was once seen as a helpful tool, the question now arises whether it is undermining the very foundations of our culture. Music, photography, literature — disciplines shaped for centuries by human talent and dedication — are increasingly being overtaken by algorithms.
Take this music. For years, I studied jazz piano. Learning to improvise was not an easy path: it required discipline, endless practice, and the courage to make mistakes. Every note, every silence, carried meaning because of the time and energy invested in it.
And then I discovered an app. The concept is simple: upload your lyrics, choose a style… and a fully finished song appears. Well played, perfectly executed — without a human ever sitting at the piano. What took me years of labor and passion to master is now delivered by a computer in seconds. This raises a painful question: what is the value of music if the human struggle behind it disappears?
The photographer has already been ‘defeated.’ Photography, once a craft rooted in technique, composition, and the eye of the maker, has been absorbed by smartphones and filters. With Artificial Intelligence anyone can take a photo, anyone can edit it — and artistic photography as a profession is dead.
If music and photography can so easily be replaced by Artificial Intelligence, who will be next? The writer? The painter? The craftsman who creates beauty with their hands? The therapist? The doctor? The Judge? The Accountant? What remains of art and culture if the human imperfections, the slow and difficult process of creation, are erased by algorithms that simulate perfection?
Art has never only been about the final product. It is also the story of the maker: the hours of work, the doubt, the emotions embedded in the process. That human aspect is precisely what gives art meaning. If that dimension disappears, what is left besides polished, empty products?
Artificial Intelligence is without doubt an impressive technology. But its downside is that it undermines the essence of art and culture. Where we once found beauty in human expression, we now risk sinking into algorithmically generated perfection. The question we are left with is a confronting one: is this truly progress, or the beginning of the end of our culture?
