Human Art and AI-Generated Art: A Contemporary Study of Aura and Creative Meaning

Abstract

Traditional and classical art has been understood as a human activity shaped by intention, skill, culture, lived experience, and physical form. Walter Benjamin, whose conceptual analysis is our core framework, describes this unique presence as aura. This aura arises from the originality, history, and context of an artwork. In recent years, however, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has expanded into artistic production. AI systems now generate images, imitate artistic styles, and produce works that resemble human creativity. This development compels the need to inquire if AI-generated art possesses the same depth of meaning, historical grounding, and experiential presence associated with the aura of human art. Co-authored by a philosopher and an artist-civil engineer, this paper combines the qualitative method of philosophical analysis with artistic reflection. The aim is to evaluate whether AI systems can replicate or only simulate the qualities that define artistic aura. Our argument is that aura emerges from human intention, historical situatedness, and embodied creative experience. That AI systems reproduce patterns without participation in these conditions of meaning. The contribution to knowledge is a clearer philosophical distinction between human art and AI-generated art. It, further, reinforces the relevance of aura in contemporary debates on technology, creativity, and artistic value.