As a result, the once heavily enforced barrier between artists and tech and science innovators is set to blur in a way that we never previously thought possible. Stephanie Sy is a 30-year-old AI specialist based in Manila, who has built machine learning models and data strategies for major clients in the private sector. But in her spare time she creates AI art.

“I think of the algorithm as another sort of paintbrush, she says. “It’s a medium of expression and I can see why some people worry about the entire field of art because the medium is changing for certain people, but they shouldn’t. It’s super exciting. Don’t forget how much we can learn from machines. In the future our ideas and concept of creativity will be shaped by AI learning, and that will lead to a renaissance in how people perceive art and express themselves.”

Some of the biggest artists and craft makers in in the world are now using AI in their work. There are AI-assisted paintings by experimental NYC multimedia artist Addie Wagenknecht, in which she programmes a robot with an algorithm to paint a canvas, but reclines naked in its pathway to obstruct it. Or there is the installation by pioneering digital artist collective JODI, which trains a computer to play noughts and crosses. What unites them is a self-aware exploration and critical examination of the tech age and how the fusion of human creativity with machines is creating an entirely new art form.

Hans Ulrich Obrist is the artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries in London’s Hyde Park and he has helped to make AI central to the gallery’s offering. Following digital commissions for their website, AI also recently featured in a Serpentine show by American simulation artist Ian Cheng, French multimedia art icon Pierre Huyghe, and German writer, artist and filmmaker Hito Steyerl.

And the Serpentine is not the only institution to give a significant platform to AI artworks. The Victoria & Albert Museum in London had an Artificially Intelligent display last year, and MoMA in New York held a Research & Development salon called AI – Artificial Imperfection.

“There is still a fetishisation of traditional ways of making things,” says east London-based sculptor and furniture designer Gareth Neal, whose extraordinary pieces have been acclaimed globally and are partly designed by an algorithm. “But a great object or painting inspires you and makes you feel wonderful, and it doesn’t really matter who has made it, so long as it creates that feeling. The soul of an object is all in your perception of it; it’s what you imbue it with.”

Ultimately, artists and designers have been relying on human advancements for centuries. Where would the Impressionists have been without the invention of portable paint tubes that enabled them to paint outdoors?  Who would have heard of Andy Warhol without silkscreen printing? Seen in that sense, tech is simply another format where artists can express themselves.

"We’re dependent on tools and machines in all other works of life, so why not art and craft?" asks Sy. "In creative industries, we buy into the notion of romantic handwork, but I think it's wrong, as we’re not giving up handwork, we’re just extending our ability in an entirely new way. I'm incredibly excited to see what impact AI has on the creative world. Art as we know it will change forever."