AI-Generated Art and Media: Ethical Quandaries and Creativity Beyond Anthropocentrism

Artificial intelligence fundamentally challenges the assumption that creativity has ever been exclusively human. By examining the transformative impact of AI on creativity, authorship, and authenticity within art and media, the study moves beyond dominant ethical concerns—such as intellectual property disputes, authorship ambiguity, and the deceptive potential of deepfakes—to demonstrate how AI fundamentally reconfigures creative practice. Drawing on philosophical frameworks from Benjamin, Barthes, Marx, and Baudrillard, and supported by case studies including Ai-Da, Mario Klingemann’s Memories of Passersby I, AIVA’s Genesis, and prompt-based systems such as Midjourney, the paper explores how AI disrupts human-centered definitions of creativity while expanding the conditions of artistic production. Adopting a qualitative, theory-driven case study methodology, the research demonstrates that creativity in the AI era emerges as a distributed process across human agents, algorithmic systems, and data infrastructures, rather than residing within a singular authorial subject. In this context, AI systems function not merely as tools of replication but as participants in generative processes that enable new aesthetic forms and hybrid modes of creation. At the same time, AI-driven tools contribute to the democratization of creative practice by lowering barriers to participation in cultural production. By integrating both critical and constructive perspectives, the paper advances a post-anthropocentric framework of creativity—one that positions AI not only as a source of ethical quandaries but as a catalyst for rethinking artistic production, authorship, and value in the age of algorithmic culture.