AI companies have been partnering with art museums and image libraries left and right, attracting much media attention. ARTnews recently reported on how the Harvard Art Museums’ marketing team tested an effort to bring in new audiences with the use of generative AI. The Boston Globe related how museums around Boston are using AI to “bring history to life.” And several media outlets have echoed a press release from the Prado, which claims that an AI-powered video reimagining works in their collection under the lighting conditions of a solar eclipse constitutes a form of outreach to audiences who do not typically visit their museum.

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Common to all of these collaborations is the argument that AI will make art more “accessible;” that it will “democratize” art. But how, exactly, does AI achieve either of these things? What do “accessible” and “democratize” even mean here?…