In a recent episode of the German podcast "Lanz + Precht," philosopher Richard David Precht discussed whether AI kills art. Precht argued that AI is merely the final nail in the coffin for an art form that has long lost its social relevance. The conversation, which included AI expert and entrepreneur Andreas O. Loff, explored the democratizing potential of AI in creative fields, but Precht doubled down on a reactionary stance: modern art, from Expressionism to Fluxus, once claimed a vital social role, but by the end of the 20th century, it had become meaningless—and AI only completes that decline.
This matters because Precht’s dismissal of contemporary art as socially irrelevant reflects a broader cultural debate about the value of avant-garde and conceptual art in the age of generative AI. His comments, made on one of Germany’s most popular podcasts, risk reinforcing public skepticism toward institutional art and its practitioners. The article, published in the art magazine Monopol, pushes back against Precht’s narrative, defending the ongoing significance of advanced art and critiquing the philosopher’s sweeping generalizations.