Expertise Elevates AI Usage: Experimental Evidence Comparing Laypeople and Professional Artists

Abstract

Generative AI’s novel capacities raise questions about the future role of human expertise: does it level the playing field between professional artists and laypeople, or does expertise enhance AI use? Do visual art skills transfer to these tools? This pre-registered study experimentally compares 50 active professional visual artists with a matched laypeople sample. Two tasks assessed copying accuracy and creative thinking, using a bespoke platform powered by text-to-image AI. Results show expertise transfer: artists produced more accurate copies and more divergent ideas. This advantage remained small but detectable even in this tightly controlled experimental setting. We also explored how well a vision-capable LLM (GPT-4o) would fare: on par in copying and slightly better on average than artists in creativity, although never above best humans. These findings highlight the importance of integrating artistic skills with AI, suggesting a potential for collaborative synergy that could reshape creative industries and arts education.