Between Control and Collaboration: Artistic Autonomy in AI-Generated Visual Artworks

Abstract

With an emphasis on the developing concept of artistic autonomy, this essay examines how artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the creative dynamics of visual art production. The position of the artist changes from that of a lone creator to that of a co-director in a hybrid process influenced by both human intention and machine execution as generative AI systems become more and more involved in image-making. This study summarizes current discussions around authorship, originality, and collaboration in AI-driven artistic practices through a thorough literature assessment of 34 journal papers published between 2022 and 2025. Three main issues are shown by thematic analysis: the expansion of human-machine co-creation, the redistribution of creative authority, and the reinterpretation of originality. The results imply that although AI pushes back against established authorship constraints, it also creates new avenues for creative control, negotiation, and exploration. AI raises important issues regarding authorship, ethics, and creative ownership in the era of algorithms by relocating the artist's role inside a shared creative agency rather than decreasing it. In order to embrace AI as a creative collaborator, this paper contends that autonomy must be reinterpreted as the capacity to critically navigate and influence new technical forces in artistic practice, rather than as independence from tools.