THE AESTHETIC CRISIS IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: A DISCUSSION FROM THE PERSPECTIVES OF JEAN BAUDRILLARD, SUSAN SONTAG, ANDRÉ BAZIN, PIERRE LÉVY, AND JACQUES RANCIÈRE

Resumen

The massive production of synthetic images and videos by generative artificial intelligence systems has precipitated an aesthetic crisis that compromises the ability to distinguish documentation from artifice and reconfigures the perception of reality. This article investigates this phenomenon through qualitative theoretical research, conducted as a narrative literature review that brings the thought of Jean Baudrillard, Susan Sontag, André Bazin, Pierre Lévy, and Jacques Rancière together as its conceptual framework. The general objective is to examine philosophically how images generated by these systems disrupt the aesthetic perception of reality. Its specific objectives are to analyze the fusion of the real and the virtual, investigate the manipulation of human affects by synthetic images, and discuss possibilities for resisting the corporate capture of the power of virtualization. The analysis indicates that the conceptual vocabulary of these five authors, formulated largely before the emergence of these technologies, accurately describes their aesthetic, ethical, and political effects, revealing a continuous trajectory from the indexical photograph to the simulacrum without a referent. The study concludes that the unreal has become the new real, and the artificial the new organicity of contemporary experience, since synthetic images have come to precede what they once merely represented. As a critical contribution, it identifies the reconstruction of collective forms of perception and interpretation as a means of confronting the homogenization promoted by the market logic of large digital corporations.