  Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and its sub-branch
machine learning (ML) promise machines that go beyond the boundaries of
automation and behave autonomously. Applications of these machines in creative
practices such as art and design entail relationships between users and
machines that have been described as a form of collaboration or co-creation
between computational and human agents. This paper uses examples from art and
design to argue that this frame is incomplete as it fails to acknowledge the
socio-technical nature of AI systems, and the different human agencies involved
in their design, implementation, and operation. Situating applications of
AI-enabled tools in creative practices in a spectrum between automation and
autonomy, this paper distinguishes different kinds of human engagement elicited
by systems deemed automated or autonomous. Reviewing models of artistic
collaboration during the late 20th century, it suggests that collaboration is
at the core of these artistic practices. We build upon the growing literature
of machine learning and art to look for the human agencies inscribed in works
of computational creativity, and expand the co-creation frame to incorporate
emerging forms of human-human collaboration mediated through technical
artifacts such as algorithms and data.
