  The recent advances of AI technology, particularly in AI-Generated Content
(AIGC), have enabled everyone to easily generate beautiful paintings with
simple text description. With the stunning quality of AI paintings, it is
widely questioned whether there still exists difference between human and AI
paintings and whether human artists will be replaced by AI. To answer these
questions, we develop a computational framework combining neural latent space
and aesthetics features with visual analytics to investigate the difference
between human and AI paintings. First, with categorical comparison of human and
AI painting collections, we find that AI artworks show distributional
difference from human artworks in both latent space and some aesthetic features
like strokes and sharpness, while in other aesthetic features like color and
composition there is less difference. Second, with individual artist analysis
of Picasso, we show human artists' strength in evolving new styles compared to
AI. Our findings provide concrete evidence for the existing discrepancies
between human and AI paintings and further suggest improvements of AI art with
more consideration of aesthetics and human artists' involvement.
