Baudrillard’s Four Phases of the Image and the Challenge of AI-Generated Art
Introduction In Simulacres et Simulation (1981/1994), Jean Baudrillard sketches a radical genealogy of the image. His concern is not merely with photography or painting, but with the broader fate of representation in a media-saturated culture. “La précession des simulacres” describes how images evolve from reflections of reality to entities that no longer bear any connection to what they ostensibly represent. In this light, AI–generated images present a striking case study. They are not representations of an external reality, but creations of statistical models trained on vast datasets. What might Baudrillard’s framework reveal about the cultural and philosophical significance of these synthetic images? This essay examines the four phases of the image as outlined in Simulacres et Simulation and applies them to the phenomenon of AI-generated art. The Destiny of the Image Baudrillard begins by tracing four successive stages in the fate of the image. The first phase presents the i...