Artificial intelligence in the formation of new artistic reality: an epistemological analysis

The rapid development of artificial intelligence technologies has had a profound impact on contemporary artistic practice, leading to substantial transformations in the structure of cultural production and affecting the foundations of artistic value, mechanisms of legitimation, and traditional notions of creativity. This process has generated a crisis of classical art-historical categories and revealed the need to develop new theoretical approaches for analyzing artworks created with generative neural networks. The present study is devoted to the epistemological analysis of the role of artificial intelligence in shaping a new artistic reality, understood as a product of interaction between human intention and computational algorithms. The methodological framework integrates philosophical concepts of epistemology and sociology of culture with art-historical methods, including formal-stylistic and comparative analysis of works created through generative neural models. The research identifies shifts in the main epistemological models of art and reveals the specificity of algorithmic aesthetics, based on statistical analysis and probabilistic reconstruction of visual patterns. The result is the introduction of the concept of algorithmic epistemology as a tool for understanding cognitive processes in digital art. The study highlights and analyzes the fundamental differences between art oriented toward figurative representation and AI-driven practices focused on data processing and pattern generation. It is argued that there is a transition from classical authorial subjectivity to distributed agency, in which the artistic statement emerges through the interaction of multiple cognitive and technological actors. As a methodological outcome, the paper proposes a three-level analytical framework. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the systematization of the epistemological features of AI-assisted art and the development of methodological approaches for its analysis and curatorial interpretation. The practical significance of the study is expressed in the possibility of formulating new criteria for art-historical evaluation of digital art and supporting innovative artistic practices under conditions of digital transformation.