Artificial intelligence began to reshape music, movies and art in 2023, sparking both enthusiasm and panic. Some artists used AI to aid their creative practices. Others took legal action against the companies that co-opted art to make their models more powerful. As battles played out across picket lines and courtrooms, millions of viewers and listeners around the world tuned into AI-created content with curiosity, disdain and glee. Here are the major ways AI impacted culture this year. 

The Hollywood strikes

AI was at the center of the dispute that ground Hollywood to a halt this summer, when both writers and actors took to the picket lines in a historic double strike. When writing tools like ChatGPT and AI image-generation tools like Midjourney emerged, Hollywood cre…