Inteligencia Artificial (IA)
Sofía López, art historian, highlights the creative potential of generative AI as an innovative artistic tool.
Paloma Firgaira
2026-03-19
5 min read
The emergence of generative artificial intelligence is revolutionizing fundamental concepts such as authorship, technique, and creativity, forcing a rethinking of the artist's role in contemporary visual creation. Sofía López (Cádiz, 1994), an art historian and current member of the AI team at Freepik, exemplifies how hybrid profiles are leading this transformation.
Although she has always been drawn to science, her professional path was forged between museums and outreach projects, where she merged art and astronomy. After studying Art History in Málaga and specializing in museology, López worked at institutions like the Pompidou Center and the Russian Museum, where she learned the importance of contextualizing art and communicating it to the public.
Her interest in the intersection of art and science led her to investigate how artistic images have contributed to scientific outreach, especially in the field of astronomy. She participated in initiatives like Astroarte and collaborated with INTA, promoting the creation of a culture and astronomy commission in the Spanish Astronomy Society to highlight the artistic representation of astronomical phenomena.
López argues that art and science should not be understood as isolated compartments, but as disciplines that enrich each other. However, she acknowledges that academic and administrative structures often hinder interdisciplinary collaboration.
Her leap into the tech sector was almost fortuitous, joining Freepik on a template editing project. The arrival of generative AI, especially from 2022 with tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney, marked a turning point. López immersed herself in learning about these technologies, anticipating their impact on visual creation and her own professional development.
The internal adaptation at Freepik was gradual and collaborative, integrating technical and creative profiles to tackle the challenges of generative AI. López emphasizes the importance of diverse perspectives to detect biases and improve outcomes, as seen when introducing intermediate prompts to ensure diverse representation in generated images.
For her, generative AI is a tool that expands creative possibilities but does not replace the talent or vision of the artist. Technique evolves, but remains essential: the future will be hybrid, combining traditional filming, 3D, and artificial intelligence. While she acknowledges the reluctance in the art world, she believes that AI does not eliminate authorship but redefines it, moving closer to collective creation models similar to historical art workshops.
López warns of the risk of cultural homogenization and the proliferation of generic content, but trusts that creators will continue to develop their own visual languages. Regarding regulation, she advocates for a balance between corporate self-regulation and public intervention, emphasizing the need for dialogue between institutions and companies.
In short, for Sofía López, AI is another stage in the evolution of artistic media. What excites her most is seeing how talented individuals can materialize previously unattainable ideas; what worries her most is the dizzying speed of technological change.