AI is a red herring, in my opinion.

Some artists have spent over a century trying to one-up each other to the bottom, starting with Dadaism and even before that (anyone remember Salieri’s populist operettas?). It’s got to a point, where a black square on a canvas, or a banana taped to a wall, got called “art”.

Other artists, have been trying to transmit emotions and feelings through their work, using whatever tools at their disposal. Be it through words, paints, shapes, interactions, etc. With more or less success, but they’ve been trying.

An AI is another tool, like a camera is a tool, a brush is a tool, a chisel is a tool, a keyboard/typewriter is a tool, and so on. People can use their tools to produce low effort trash… or they can put effort and thought into what they want to transmit.

Good AI art, takes the same or more effort as good non-AI art, to make the AI produce what the artist intends. Retouching parts of the output, either with more AI or some other tools, refining or retraining the whole model, creating complex prompts to make the tool output something closer to the artist’s vision. That vision, is the core of the art.

Low effort AI art, is mindless theft, no dispute there, good for quick memes and little more.

Thoughtful AI art, is a conversation between an artist, and a tool with massive experience in observing other’s art, in order to extract the essence of what they can apply to their own. An AI works best as a brain extension, capable of reading all the books, seeing all the paintings and photos, watching all the movies, listening to all the sounds and songs, way beyond what’s possible in a single human lifespan. Then it’s the artist’s job to sift through that.

Focusing on just the “AI” part, does a disservice to the whole art community. Focus on the person instead… and if they’ve put no effort, then go ahead, feel free to laugh at the “art”, no matter which tools they’ve used… unless they admit to be still learning, in which case some encouragement and tips might be a better way.