#it would be too much to ask for the reactionary techno-luddites and the dumbfuck tech excecutives to just go fistfight eahcother on the sun

[here-there-were-dragons]

any argument about this sort of thing that relies on placing some sort of magical moral value on concepts like "humanity" and "the meaning of art" is utter pseudoreligious nonsense. there's plenty of actually worthwhile arguments people could use sitting right there in reach, but everyone seems near pathologically averse to use them because apparently arguing about What Makes Things Real Arttm (aka "let's try to hyperdefine art to be some quasispiritualist thing that can only be done by humans and is a "quality of the human soul" or something somehow. fuck them animals and hypothetical aliens and infuriatingly often disabled humans we consider less than people, amirite?"), and also yelling at and about disabled people a lot, and on several occasions unironically making the claim that artists are more important and valuable to humanity and society than blue collar workers, is somehow more important

it's not 'AI art has no soul' because soul is subjective and creating art is not necessarily a divine spark of inspiration, sometimes human made art is empty of feeling and meaning and that's okay.

it's not 'AI art is ugly' because human made art doesn't need to be pretty, it's still art, no matter if you're starting or if you intentionally make ugly things. It's still okay.

The problem, with AI art (besides the copyright theft, the environmental issues, the artists losing their jobs..)

The problem is that

AI art lacks INTENT

When a human makes something, every part of the creation is a decision made. Why this line, why this color, why this word, why this stitch, why this note.

They may be good decisions, bad decisions, it doesn't matter. The end result is something with thought, and this is why we appreciate art. There is the surface, and underneath, there is an ocean of decisions made by the artist.

AI art has no intent.

Yes, they will type prompts for a general idea. And they will pick a result.

But there is no thought about poses, colors, lines, backgrounds, details, negative space, lighting, texture, framing, etc.

Becoming a good artist means to understand these decisions and align them to make the result you want.

AI art will pick through millions of those decisions made by other people and will stick them together without meaning or reason, so they lose their intended purpose. This is why people think AI art is empty, that it has no 'soul'. Because there is no thought process behind it.

We should stop comparing human and AI art by using words like "better" or "worse". People will always have different opinions.

But as a human, I am more interested in things made by other humans, because I can observe all those tiny decisions, I can relate to some, be surprised by some, dislike some, it's all good.

Art is people communicating.

AI art has nothing to say.