People who hate on modern art are either too stupid to understand it or afraid of it.

Like you don’t have to like or love it, but imagine saying it’s not art…

So here’s a fun argument. What’s different about AI?

Yeah yeah yeah, you didn’t draw that, but an idea was communicated through a visual medium. You can do that with unedited screenshots of Spongebob Squarepants. People can make art out of any damn thing. No tool is immune to human intent.

In generative AI, intent is basically all there is. The rest was done by a robit.

I’d argue that AI tools defer our Intent onto the tool and that this reduces the art. Like, when using a traditional medium, every movement you make in an individual moment and every factor from the materials you use to the conditions you are working under is contributing to that creation.

But when making a text prompt, the only choices we’re making is the vocabulary we use and possibly the language we’re writing in. The end product will not change if the prompt is written by someone who is suffering or if it’s written at a specific time of day or if they’re getting paid to write.

So I don’t know if this makes it not art but I think it makes it objectively less art, by a very huge margin

Intent is not action. Intent is what you want your hand to do. If every child’s indecipherable stick figure is True Art, why not a plain-English description of what you want to see?

The end product will not change if the prompt is written by someone who is suffering or if it’s written at a specific time of day or if they’re getting paid to write.

… and art for money doesn’t count?

Because the stick figure is held in regard to who made it and when. We preserve and display our children’s stick figures all the time, not because they’re ever good but because of the conditions they were made under. So, still actual art.

The plain-english description would not be art because that’s a tool to make AI art with. It has no value without being used in a prompt.

No, art for money definitely counts as art, but it has a quality that distinguishes it from art that was made for no money. See debates about zombie realism and how it’s essentialy used for money laundering and power brokering. However AI generated art that is commissioned (for whatever reason) will be practically identical to a hobbyist’s output. So AI art is less art.

Self-professed AI haters insist every shitty scribble has Meaning™ in a way no render possibly could.

Because AI haters have a deeper relationship with Meaning™ than a person who got fascinated by a new seratonin-manipulating toy. If AI art enthusiasts were capable of understanding how the toy even worked beyond “magic machine makes my thoughts real”, they might feel a little more inclined to treasure their children’s drawings as well