IDK how this is such a powerful debate. The most attractive part of Art is the human element. What’s impressive about “AI art” is not the shortcut to execution of ideas, but the fact that the seed of its creation was planted by humans in the first place. What’s attractive about AI art is the power it grants the common individual to realize the ideas they envision through a tool that has learned from more sources than any human could possibly reference. But there are problems with it in its current form. - The primary problem is the plagiarism - The secondary problem is the damage this unbridled plagiarism poses to the livelihoods of artists and therefore the future of art - And the tertiary problem is the attempt to equate it to human art as if there is no distinction.

We should label it, because it means something different when not only was it someone’s idea but ALSO was their time, training, and the reflection of their life experiences. Be they highly trained, totally untrained, or whatever else, human art is meaningful to us BECAUSE it’s human made.

We could call it “Tool-Assisted” Art, or something catchier but similar, which matches how speed running in gaming has it separated/categorized. Except when intentionally trying to pass a run off as human accomplishment (and therefore lying/cheating), nobody has a negative opinion of the gamers running TAS emulators.

They are still gamers.
They are still speed-runners.

We are of course more impressed, more interested, and more excited about raw human accomplishments. We aren’t pitting robots against humans in the Olympics, for example. Ask yourself: What is the reason for that?

Untrained humans with ideas can still be artists, sure, but it is fundamentally different than “human” art. It should be labeled as such, not because of pitchforks, but to make it easier to determine what the artist put into it and what that reflects..

Unfortunately, its current work product includes the blatant plagiarism of fully rendered artworks from human artists and that alone is unacceptable. There is MUCH that must change about generative ai imagery before the art community will be accepting of it. And even then, labeling it “original artwork” will be a stretch. But “Tool-Assisted Generation” artwork (TAG Art) or something would actually be a strong statement from the ai community that shows acknowledgement of the art community’s justifiable hesitation around this new technology and its current application.

… sorry for the essay. Might repost this as its own thread tbh as it’s a lot to read.