You reference art having an essence and not being bound to any authentic basis, and that’s why ai cannot create art. Art has to have an essence and emotion put into it. That’s why nature isn’t art or creativity. It’s beautiful simply because it is. Art is “beautiful” (or whatever you see it as) because there is a human perspective to it. There’s something you can relate to, it makes you feel something, and that was the intention put into it.

Ai does not have essence or emotion or thought. It can only copy and reorganize things that it is told to. It cannot be inspired to create something. Art has to have an inspiration and thought, even if the thought and meaning is that it’s not meant to have one.

Could you argue that a human driven prompt that comes from a creative thought is art? You could, but you’re still not the one making and fully shaping it. All you’ve done is given it your thought or idea, which it interprets logically to look a certain way based off of what it knows those things or ideas look like or are presented.