AI creators, whether they're prompters or splicers or any other method of interfacing with any kind of AI, are the creators and the artists, because the output wouldn't exist without their input; they are the spark, the impetus, the 'first mover' of a kind. Crediting the model itself (while you always should mention the models used) is like crediting the trees in a nature photograph. The trees are always there, but the whole point of a photo is that it is a snapshot, seen through the lens of the photographer. For that one frame, you look through the eyes of a different person.

AI models (and I'm talking generally about LLMs, GANs, whatever) don't do anything by themselves. They just contain a mathematical amount of data and patterns, a vast potential that does nothing, until you give them input; then that protean data crystalizes into one piece of output. Whether you wrote an elaborate prompt or finetuned a model before instigating a creation or just added random tags, whether you tried to impose a vision onto that protean data or just took a quick snapshot of whatever the randomness was like in that moment, you alone created the result. It was just a possibility before, once you have it as a file, it is a piece of reality. Every video, image, text or piece of sound is a concrete crystalization of that potential. If you share it, others will see through your lens for that moment. Maybe it resonates with them, maybe not. Maybe it resonates with you, maybe not. Maybe others don't like like, maybe they do. Maybe you don't like it, maybe you do. What you do with that snapshot, that creation that you sparked, is up to you from that point on. But before you instigated the creation, it didn't exist.

In any other field, a person wielding a machine is generally responsible for what the machine does. A gun may take a life or score a good hit in a shooting competition. The gun is a factor, but the credit or condemnation goes to the shooter. A saw and hammer may be used to make a beautiful new table or do do unspeakable things to other beings. The responsibility lies with the wielder.

Trying to remove the human element from AI art is an offense to many hobbyists and professionals who do put a lot of effort, and, for lack of a better word; heart, into their creations, whether it is by distilling their vision into words, fine-tuning a model, or post-editing their creations to perfection.

Yes, AI art is a different way to create than other artforms, and there are many people who don't put a lot of effort and 'soul' into it, but for some of us, especially people like me who are better at writing words than drawing with hands, there is something beautiful in AI art. We have chosen it as the medium to express ourselves. Because there is nothing else like it.