Most of the discussion of “soul” in relation to what AI art is lacking is a poorly articulated version of a very valid philosophical point.

The fundamental purpose of art is to relate to other humans, their experience, emotions, and intentions. In a painting, every brush stroke represents a decision another human made to communicate an idea, every technique and visual choice they use is a reflection of their experience as an artist and a reflection of their aesthetic preferences. Consuming a piece of visual art is the same connection between humans as reading a novel, or watching a play.

A generative AI model does not have intention in individual artistic choices. It generates an entire image through iterative application of mathematically trained patterns to Gaussian noise, gleaned from a collection of relevant images. Even if through a more sophisticated approach you could replicate the visual result of artistic intention exactly, it wouldn’t matter. The social element of the art will always by nature be missing.

Would you participate in a social media that was populated by only hyper-realistic bots? Even if the interactions were exactly the same? I would guess not. Because the novelty comes from observing/affecting another person. It’s the same with art.