AI vs Art Debate

summarize this: To clarify, this is going to be me stating mostly logically why AI can't be considered art. This is not a personal attack on anyone. Please read this fully and think on it before commenting, and please be respectful. With that out of the way, let's get into this. I'm going to start by pointing out something I think most people don't take into consideration when they discuss art here on the internet as a whole. Art is a luxury item. Luxury items are typically valued as luxurious for one of four reasons I’ve found; exclusivity, uniqueness, features, or being hand crafted. Image generators don’t fit into any of these categories, let me explain why. Let’s start with exclusivity. Image generators are not exclusive, because anyone with a smart device and internet access can use them. You could say digital art isn’t exclusive because anyone could see that too. However, I can also look at the Mona Lisa online, should that no longer be art? Next let’s talk about uniqueness. Generated images aren’t unique due to being generated by an algorithm. If you feed two different algorithms the same prompt, and ask them to generate an image, you’ll likely get a nearly identical image, because both are likely trained off of the same art. Whereas if you gave two artists the same prompt, you’d get something very different, because of how they interpret the prompt, and their unique art styles. Features, this is less relevant to art, but I feel it still warrants discussion. I’ll use my deep knowledge of cars for this example. Luxury cars, while being created by machines, offer features that economy cars don’t. The first car to use power windows was the1941 Packard 180 Series. Power windows were still treated as a luxury feature until the start of the 1980’s, and wouldn’t become a standard feature on cars until around 2010, give or take five years due to different brands adapting their models at different rates. I haven’t looked too heavily into each individual generator, but I’d imagine they all share almost the exact same features. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but like I said, I feel this point applies less to art, as you don’t buy art because it’s technologically advanced. Before I get into the last point, I feel I should touch on art being a luxury item a bit more. Not only is art a luxury item, but it is in a unique position where it’s only purpose is to be a luxury item. Ask yourself; can you use a painting to cut vegetables? Can you make a call with a marble bust? Can you send an email with a piece of digital art? No, art is the only thing in the world where it’s sole purpose is to be observed and appreciated. A luxury car still functions as a car, a nice watch still tells time, and you can still write with a hand crafted pen. These items aren’t deemed as luxurious because of what they can do, but how they do it, and how they stand out from the crowd. Take the luxury out of an Acura, and you get a Honda. It’s still nice, but nothing special. This inherently leads to art being valued as luxurious-or in another word-artistic, because of it’s hand crafted nature. Each artist adds their own unique touches to their art that makes it unique. We do this because we are intelligent, free thinking individuals who have our own way of doing things. Image generators not intelligent, nor are they free thinking. They are entirely dependent on human beings to function and evolve, whereas artists simply aren’t. Yes there are learning algorithms, but guess who had to sit down and code them to do that by hand? That’s right, a human. You could say that that is what makes it art, but when you generate an image, none of said humanity come through. Almost every artist has come up with their ideas on their own, and most learn by experimenting on their own without outside influence. Sure there are plenty of artists who got outside help learning, but that was of their own volition, not because they physically couldn’t. Not only that, but we as humans have something that generators don’t, passion. Artists don’t do what we do to fill a quota, meet a sales number, or just because someone told us to. We do it for the love of creating, because we love sitting down and making something beautiful with our own hands. Is it sometimes a bit boring and tedious? Yes, but so is any passion. Being a gearhead isn’t all car meets and racing, it’s also taking apart and putting things back together, ordering and waiting for parts, making sure your cars is ready, and then driving to, and setting up for, the event in question. It’s also about the community. Getting to share your passion with people who are passionate about something as you are is truly awesome. This is why the last point, something being hand made, is so important, and why it’s treated as luxurious. You aren’t just looking at something a corporation or machine made to meet a demand, you’re looking at the passion of a person who just wanted to create for creation’s sake. That is what makes art a luxury item. If you remove that, and have a machine make it, it is no longer luxurious. You can’t expect something cheaply made by a machine to have the same value as something hand crafted by a passionate individual. Arts exclusive value is it being hand made, take that away, and it’s not art anymore. It’s just an image that a company made for you. I understand this got a bit more philosophical than I intended, but that’s bound to happen when talking about the human experience, and art especially. If you read this far, start your comment with, “well hello good sir,” so I know you did. Thanks for taking the time to listen to the rambles of some random guy on the internet, and goodbye.

Here’s a summary of that post: --- The writer argues that AI-generated images can't be considered true art because art is a luxury item valued for exclusivity, uniqueness, features, and being hand-crafted — qualities AI lacks. AI image generators are not exclusive (anyone can use them), not truly unique (different algorithms trained similarly produce similar results), and while "features" apply more to products like luxury cars, they highlight how uniqueness enhances value. Most importantly, art’s value lies in being hand-made by passionate, free-thinking individuals. AI lacks passion, intelligence, and human creativity, making its output just mass-produced images rather than true art. True art reflects human experience and passion; remove that, and it's no longer art. --- Would you also like a *one-sentence* version too?

now argue against it in one sentence

AI-generated images can still be considered art because art is defined by the emotional impact and meaning it creates for the observer, not solely by the method of its creation.

why would the author argue their main point?

The author argues their main point — that AI-generated images are not true art — because they believe *the value of art fundamentally comes from human passion, creativity, and the hand-crafted, intentional nature of its creation*, which AI, being non-sentient and mechanically derivative, cannot replicate. Would you like a quick two-sentence expansion showing how they build their reasoning step-by-step?