I am not an artist.
To clarify: I guess writing is art and I do that a lot, but I’m not a visual artist. I don’t draw, paint, sculpt, etc. My children, especially my oldest daughter, do this a lot. So did my father. So do many of my other family members. But I don’t even doodle.
Now that we’ve established that I don’t know anything about art, here’s my opinion on it (ha!).
I think there is a key and crucial distinction between “art” and, for lack of a better word, “illustration.”
Art is communication. Art is expression. Art is the ability to take the million-year-old part of our brain that learned to recognize shapes in clouds and faces in bushes and speak to it directly, to try to find some way to communicate ideas or emotions in a language so old and so deep that it transcends our modern minds’ ability to even hear the tones, let alone understand the words. I think it’s wonderful.
But I also think that there’s a growing sentiment against “AI Art” being used for… well, anything, just because it isn’t that.
AI Art isn’t art. I’m comfortable with that assessment and position. But just because all illustration is currently art doesn’t mean it has to be, any more than all copy has to be “writing” just because it currently is (or recently was, anyway).
“Writing” is done by humans, too. It’s inventive, communicative. But an AI can make the copy for a Burger King ad because that doesn’t have to be “writing.” And likewise, the image in that ad doesn’t have to be “art.”
The Opportunity Machine 