This is a very strict world view you have.

“Can be, but typically isn’t” isn’t strict in any sense. It’s the opposite of strict, by admitting more than one possibility. We’re still no closer to understanding what it is you think constitutes art, so we can’t have a proper discussion about how, if at all, non-AI generated art fails to be art in that sense, and whether that’s important.

Asking people what they mean by the words the say - especially when it’s a word like art which is literally memed on for being the source of endless debates regarding its nature and definition - is not some kind of juvenile trap; it’s a pre-requisite for having a productive conversation on the subject.

I will note, this is not an argument in favor of AI. This is just clinical “given up” disease. I think they call that cynicism.

The argument in favour is that people want to do it, so just let them get on with it. Simple.

Why can’t porn be art? You say “typically,” but what are your feelings?

Porn can be art, but typically it isn’t, and typically when it is it’s called “erotica” or “erotic art”. There’s a distinction you apparently don’t want to talk about, even though you started trying to make an argument about what constituted art.

Weird that you started off saying “you must understand what art is” but now are reluctant to talk about it, even though your conception of it obviously differs greatly from mainstream definitions.

Here’s what I think. I think the vast majority of visual content we interact with is pretty emotionally empty. It’s product packaging, advertising, memes, yes even superhero cinematic universe shlock written to a formula. I think using AI in that area cheats no-one out of anything, and I think that people will always find an artistic outlet for their emotions if that’s what they want. My partner paints as a hobby and I haven’t heard them saying they’re not going to bother because of AI.

Do you mean to imply that if someone took a photograph and pretended to have painted it, that this wouldn’t piss a lot of people off? I think it would.

Is your problem AI art or is it lying about art?

I might. I dunno.

Wow, you’ve really thought hard about this.

My opposition is to demon tech produced by vampires.

I’m not going to take you seriously if you don’t discuss this seriously.

Yes. Why would you even ask me this.

Depraved tentacle porn is art. —Why are you trying to like debate trick me into recoiling in disgust at what some people spend their time on?

Because you’ve made a distinction between art and visual media that isn’t art without clarifying it at all - and that’s still the case. Typically pornography is not classified as art. Both these cases describe visual content made (often) not as an emotional expression of the creator, but as a means of making money or sexual gratification. I’m not saying either is evil or disgusting (you’re the one who contends that visual media made without emotion is morally deficient).

I await your clarification on what art is and whether AI images are still immoral if they only displace stuff produced for some other reason than emotional expression.

there is hardly confusion about whether something is or is not a photograph.

There certainly can be - check out people producing photorealistic art today, or the extremely realistic portraits produced before the advent of photography. Photography can be used in the process without being evident in the final image, too.

The fact is that most AI images today can be detected as such by anyone familiar with them. That may not be true forever, and the signs can be covered up by someone with the will, but then, that’s the same as use of photography.

I can’t appreciate someone’s brush strokes if there is no way of knowing a brush was struck.

When I look at brush strokes I’m appreciating it visually because they look nice. If you view two pieces of art on a computer screen (so that you can’t see the 3D aspect) do you respond differently to the brush strokes because one is a photo of an actual oil painting, whereas the other is a piece of digital art made in Krita where the brush strokes are simulated?

The most complicated comfyUI-whatever is worth less to me than a child’s drawing of their parents because the child’s drawing is communicating love while the generated one is communicating nothing.

So, not all art is communicating heartfelt emotion. Is your opposition limited to the encroachment of AI into the space of emotionally communicative art?

What if someone is making art (or maybe you want to use another word) purely for money? Or depraved tentacle porn? If someone is just trying to create a funny comic, is that necessarily art or might it just be a means to the end of getting people to laugh?

You must stop selfishly invading the space other artists inhabit: photography was a paradigm shift, yeah, but it still left room for painters to do their own thing. In the modern day, there is hardly confusion about whether something is or is not a photograph.

Photography completely displaced the segment of visual art whose primary goal was to accurately (what we might now call “photorealistically”) reproduce what could be seen, because it was a better tool for that goal. If you pay a painter for a portrait today, it’s because you want to see the brush-strokes, not because you want the most accurate rendition of your face possible.

I don’t think the displacement of the former kind of portrait painter by photographers is in any way a problem with photography. It was a problem for portrait painters, so I can understand the distress of people who are producing art at risk of being displaced by AI.

So how is it that use of AI is “selfishly invading” but photography was not?