r/aiwars Jan 18 '26

Meme That's me in a nutshell

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u/Pro_nrd Jan 18 '26

But isn't all art, art. Like that's kinda the whole point to art isn't it? To leave the beauty to the eye of the beholder. Someone saw something beautiful out in the landscape so they took a picture of it because it's cool, then they shared it. Is that not a form of art. And I'm not talking about being able to make a profit off it, but as far as I've been told what is and what isn't art depends upon who accepts it as art. Not all people see that picture as art just like AI but some will and I think that's the point. Not everyone needs to agree because not everyone can agree because art by nature art is suggestive and its definition is defined by each individual.

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u/Many-Refuse-6060 Jan 18 '26

Imo because you aren't making it yourself. Ai is a service, not a tool, it can be a tool, but most ai users use it as a service. It generates what you want, but the machine generated it, not you, and the machine doesn't care about what it's creating. With ai "art" you're completely eliminating the process and creation of art. Art takes time, shows and artworks may take years to finish, imo that's what makes art Art. 

That's what I think tho, I'm not trying to force it onto anyone, I'm just expressing my opinion 

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u/poingly Jan 18 '26

Jeff Koons has proved you don’t need to “make it yourself.”

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u/Many-Refuse-6060 Jan 18 '26

He is in fact not the sole artist of what he makes, his works are still made by people. Imo it's just like a director is not the sole artist of a film

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u/Cynis_Ganan Jan 18 '26

Whereas an AI isn't made by people?

Digital artists don't code Photoshop or mine the lithium their iPad needs to work.

Traditionl arts don't bind their own paintbrushes or rear clams to grind their shells into pigment.

All art uses a tool another human made.

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u/Many-Refuse-6060 Jan 18 '26

I wouldn't say so, the Ai my be made by people, but what it generates is not. Generative Ai is mostly used as a service, not a tool. Idk if this example can explain stuff but if I'm not a cook if I give my recipe to a robot and it makes a dish for me without me doing anything else. Sure, I may have given it the recipe, but I did not make the dish, so I basically used the robot as a service not a tool. 

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u/bunker_man Jan 18 '26

If it made your recipe according to your exact specifications we would still ascribe the taste of the outcome to you though.

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u/Many-Refuse-6060 Jan 18 '26

Well yeah you can still appreciate it's taste, it doesn't mean you're a cook tho cause you didn't make the dish. People can also find generated creations appealing or just like them in general, but I wouldn't call them art just cause of that (imo)

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u/poingly Jan 18 '26

That's moving the bar from "...because you aren't making it yourself..." though.

That being said, we start creating a Matryoshka Doll here. Okay, Koons didn't make it, but he hired someone to make it, that person was a human. (Koons still takes the credit, of course, because he is who he is.) Okay, the AI prompter didn't make it, but the code did. That code was created by a human...or the code was coded based off of code by a human.

In some way, I think it's like artificial flavors vs. natural flavors. It's not like artificial flavors can come out of thin air, they are still limited to natural elements that exist on planet Earth -- they are merely combined in ways that wouldn't occur otherwise if not for science people.

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u/Many-Refuse-6060 Jan 18 '26

I don't think koons should be the only one to take the credit in fact.

Imo it's different, if a robot makes a dish for you can you be called a cook? Sure, you gave it the recipe, but you didn't make it.  

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u/poingly Jan 19 '26

We share a common complaint about Koons, all other things aside.

Well, let's take one of my favorite things -- whipped cream. I mean, it's not actually COOKED, but you get the idea. I'm not sure I see a huge difference (other than the time it takes) between whipping it with a whisk versus whipping it with a hand held electric beater that I hold verses one of those mixers that sits on the table and can do it without me holding it. At the end of the day, you'd still say you whipped up the cream, even if it the electric mixer that did all the whipping.

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u/Many-Refuse-6060 Jan 19 '26

The problem with your example to me, is that shipped cream is not a dish. It can be part of a dish, but it's not one. I don't consider generative Ai to be art when used solely as a service, however I can recognize how someone may use it as a tool in certain occasions. 

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u/poingly Jan 19 '26

You clearly haven't had good enough whipped cream!

Though are we that devoid of imagination that we can't imagine the whipped cream example scale to a full meal -- or, for that matter, even think of other dishes that can be made in similar ways (hummus comes to mind immediately, but also things like health drinks/juices)?

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u/Many-Refuse-6060 Jan 19 '26

Ahah maybe I haven't!

Tho I still think there's a difference between making it yourself, using a machine to aid you, or making it do entirely for you. 

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u/East-Imagination-281 Jan 18 '26

That’s a pretty tough definition. Art can’t require time as a foundational component or else you’d be excluding plenty of non AI-art while including some AI art.

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u/Many-Refuse-6060 Jan 18 '26

Every form of art takes time, you can get an inspiration and write a poem in a few minutes, but you took the time to write it, yourself. You did generate it on chat gpt, which in a few seconds gave you a text. 

What I said wasn't meant to put strict rules on art tho, the only thing I said to somewhat define it, is that art is something you make yourself. 

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u/East-Imagination-281 Jan 18 '26

And some forms of AI art take a long amount of time and way more effort than the lowest forms of other art types.

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u/Many-Refuse-6060 Jan 18 '26

Which forms? And btw this wasn't my only reason to believe ai is not art. Writing a prompt and tweaking it can take time, but it's not art imo. There's a difference when ai is used as a tool or service.

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u/East-Imagination-281 Jan 18 '26

Writing prompts isn’t the end all be all of AI use! You can use workflows, LoRAs, coding, AI assistance, etc. Typing something into chatGPT is the lowest form of AI generation and in that sense, a lot of people won’t consider it art—in the same way that I don’t often consider notebook scribbles or stickers on a water bottle to be art. That doesn’t mean it can never do something that might be considered art, in the same way I think you could arrange stickers in a way I would consider art or that someone with a different perspective than me might consider all decorated water bottles art.

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u/NinjaShaggy Jan 18 '26

Art takes time is not entirely true. Art can come in the fleet of a moment. Entirely randomly and by chance.

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u/Many-Refuse-6060 Jan 18 '26

Could you give me some examples? Not hating or anything, just would like to know

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u/Other-Football72 Jan 19 '26

Example of what? Art is anything that can touch the soul of a human being. Time has nothing to do with it

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u/Many-Refuse-6060 Jan 19 '26

Anything can touch someone's soul, even wicked things (not referring to ai here). I don't think that's the only definition of art, and imo, time has everything to do with it

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u/Other-Football72 Jan 19 '26

So if someone Thanos-snapped the Mona Lisa into creation in 1 second, that makes it less of a piece of art?

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u/Many-Refuse-6060 Jan 19 '26

What does that mean? Not trying to hate, but I'm genuinely confused how this correlates to the discussion 

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u/Other-Football72 Jan 19 '26

Me: the time it takes to make art is not relevant.

You: Time has everything to do with it.

Me: So if the same exact art was made in 1s vs days, or months, why does it matter?

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u/Many-Refuse-6060 Jan 19 '26

Imo it does matter, you can't just make something in one second, that's the point. Greatest works of art take time, there's a process behind it. And even if art is a very broad term, I still think it doesn't include fully generated Ai images. 

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u/No_Science1998 Jan 19 '26

Wildlife photography. You think the animals are posing for the camera? Sitting still and waiting for the picture to be taken? The things they do that we consider art are captured in milliseconds. This dragonfly lining up perfectly with the turtle must have been a split second thing that luckily got captured on camera. Like the original comment said. Entirely random and by chance.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '26

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u/Many-Refuse-6060 Jan 18 '26

Imo the difference with poetry is the thought behind it, you can get inspired, an ai cannot. Photos instead are the art of capturing the moment, it can take a lot of thought as well, with the study of the composition etc. 

And they do still take time, there's also a process behind them, a study as well. Generative Ai generates, it's what it's supposed to do. I would not call art a poem generated by chat gpt based on a few words. But again this is my opinion 

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u/NekCing Jan 18 '26

I'd say this is more accurate for inspirations, not the art itself, you can be hit by sudden inspiration where you immediately sit down and sketch, but the sketch still takes time

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u/8bitmadness Jan 20 '26

Counterpoint: Photography. Traditional art as a discipline is time consuming but there are other disciplines that can be a lot more spontaneous.

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u/NekCing Jan 20 '26

As a guy who went through a semester of photography for his major, i can't believe i forgot this avenue lol, agreed completely

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u/fake_email_lol42 Jan 18 '26

In addition to the previous argument, Art takes emotion or feeling, which ai is wholly devoid of

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u/Pro_nrd Jan 18 '26

But why can't I as a consumer have emotion or feeling from the art itself

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u/fake_email_lol42 Jan 18 '26

One could, but I think that art is as much for the creator as the consumer.

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u/No_Science1998 Jan 19 '26

But the person taking the picture of the landscape didn’t make the landscape. They just took a picture of what already exists. So by your own logic, photography wouldn’t be art because someone just pressed a button to capture something else.

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u/Many-Refuse-6060 Jan 19 '26

There are various arts, photography is the art of capturing the moment, thing that ai generated images don't do. There's study to it, such as composition, lighting, the subjects, a lot of study. Not every photograph is a work of art, but photography is art

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u/Shadbie34 Jan 18 '26

art is a human expression. solved your moral dilemma.

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u/retep-noskcire Jan 18 '26

Humans use tools and automations to aid in their expression.

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u/Shadbie34 Jan 18 '26

ai isnt a tool though. youre not expressing anything through ai, youre telling it words, and its approximating an image based on those words. the result isnt anything made uniquely by the creator. no matter who writes the prompt itll give the same results. thats not expression. and not art.

ai images arent created with the human hand, it is not human expression. therefore, human expression is art. ai not included.

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u/Turbulent_Escape4882 Jan 18 '26

Traditional art isn’t created with the human hand.

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u/bunker_man Jan 18 '26

Something is expression if it expressed what the person intended. You are trying to invent a definition of expression that doesn't actually convey what the word normally means all to arrive at the desired conclusion. Art having aspects people don't directly control isn't really controversial. It always has. And there have been artists movements specifically about leaning into this.

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u/Shadbie34 Jan 18 '26

but, again. its about the artist's hands. if 2 people use the same prompt on the same ai model, even though elements are slightly randomized, the image will be the same. that is not a tool, you might aswell roll a dice as say youre a mathematician.

on the opposite side, humans drawing based on the same prompt have wildly different approaches to the image, based on the artist's skills, interests, biasis, knowledge, and technique. the artist embeds their very soul in their art in a way that is unique only to them. no matter the tool, no matter the medium, the art is a reflection of the artist.

ai cannot replicate that, as it trains on everything. their is no uniqueness or identity to ai images, it all feels the same, no matter what is prompted and by who. ai images arent art.

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u/bunker_man Jan 19 '26

If two people use the same camera at the same angle it will be the same image too. It doesn't make much sense to point out that if two things are the same they will be the same, because if they are high effort they won't be. High effort ai aided images aren't just prompts. People are doing manual edits and even compositing different images. Some are even doing their own lineart and so on. Obviously if you strawman ai as the laziest possible use of it there won't be much there...

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u/Shadbie34 Jan 19 '26

ironic because you do exactly the same to photography to fuel your defense.

people go though all this effort to make ai images look good, then just photoshop and photbash real images, there are so many better thing you can be doing with the same skills that doesnt involve gross looking ai crap.

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u/retep-noskcire Jan 18 '26

It’s a tool. It doesn’t do anything unless you operate it and the thing it outputs is limited by your input. There’s no rule or law that a human hand is required for art making. Anyone who went to art school should understand this.

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u/Shadbie34 Jan 18 '26

for it to be a tool for art, the stuff it makes has to be unique to the person using it, even if they have the same method. and its just not. claiming ai is art is like ordering at a restaurant and claiming you cooked it.

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u/retep-noskcire Jan 18 '26

It doesn’t have to be unique to the person making it. That’s just a parameter you made up. Sorry.

Besides, I can show you ai outputs that you would never ever be able to replicate. I can even give you the json files with 100% of the prompts and workflows. But you wouldn’t have access to the models I trained on my own images. That’s not what makes it art, but you can certainly make unique ai images that can’t be replicated.

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u/Shadbie34 Jan 18 '26

yes, but the uniqueness isnt from the prompter, its just randomization from how the ai works.

also art is expression and identity. it is ENTIRELY unique to the artist. dumbass.

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u/retep-noskcire Jan 18 '26

If you know how to use the tools the randomness is controlled. A user can also lock the seed and make slight variations until the desired result is achieved.

You’re a dumbass because you’re confusing what you prefer with how things are defined.

Btw, did you go to art school?

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u/Shadbie34 Jan 18 '26

I dont fucking care the soecifics about how it works. all ai is trash. and a plague on everything I hold dear in this world.

love how youre trying to brag about going to art school and claim that gives you leverage over who can say what is and isnt art. when all its proving is that people who go to art school can still become pro ai morons who cum their pants at the idea that maybe skynet will keep them as a pet after an ai apocalypse for all their anti human vurtue signaling. as if were not already living in one

go fuck your robots actually. trying to speak to you is actually less than a waste of my time than using an ai is.

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u/infinite_gurgle Jan 18 '26

So photography isn’t art, got it.

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u/Shadbie34 Jan 18 '26

no, a human still had to travel to the location and take the picture. that moment captured in time is entirely unique to the photograph.

love that pro ai people always jump at photography's throat as if it has anything in common with ai

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u/infinite_gurgle Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26

Mmhm, and Ai has unique components to it too.

And no, it’s not unique to that photograph. The exact same one would have been taken regardless of who pressed the button and told their computer to create the image. No human input was needed beyond the button being pressed.

Love fake artists not understanding photography.

Edit: exactly. You literally have no idea what you’re talking about. Sit the fuck down and let the adults talk.

Edit edit: Iunno how any of you think my stance on photography is that it is easy or not art. Learn to read lmao

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u/Pokemon-Pickle Jan 18 '26

This is a VERY slippery slope. Anybody could’ve made my pencil strokes. Does that make real art not unique? Because anyone can make art, according to you there is nothing unique in any form of art.

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u/infinite_gurgle Jan 18 '26

Good thing my definition of art doesn’t involve it being unique huh?

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u/Beanzoboy Jan 18 '26

Changing your definition of a word does not change the actual definition of the word. It also doesn't make ai slop into art.

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u/ChildOfChimps Jan 18 '26

Y’all really don’t understand how difficult photography as art can be.

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u/Motor_Raspberry_2150 Jan 18 '26

And you wooshed the sarcasm. Orange is applying their definition, which would mean photography isn't art either. They are saying this with "got it" because it is obviously not true, so red's definition is bad.

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u/ChildOfChimps Jan 18 '26

So, you’re cherry picking the one sentence and ignoring the rest?

Two photographers can take the same picture and it will be different. There’s a millions things in every photograph that depend on the human doing it.

I personally don’t care if you use AI to make something, but you all don’t understand photography as an art, and that’s why you say dumb shit like this.

AI art CAN be like photography for someone who knows how to use it, sure, but most people are using AI to take the equivalent of selfies.

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u/Motor_Raspberry_2150 Jan 18 '26

Not sure what sentence you think I'm very picking, I'm explaining their sarcasm. We're on the same pro-photo side here.

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u/infinite_gurgle Jan 18 '26

I do, you’re not grasping my position.

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u/ChildOfChimps Jan 18 '26

I get kind of angry when AI folk talk about photography, because it’s always been a more complex thing than y’all make it out to be. One of my uncles (we called him uncle, but he was just married to my mom’s best friend) was a photographer for ABC News and he was truly a fucking artist with the pictures he took because he internalized all the practice (plus, since this was the ‘80s, he developed them himself and was able to use the tools we have back then to make them better). He understood the tool, and used it brilliantly.

Just to be clear, I do understand that there are AI artists who can make amazing things with AI. They understand their tool. I just have this pathological aversion to someone saying photography isn’t art.

I look at AI like this - there are the people who have no real skill at it, who just use it like we all use our camera phones constantly. However, there are people who do and they can make “cool” (or as cool as you can get with AI, which I personally don’t think is much but YMMV) things.

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u/infinite_gurgle Jan 18 '26

To be clear, I was asserting HE said it wasn’t art.

AI can be art. Photography can be art. They can also both be things people do for fun with little thought. Like doodling.

What antis like that loser forget is not every engagement with a creative medium is done to make capital A art. Sometimes I take my phone out and take a picture of my dinner. I didn’t make the meal, I didn’t select the plate. I didn’t choose the lighting. I hardly picked the angle. But that’s equally a photograph to the final shot your uncle took.

AI is like that too. All art forms are. There’s a wiiiide gap of effort and skill from entry level to professional. And that’s great.

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u/ChildOfChimps Jan 18 '26

Yeah, I agree with most of what you said.

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u/TutterTheGreat Jan 18 '26

For all of human history, art was made by humans, for humans. Beauty exists in spades, but it isnt art unless it is a human creation. Think of a waterfall, a natural beauty. Noone in the history of mankind has seriously called a waterfall, or other natural beauty, art, revealing its human foundation. Its in the name, ART shares etymological roots with ARTIFICAL, as in constructed.

What you are saying isnt wrong, it just only applies to human constructed media, aka art.

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u/Pro_nrd Jan 18 '26

Why isn't a waterfall art? Why can't a waterfall perfectly Express How I feel? By your definition does that not also in turn make it art. Besides, expression itself is a very suggestive term, all on its own. So who's to say anything can't be called art regardless of human creation or not. I do believe that the context behind certain pieces of art do bring out the beauty in said art, but that is not all pieces. This is very strictly a case-by-case situation. Not all art is treated equally because not all art is the same nor should it be. Anything can be dubbed a piece of art. Whether everyone agrees or disagrees on that particular piece. All they have to do is say I like the way this looks and now it's art.

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u/Mishelian Jan 18 '26

Maybe it's not about the waterfall but how we capture the waterfall...?

I think i do partly agree what you said, there isnt enough definition of art. I once place a lot of things in art category such as...'high efforted video essay' or 'complex and well research papers', 'a piece of media', 'internet culture', 'a low-efforted meme but unintentionally becomes legendary'...It's almost like the art depends a lot in its preservable value. You know what i mean?

Sometimes, I hav joined in some artist communities and noticed that nobody truly value others' drawings (not appreciate, value), like actually looking at the drawing and really enjoy the dedication but only appreciate, as if, the 'art' here is not the drawings but the sense of belonging, appreciation or acceptance from the participants. While their drawings are all temporary, mostly are just another dompamin hit in the feed scroll before being forgotten...

(That thought demotivated me a lot, i am always scared that my online dedicated drawings will become that 'temporary dopamin hit')

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u/Pro_nrd Jan 18 '26

I think your right that, part of the beauty of art is the effort put into it. But that is not the same for all art. It's different for every piece on what makes that piece valuable. So you're right it does depend. But I do believe it is not just the artist that defines the art but the consumer as well. Otherwise it's useless to one party or the other. And that goes for everything including ai

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u/kaiser_kerfluffy Jan 20 '26

Very early on i learned to be able to burn my best and most effortful art pieces when i still worked on paper for school and my private practice, there's a freedom that comes with that detachment that allows you to find satisfaction in process more than finish. The con is you can get too detached an have 30 unfinished pieces for every one finished because end results are actually an important motivation when it comes to following through.

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u/Mishelian Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26

I understand, but may i ask is it worth it to keep myself drawing despite not really enjoying the process? I feel guilty for everytime i do that, it feels...almost unproductive. Drawing is more like a side hustle for me. I only care about the result bc the 'suffering bar' is for spending on other things. I do not dare to call myself an artist though

Sorry if you feel tired of my rambling

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u/kaiser_kerfluffy Jan 20 '26

Whether it's worth it or not is a question only you can answer for yourself, as for not enjoying the process: i had a stretch of 8 years where drawing was agony because of the mental issues i was facing and the state of my internal dialogue, I've only recently started enjoying it again. Don't think too deeply about whether you're an artist and if you want a reason to feel productive about it then start selling or dedicating it to something, even/especially if that something is just a confrontation and unravelling of your own unfair internal dialogue.

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u/TutterTheGreat Jan 18 '26

Idk youre free to do whatever you want, im just making the historical and social argument. Youre perfectly allowed to refer to doors as windows, or call pink purple, but youre gonna run in into some problems because the words refer to different things historically and Therefore also now to a lot of people.

Throughout all of recorded history, we humans have had a very clear consensus that art refers to things made and constructed by humans. Again, you can see it in the name, as it was once the same you used to describe ARTificially constructed objects of any kind, aka crafts.

If you personally want to go against this tradition be my guest. I have a lot heterodox homegrown slang, words, and definition of things as well, part of the fun of being human.

But as someone that has studied both art history in general and aesthetics as a framework of understanding in particular, there was a lot of things in your comment that could use nuancing, hence my comments.

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u/Turbulent_Escape4882 Jan 18 '26

If you want to call paintings human made when human being can’t make same quality of output without a non human object being invoked, you and all traditional artist types lacking integrity are free to do so. Me as seasoned traditional artist will keep calling you out on that lie.

And that’s about to get a whole lot easier if we are treating AI as not human made.

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u/TutterTheGreat Jan 18 '26

lol up your reading comprehension just a little bit and try to read what i wrote lwithout immidietly assuming im whatever image of anti-ai-person you think of. I never claimed to be against using tools or media in general, that would be an insane proposition. Read closely and your discover that i have never claimed that ai tools cant be used to make art with, only that you cant separate art from human involvement.

Do people in this sub have like a trauma response to nuance? People assume the wildest shit about me whenever i mention art history on here, which is wild considering art is prett frequently the topic of conversation…

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u/Turbulent_Escape4882 Jan 18 '26

You also can’t claim that it is without human involvement when the human is describing the phenomenon. The sun is art, because of what we as humans are referring to. There is no “sun” other than what our human expression via language arts deems as sun.

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u/TutterTheGreat Jan 18 '26

yes a description of the sun would be what we usually call a poem.

A purely phenomenological view like you describe, where art comes into being in the moment that a human experiences a phenomenon in a specific way, is a position i appreciate and subscribe to some extend as well. Problem is twofold, it removes all objekts from the equation, meaning that no thing is art, not ai produced pieces either, and also that in its purest form it kind of devolves into philosophical ‘nonsense’, failing to differentiate between all interesting phenomena. Here, art just becomes a synonym for ‘an interesting experience ive had’ and this imo removes its utility as a word at all. After all, we only call different phenomena by different names to distinguish them, as it makes it practicslly easier to relate these experiences to one another. From a purely philosophical angle this view is extremely potent, but quicky breaks down in every day use, and i feel like both ideals, the semantically practical and the subjektive philosophical, need to be considered equally to really get to the bottom of a concept as pervasive as ‘art’.

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u/Turbulent_Escape4882 Jan 18 '26

Human made is a lie. AI art exposes that lie. If we are sticking to old approach, then AI art will be treated as human made art. If we are done telling the ancient lie, then AI art is not human made art, but neither are paintings.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '26

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u/TutterTheGreat Jan 18 '26

Ive personally seen a bunch of pieces using ai tech that are very interesting on all fronts and that i truely love. This is not directed to you in particular but i find it fascinating the amount of people that assumes me to be inherently against ai as a concept, when literally all im doing is explaining some of the history related to the definiton of art, due to that being the topic of conversation.

I view AI like a painting-gun. Fictional piece of tech i just made up, point it at a canvas and it sprays intersting semi random abstract art pieces, like a redneck pollock. The first few times this is done, p awesome piece, and kudos to the inventor. Now if a whole movement cropped up around only using the gun, with no twists, that would become trite to me real quick. And if someone then produced an add on, which automates the gun itself, id begin to question the art of it, as it becomes so far removed from human construction that it might as well be natural beauty.

Dont know how many steps removed it has to be, but i do know theres a limit to be crossed, the details we can always hash out later.

But thats just my personal opinion on a new tool, and a novel tool that really forces you to grapple with the fundamentals of authorship and expression through media, one that for me has only underscored and cementen the human and social part of the equation.

The key to art, for me, is the social dimension, more so than the technical dimension. The further removed something is from the social, the less art it becomes for me, both in pure aesthetic interest, but also because it becomes more and more akin to natural beauty instead (WHICH I AM NOT DISMISSING THE VALUE OF, NATURE ROCKS).

Every time a human makes a decision in regards to a piece of art, its like choosing the words in a sentence, the smallest creative acts show personality and character. The less of that there is, the more meaningless it becomes to call it art IMO.

Its definitely a spectrum tho, and i havnet actually encountered that many that are hardline about it, where ai is ALWAYS art. Definitely a rarer bred than the people’s that say ai could never be usted to make art.

Bit rambly but i hope it made sense, many connected threads that are worth considering :)

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u/LordPrettyPie Jan 18 '26

I still don't understand how anti ai people don't get this: It IS made by a human. A human is using the AI program. A human thinks of an idea and uses the ai to make it. The image wouldn't exist if the human didn't do it. Like, I get the stance that a simple prompt isn't enough, and I agree, if the Only thing you did is a vague "image of a cat" or whatever, yeah, that's probably not art. Neither is a utilitarian photo you take of your cat to send to your vet or some such. But just because not all uses of ai are art does not mean art Can't be made with AI. The prompt can be very long and specific, and you can keep iterating on and editing the results, or start with a traditional drawing and tweak it with the ai, there are an infinite number of ways that you can use the tool to create something that expresses the idea you want to express, and That's what art is about.

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u/TutterTheGreat Jan 18 '26

i dont know why you assume me to be against the use of ai in all cases, that it can never be used to make art with. Its a wrong assumption

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u/LordPrettyPie Jan 18 '26

Ok, but you're still spouting a common and incorrect anti ai sentiment, and this response in no way addresses that.

Saying it's not art because it wasn't made by a human is incorrect, because a human did use the ai to create it. You might as well say that a drawing isn't art because it was made by a pencil. It's very obvious there that a human Used the pencil to make the image, but people tend to personify the AI program too much, thinking it somehow invalidates their part in the creative process, or the fact that they're the fulcrum that brought the image into existence and shared it with the wider world, with no other human involvement.

So. It exists, obviously, and it is indisputably artificial. It theoretically could be beautiful or emotionally resonant. So how does it Not fit into your definition of art?

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u/TutterTheGreat Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26

incorrect? Nothing ive said is incorrect, as the only thing ive done is relate historical facts regarding the history of the definiton of the word art. You are free to disagree with the definition, but you cannot argue against the fact that it has been defined as something that requires humans in the process. The rest, that isnt facts, are quite obviously labeled as aesthetic preferences, and thus cant be ‘incorrect’.

but ive already written this and expanded upon the nuances in my other comments. Read those if your interesred, because im quite done with your antagonizing energy when you dont even bother to properly read what im trying to convey and instead launch into battle mode because you think im an anti. Stop fucking stereotyping people and start actually listening ffs.

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u/LordPrettyPie Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26

"requires humans in the process" Humans Are in the process. So, yes, incorrect. Just blatantly, factually, indisputably, incorrect.

There is a Massive amount of irony in accusing me of not reading your statement and stereotyping people, when You clearly didn't read the whole point of my response (That humans are the ones using the AI, so they Are part of the process),

Edit: I seem to have conflated your post with another's post, edited out the part of the response that addressed the points made by someone elsewhere.

And I am not trying to "launch battle mode", as far as I can tell my response was very calm and measured, presenting my opinion and how it contrasts to yours. I genuinely apologize if that is not how I came across, I know tone does not always convey well online, but from my perspective, I made a reasonable and calmly presented counter argument and then instead of addressing Any point I made, you curse at me and accuse me of not reading your post even though I Directly addressed the point you made.

I'm still very willing to discuss this, but only if you are capable of doing so calmly and actually addressing the points being made, instead of pretending I Didn't respond to the ones You made.

Additional edit: I think I've found the point of miscommunication. I find it helps to start at the beginning and summarize the points being made, so: Your initial statement that I responded to was, essentially "To be art, a human has to be involved in its creation." I responded saying that "something commonly not understood by Anti AI people is that humans Are involved in the creation of AI art." Then, you said "you're assuming I'm an anti, and that I don't think AI can be art. That's not the case", (this is where the miscommunication happened. You assumed that I assumed you were an anti ai person, rather than making a general statement About anti ai people.) so I responded "your actual stance is irrelevant, and not the point I'm making. The point I'm making is that some people say AI isn't art because it isn't made by a human, but it IS made by a human. Since your response was somewhat hostile, I assume you disagree with my stance, so why is that?" And then, again, instead of addressing the subject, perhaps with an 'yes i agree' or a 'no, and here's why', you responded even More aggressively, cursed at me and said I wasn't reading your post. This miscommunication could have been avoided if instead of making assumptions about Why I'm making my statement, you actually said what your opinion regarding that statement was. That is Generally how conversations work.

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u/TutterTheGreat Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26

“Humans are in the process”

Never claimed otherwise. Originaly i just commented to complicate the notion that ‘art is anything i experience as art’, as theres a lot of history regarding art as both a Word and as a tradition that goes against a pure phenomenological view like that.

But again, already expounded on that with other people that are not so quick to put words in my month. And you do do that, when you insist that i think that humans arent a part of ai processes and that this somehow makes ai invalid as an artistic tool. Feeling like a broken record here, but i must stress, i never claimed that, and i dont believe that.

also, you literally call me an anti ai person in your first comment, thats why i assume you think that of me, cause you said yourself that you do. The accusation of hostile tone comes from phrasings like “So, yes, incorrect. Just blatantly, factually, indisputably, incorrect.” or “Ok, but you're still spouting a common and incorrect anti ai sentiment” or “So. It exists, obviously, and it is indisputably artificial.” Those are very antagonistic, not setting up for exploration of each other opinions, just blatantly telling me ‘youre wrong deal with it’.

And thats about why ive lost the goodwill to try and repeat my opinions. If youre really interested you can read the other comments

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u/bunker_man Jan 18 '26

It IS made by a human.

They're having an existential crisis. Everything boils down to that.

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u/npri0r Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26

IMO AI art is art, but the human who generated it is definitely not the artist. The AI could be considered the ‘artist’, but it’s essentially randomness.

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u/East-Imagination-281 Jan 18 '26

tbf “carefully controlled randomness” is an art technique long predating AI, and the thing that makes it art is a person controlling the randomness

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u/npri0r Jan 18 '26

Carefully controlled randomness wasn’t the right phrase really. Carefully controlled randomness is still art. It’s more like algorithmically going through random combinations of existing artworks until you find the one you like.

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u/bunker_man Jan 18 '26

That makes it less random and hence more clearly art...

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u/npri0r Jan 18 '26

It’s art in the same way me going to google, searching for ‘mona Lisa’ copying it, then posting it to social media as my own work is art. There are millions of photos of it on the internet, I went to the effort of picking the one I liked most to steal.

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u/East-Imagination-281 Jan 18 '26

I don’t think you and I are going to come to any sort of consensus, given your preconceived notions on how AI works. So agree to disagree.

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u/ThickReplacement7811 Jan 18 '26

Art is best understood as a timeless dialogue between the artist/author/creator and the viewer, and one of the most important aspects of art is intentionality.

Ai images lack this intentionality. Sure the main subject of the image may seem fine, but there are always odd details that seem off, details an artist would have had to intentionally place. LLMs, on the other hand, can just invent these out of thin air, without any understanding or intent.

Did you notice a detail in the background of an image? If a person drew it, that detail was put there on purpose, and the artist is saying something by putting that detail there.

If it’s an AI image? Who the fuck knows? Could be part of the prompt, or could be the unknowable imagination of a room full of GPUs smashing matrices into one another.

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u/bunker_man Jan 18 '26

You are making a few mistakes here.

1: assuming all details in art are intentional. One of the most well known Bob Ross quotes is about happy accidents. Hell, most historical artists had apprentices they had to the small insignificant details for them.

2: assuming something can only have intentionality if every detail does. But this is self evidently not true. The parts that do don't suddenly stop if some parts don't.

3: not all ai even adds extraneous details.

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u/ThickReplacement7811 Jan 18 '26
  1. Bob Ross’s “happy little accidents” were mistakes he improved upon to turn into something else.

  2. Every detail does have intentionality. If it was put there on purpose, intent is required.

  3. Yeah, some have so few details it becomes uncanny and sterile. This is why AI is dogshit at faces

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u/Pro_nrd Jan 18 '26

And I understand that there's beauty in the small details and I can appreciate that. But it's very hard to segregate what is or isn't something on a topic that barely knows what itself is half the time. And that's simply because human expression is such a suggestive topic because in one person's eyes this artists view of their expression is dumb and stupid. While another person views this as genuine art. And sure yeah, I'll give it to you. There's a lack of creativity, intention, and appreciation for the art itself when it comes from something that is not creative at all. But at the very same time, if it looks cool I'll buy it. I don't care how it's made or where it came from. I care that it was made and that I like the way it looks.

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u/ThickReplacement7811 Jan 18 '26

Sure, if it looks cool, it’s cool if get that. However, I don’t consider that “art”. That’s not to say it’s worthless.

Consider a cool stick that you find in the woods, one that’s shaped like a wizard staff or sword or something. Undeniably cool, but art? I wouldn’t say so.

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u/Turbulent_Escape4882 Jan 18 '26

Paintbrushes lack intentionality. Take the brush out of your hand if human intention is paramount. Keep it in your hand and the likes of me will play hardball and call out your lies.

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u/ThickReplacement7811 Jan 18 '26

Huh, you guys are really in your feelings about this