AI Art Is Real Art
Synthesis and beauty makes art, not just the artist.
... I'm a professional photographer by trade. I can pick up a complex piece of equipment, tweak a few settings, aim it at someone and click a button and the end result is roundly regarded as "art" by the world at large. It's even legally considered art. Of course, it takes lots of experience and practice to get to a place where you can just aim and click and create something great, but a beginner photographer isn't not an artist just because they're new to photography, they're just not a "great artist".
So why isn't AI art treated the same? It absolutely should be.
But why should it be? Because, much like photography, with AI art your direct input can shape the outcome of the art in a major way, maybe even more so than with photography. Even though you may just "tweak a few settings and click a button", you're still the artist behind the tool driving the direction of the art. It's not at all "just the AI doing the work". You can put a camera on timer and it can shoot without you, but that doesn't mean you didn't take the picture, right?
There are two schools of thought at present: whether AI-generated art is 'real art', or isn't.
I lean in favour of it being deemed as 'real art', for two key reasons:
Synthesis. AI art can seemingly combine/synthesize ideas and concepts of the human mind, with mere prompts.
Yes, you could possibly use existing tools like Photoshop and Blender and scripting, together with complex workflows/pipelines and procedural generation, to achieve results that appear 'imaginative'. But it is not the same; those other methods are often programmatic, and still need human labour and hands. Any comparison of AI art to such existing tools aren't apt.
The artist is not the art. The presence of a human should be not an argument for whether AI art is treated as 'real art'.
I accept that the artist may be an element of the final art - it is Leonardo da Vinci's hand that led to the Mona Lisa, and Van Gogh's particular strokes that led to his Starry Night - and that their presence may lead to our further enjoyment of the final art.
But how does that make the art 'real' or not? Their technical ability can be replicated - consider the works of master forgers, who could replicate paintings to fool even the eyes of expert curators.
Further, whether something is beautiful or acceptable as 'real art' stands on its own merits, not by who made it, or how it was made. This is the same as with other mediums: writings/books can be appreciated independently of their authors (e.g. you cannot honestly invalidate a person's mastery of literature just because you disagree with his character); music can be appraised independently of their virtuosic composers; the brushes/tools of painters can be appreciated separately from their works.
There is so much to be discovered in the realm of AI art, and how humans will use it to aid, push or supplant existing artistic borders. To take a hard stance against it as not being 'real art' isn't sound.