While it's true anyone can plug in a word and get a picture, the best forms of AI art being made today are being done by people who make hundreds, thousands of choices. I feel Chiang is speaking from an outsider's perspective as someone who has never exercised AI art. For example, an online friend of mine who makes AI cartoons, films himself acting through the motions we eventually see on screen--much like the motion capture of Polar Express etc--using cardboard boxes as props, deciding on camera angles, movements, etc and then when he renders it as AI there are trillions of other possibilities he's choosing from, from colours to stylistic choices, what to leave in, what to take out, happy accidents and moments of inspiration. Even with more rudimentary AI art, the process of selection, and iteration of prompts are, in fact, choices. While Chiang has a valid position, his argument about "there's no choices being made" in AI is unsound.

The very fact of using AI as a medium is, in itself, a choice. Chiang's argument would rule out much of the art world, including entire movements like abstract expressionism, where variables outside the artist's control complete the painting. Just because the medium involves randomness or computational assistance doesn’t negate the artist's agency.

In fact, it highlights their role in collapsing countless possibilities to arrive at something unique, just as Pollock did when he let the paint 'happen' yet still maintained creative control over the final outcome.