Art, Culture & Artificial Intelligence

Are AI artists real artists? The definitive answer: “Yes”

Or you have to reject a whole host of 20th Century Artists

There’s been a lot of debate over whether AI art is ‘real’ art, and whether its practitioners are artists. Jason Allen’s “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial” winning the digital art category prize at the Colorado State Fair lit the powder keg under that discussion. It’s fair to say many people are angry. But AI artists/prompt engineers, myself included — often bear the brunt of misdirected ire.

Thankfully, we have a close-knit, supportive community and most of us agree that there needs to be a fairer system to recompense those artists whose works have been ingested as training data (and possibly an opt-in/out). In fact, many of us want to train AI on our own art. We’re not just prompt artists: outside of AI we also paint, sculpt, draw, and take photos.

I could also argue about the painstaking craft, and often literally thousands of hours some of us pioneering in AI art spend finessing our skills. There’s a misconception that we make AI images in seconds. No, the generators are fast; but the best practitioners among us spend hours crafting our prompts, learning techniques, choosing colors, and refining our designs. In terms…