That "AI art has no soul" argument keeps falling apart for me

I was in a local gallery in Austin last month and saw a piece labeled "generated by Midjourney v6" that made me stop and stare for 5 minutes. The artist told me they spent 80 hours tweaking prompts and compositing layers, which is more effort than some traditional painters put in. Why do people insist on judging the tool instead of the final piece?

3 comments

3 Comments

piperb931mo ago

Oh man, this is such a good point. I've seen people put way more effort into getting a specific look with AI than some painters put into their whole canvas, it's wild. Your mileage may vary, but the whole "no soul" thing feels like a shortcut people use to dunk on something they don't fully get. For me, the soul comes from what the artist brings to it, whether that's with a brush or a prompt box and some Photoshop layers. Take this with a grain of salt, but I think we're gonna look back at this debate and laugh at how hung up we were on the tools.

simon_coleman1mo ago

@piperb93 what defines the actual art part then, the effort or the result?

angelar571mo ago

Is there a point where the amount of prompt tweaking stops being "craft" and just turns into brute force trial and error?