Funnily enough people said the same thing when photography was first invented ("No one pressing a button and getting a perfect representation of the real world will EVER be called an artist by me, nor will their heartless imitations be called art.")

I don't want to defend current ai art but writing sentences falls under art for me even if they get adapted on their way to the final product.

Though I also think programmers, knitters... can create art.

An AI use case I think is OK and is art. Is using your own sketches and ideas and taking them to the finish by filling in the background or coloring/shading it.

Edit: On another note. Let's look at it from the perspective of an indie game developer using Godot. He programs his game logic finishes his sketches with ai. Generates materials with ai and maybe even 3d models in the future.

He won't hire artists. So they don't get paid. However he also uses insane amounts of open source libraries written by thousands of programmers. They don't get anything either. If he is kind they get attribution maybe some will even get donations. The indie dev could create something he would not have been able to create without these technologies.

A big corporation creating AAA games can also cut costs massivly. Absuing the work of artists by using their data without paying. These companies also take from open source and give nothing back.

I think the abuse of artists that is starting to happen, is very similar to the abuse open source has been suffering for a long time.

It's very much art, it's just not very good art if it's not well-directed, but you can certainly get there. I don't understand this gatekeeping like it takes anything away from human-generated art. It is, after all, still based on works made by people.

That said, I've met a couple of artists who could learn a thing or two from the AI stuff. 😅

'its not art." But here it is making you talk about it and feel emotions.