I've always been confused about this train of thought, because it seems to justify the opposite of what it's trying to say.
I mean, if the argument is people will use whatever garbage they have on hand to make art... presumably that includes generative AI? Look, I lived through four decades of people making art out of ASCII. My bar for acceptance for this stuff is really low. You give people a thing that makes pictures in any way and you'll get a) pictures of dicks and b) pictures of other things.
I don't think GenAI will kill human art for the same reasons I don't think AI art is even in competition with human art. I may be moved or impressed by a generated image, but it'll be for different reasons and in different scales than I'm... eh... moved and impressed by hot dragon rock lady here. Just like I can be impressed by the artistry in a photo but not for the same reasons I'm impressed by an oil painting. Different media, different forms of expression, different skill sets.
If all it takes to be a "real artist" is drawing proficiently, then every ai artist who has also learned to draw is a real artist and every performance or installation artist who can't draw is not an artist.
I don't like AI slop, but this argument against it just doesn't make sense.
i say this as nicely as I can, you dont need expensive and exploitative algorithms to make art. i dont really care if you say you cant make anything, put a pen to paper and draw. your terrible scribble has infinitely more value than anything a tech company's software can generate using stolen data. and after you crumple that up and throw it away, get another sheet of paper and do it again, and again, until your wrist snaps apart, and I guarantee you will not only have learned something about yourself but you will be more of an artist than any tech bro using chatgpt
How about people who need a camera to create their art? Are they less of an artist than a painter?
I'm sick and tried of people re-hashing a discussion that has been settled for almost two centuries. Yes, photography can be art. There's art in how you use the tool. Not all people making photographs are artists or are even out to create art, and then it isn't art, and that's also fine. Why are people having such an issue applying the same to AI as a tool, saying not "Your shit sucks because it's AI" but "Your shit sucks because you're a hack".