I don't think that AI image generation in its current form replaces human creativity. You still need a human to guide the process, compose the image, judge the output, etc. What's being automated is the manual, traditional process of painting and drawing.
I see this technology as more analogous to hand writing books -> printing. I predict that more people, not less, will be involved in creative industries related to visual arts (design, film, illustration, animation, etc.) as a result of this technology becoming more accessible.
I don’t think that was the point parent comment was making. I took it as all the skills you used to need for photography, like developing photos. Now you can point and click with a phone.
But everything else that goes into a good photograph, like what to use as your subject, the composition, post processing, etc is still important.
Now I'm just confused. How is photography not just what I indicated - something involving skill and art that it's illegal to copy and claim it's yours?
Yes, this is different from much of art history. Instead of coming up with original characters or styles or backgrounds and palettes, we just ask a computer to do it all and usually by copying somebody that can do those things.
Art will take a hit to be sure, and the brunt of it will be taken by artists with actual skills.
It actually kind of excites me to see what kind of human creativity will blossom in the wake of AI. What art will humans eventually create that is so unique that it's obviously not AI? That's the exciting part, but it could be a difficult/long journey.
I see this technology as more analogous to hand writing books -> printing. I predict that more people, not less, will be involved in creative industries related to visual arts (design, film, illustration, animation, etc.) as a result of this technology becoming more accessible.