[kendalf89]

Art is the product of someone expressing themselves. It requires personhood and it requires intent to express one's self.

Therefore, unless you grant an autonomous AI personhood it can't create art.

However, one could use AI as a tool to express themselves and that would be art. But that's where I admit the line gets blurred.

[FraterSKM]

> Art is the product of someone expressing themselves.

While I agree, unfortunately to the majority of people, "Art" simply means "something that makes me feel something". Whether that thing was generated by a human or a machine makes no difference. In my experience most people, when consuming art, hardly think about where it came from/who made it/why they made it, simply on the feelings it evokes with themselves. And as we have seen through outrage algorithms, computers are quite good at figuring out how to create emotional states in humans.

[perching_aix]

I feel that on the other side of the spectrum is where things like idolization and parasocial fandom lies, so in my view, this is not unfortunate at all.

There are many flavors of this I can recall. One is voice acting in anime. I'd read episode discussion threads, and people would keep namedropping and discussing the voices behind the characters. Striked me and continues to strike me as just an extremely odd thing to do. As if these folks would go out of their way to ruin the immersion for themselves. Still, I don't mean to judge: they enjoy themselves whatever way they prefer.

Or recently I had a discussion with a coworker on being a fan of musicians and bands. He brought up an example that really surprised me: "so called fans will stare at you like a deer at headlights when you ask them: oh you're a fan of Linkin Park? what's their drummer called?". Or how there were so and so "cool" stories about some rock n roll musicians. These are beyond weird to me: I like (some of) their music, not them as individuals. I know nothing about them, nor do I really wish to or think I would be able to. (But then I'm also no "fan" of any musician in the sense my colleague described his idea of that: I feel completely uncompelled to be familiar with the entire discography of a band/artist, and especially to be obsessed with one in general.)

But maybe this is a generational difference. In any case, I'd be really hesitant to characterize this as just straight "unfortunate".

There's also a swath of cases where the expression in question is only a little more if even that than just a demonstration of someone's aesthetic or ideological preferences. I'm not sure how much art is in there - if someone were to call those expressions shallow, I'd likely agree. In which case, I'm not sure there's much to find unfortunate on this; it's only as unfortunate as much interest you (can) have in that person.

[perching_aix]

I've recently been presented the idea that art goes beyond its creator and involves its consumer(s) too. So basically, the expression goes beyond the one expressing, and includes those appreciating that expression.

But if we accept that, there's no need for the creator to be a person - since if you yourself are a person observing the art, the idea will still hold.

While I'd find this notion agreeable, I really don't subscribe to personhood being a requirement on either side of art to begin with. But maybe it's something worthwhile for your consideration.