[jacquesm]

Something not being necessarily utilitarian does not mean that it isn't mainly utilitarian. There is knitting as an art form. But it was definitely mainly utilitarian at some point.

And this is how it goes with many things: at first we do them because they are utilitarian, after that there may be people who start using it as a medium for art.

> And so I'm not sure robbing AI generated images of being labeled art isn't a similar kind of snobbery, at least in part, with models just being a much more morally convenient punching bag this time around than other humans.

Then show me the art. Just one single image that moves you and that was generated by AI.

[perching_aix]

> Something not being necessarily utilitarian does not mean that it isn't mainly utilitarian.

In terms of extents, I'd say machine flight is about as utilitarian as animal flight. Which is why you don't see it differentiated in verbiage I'd imagine. I'm generally not sure where you were going with this.

> Then show me the art. Just one single image that moves you and that was generated by AI.

There isn't a single drawing (picture) that I remember to have ever moved me, manmade or machine generated, so that's quite the tall order.

For examples on AI generated images I see, that'd be on Pixiv. They're almost always tagged up and you can filter for (and against) them. And there are of course people who exploit this for harassment, because no good deed goes unpunished.

With the proliferation of AI, I saw styles, poses, framings that I haven't before there, as well as their combinations. Were they just underrepresented among other people's drawings? I'm not so sure - some are for sure referencing actual photographs instead, and some are assisted rather than fully generated. I did enjoy these greatly, even though they were not straight from the remotest figment of someone's personal imagination, and they haven't per-se "moved" me.

[jacquesm]

Ok. Thank you for the answer and the exchange in general. I suspect one part of the issue here is that some people are more sensitive to stuff like this than others.

For instance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_wsSIuv_po

Never fails to give me gooseflesh every time I listen to it. And where it gets interesting is that that is a cover of a piece by another composer, so it serves as a very high level commentary and compliment rather than an original and still manages to maintain a lot of the emotional content and adds new elements. The original is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE2O_yfgtBU

Adagio starts at 3:32.

See if you get a different take away from each. I find both beautiful but as different as jam and cheese.

There are drawings and paintings that move me in a similar way. And I'm sure there are people who are not touched by any of this. I've been steeped in art pretty much since I was a toddler, my dad was a painter (in my opinion not a very good one but that did not stop him from endlessly trying) and our house was always full of music, antiques and conversations about that stuff. This probably sensitized me in a way that I would not have been if not for that environment.

The interesting thing is: even bad art is still art.