[fwipsy]

Good artists borrow; great artists steal. LLMs synthesizing previous works doesn't mean they're meritless, because humans do the same thing.

AI is like a camera. Photographs can be art, but they aren't always. If you prompt an LLM only with "write me a novel," you can't take credit for the result, any more than if you took a cell-phone snap of the Mona Lisa. But AI can be used intentionally to create art, same as a carefully planned portrait photoshoot is art.

Art isn't a binary. Art is a spectrum. A creation is art to the extent that it reflects an artist's unique vision, not because of the tools the artist used (or didn't use.)