Artist and former AI student soap box (but with some important informed distinctions):
Ultimately, what makes art “art”, and not simply a media artifact (clip art or a little 2-D icon on an advert) is the soul and intention behind its creation. Until an AI can make that determination for itself, AI does not make “art”, it’s just AI produced media.
Now if a human artist uses AI as a tool, which is fine, it MAY BE and PROBABLY WOULD BE human art, created with AI. And ultimately, some people will prefer the digital tool’s finished product to seeing the physical brushstrokes and texture of hand-made work, and appreciating that another human being’s hand made it. I would accept, as an artist, that AI-produced art, - with intent, conceptual expression, and soul - BY a human being counts as “art” but we aren’t there yet. AI as a tool is not granular and technical enough.
But just as Pop music today is comparatively (mathematically) less complex and unique than it was in the 1940s, 60s, or 90s, Pop visual art may become something similar where it’s just skillful re-hashings and re-digestings of prior work, guided integrally by a human.
Thoughts:
If you told someone else to paint a picture of an elephant balancing on a circus ball, who’s artwork would that be? What is the "work in artwork? How is someone painting it for you different than an AI creating it?
Though this gives me an idea for a fun thread. Kinda like the Guess the Card Game Thread how about we have a “Guess the Artist Thread”? Might be fun for us here.