Tools don't determine status: new techniques (the camera, the synthesizer, digital editing tools) were first rejected and later accepted as legitimate artistic media. AI is the next such tool — it expands expressive possibilities.
Human agency remains central: people set goals, craft prompts, curate outputs, iterate, and bring intention. Those decisions shape meaning and aesthetics just as much as brushstrokes or mixer knobs.
Novelty and emergent behaviors: AI systems produce unexpected combinations, styles, and forms that can spark new artistic directions. Surprise and invention are core to art — AI can provide material artists use to explore new ideas.
Collaboration as a creative mode: art has many collaborative traditions (workshops, studios, bands). Human–AI collaboration is another form in which agency is distributed but art still emerges.
Audience reception matters: if viewers respond emotionally, intellectually, or aesthetically to an AI-assisted work, it functions as art — regardless of the technical details behind it.
Intentional framing and curation: how creators select, edit, sequence, and present AI outputs communicates meaning; curatorial acts are artistic decisions.
In short: AI supplies novel materials and capabilities; humans supply intent, selection, and framing — together they produce works that meet the usual criteria for art.
The human sets the intention: they determine what the image should be (theme, mood, purpose). Without that consciously set intention there is no directed creative act, only random output.
The human makes design decisions: prompt formulation, selecting and weighting variants, post‑processing (cropping, color correction, retouching), and combining multiple outputs — all creative interventions that shape the work.
The human bears conceptual responsibility: the idea behind the image — its meaning, narrative, or question — comes from the human. AI supplies material; the human organizes it and gives it significance.
The human controls the process: iterating, choosing between alternatives, and strategically using AI capabilities are decisions that determine the result.
Control over final presentation: how, where, and in what context the image is shown (title, series, exhibition, description) are artistic choices made by the human that shape reception.
Legal and practical precedent: in many jurisdictions and in practice, those who make creative choices and shape the work are considered the author/owner — AI is treated as a tool.
AI is material and craft; the idea, intention, and decisive acts of creation come from the human. Therefore the (ideational) ownership of the image's idea rests with the human.
3 months