sight this is getting tiring.
Part 1 because i wrote a lot.
FatGTP:
Tools don't determine status:
Yes they do! That's why photography as art is a different medium than painting, and that's why digital painting is a different medium than physical painting!
new techniques (the camera, the synthesizer, digital editing tools) were first rejected and later accepted as legitimate artistic media.
This is false. The "camera obscura", the ancestor of the photographic machine, was used as a drawing aid tool from the mid 14th century already. The camera was invented explicitly to automate this use-case.
AI is the next such tool — it expands expressive possibilities.
This is false. It doesn't expand any possibilities other than pumping out content. Do not mistake content for art.
Human agency remains central: people set goals, craft prompts, curate outputs, iterate, and bring intention.
It does not! Training data become the central aspect! The properties of the output depend more on the training data than the prompt. Without sufficient training, a generative AI won't even be able to draw a circle, or write a coherent sentense.
Those decisions shape meaning
Thats also false. Meaning exists so long as a sentient being, a human say, meant (to do, to say something). Humans create meaning. Meaning pre-exists. It is not defined or shaped by decisions. Decisions are merely the product of what meaning is percieved by the human who takes said decision.
and aesthetics just as much as brushstrokes or mixer knobs.
Those things do not shape meaning. Words, brushstrokes, etc, CONVEY meaning! The meaning however pre-exists them, in the head of the artist.
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.
We call an algorithm that produces unexpected results, broken and buggy. If something produces unexpected results, it is not working properly. Generative AI is not that, however. It always produces results that are hallucinatory, in their nature, and that's why people can identify it easily and hate it so much.
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.
If AI is something you collaborate with, it automatically makes it a non-tool. But AI
is a tool! It doesn't have will, purpose, motivations or any of the other properties of sentient beings, like humans, that make us want to create works of art. It is used to automate processes. Its a very bad tool, but it's a tool. Not a sentient being!
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.
No it does not. If people hate something (an emotional response) that does not make said thing art. A theory (something intellectual, to which people respond intellectually) does not function as art either. "Aesthetically" is not a correct category for reactions. Aesthetics cannot be the level on which you respond. As a sentient being you can only respond emotionally and intellectually. (And beyond that, you can react physically, if you are a physical object, and chemically - but those have nothing to do with this beyond the fact they are also types of reactions)
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.
No they are not artistic decisions, necessarily. What you describe is polishing and presentation, and yeah these are importand, but they do not constitute art. A documentary is not a work of art, yet video-editing is necessary to make a good documentary. A youtube video about math does not constitute a work of art just because it was video-edited.
