I’ve been reflecting on this a lot recently and would love to hear your thoughts. With the rise of AI image creators like DALL-E and Midjourney, discussions often arise about whether the results can truly be labeled as ‘art.’
In my opinion, images generated by AI lack the human touch and emotional depth that characterize authentic art. When a machine takes prompts and generates images, there’s no genuine intention or personal insight involved. It seems more akin to sophisticated photo editing rather than true artistic creation.
What do you think? Can something qualify as art if it doesn’t originate from human thoughts and experiences? Or am I too rigid in my understanding of art?
I collect both traditional paintings and digital works, so this whole debate feels way too early. We’re arguing about the artistic merit of something that’s barely two years old. This isn’t really about AI versus human creation - it’s about us being uncomfortable with how fast things are changing. I’ve seen AI pieces that hit me hard and traditional paintings that did absolutely nothing for me. Where it came from didn’t matter for how I felt about it. What bugs me is treating this like it’s black and white. The best AI artwork I’ve seen involves tons of human work - curating, editing, framing it all. The artist picks from thousands of tries, mixes elements, puts it in context. That’s totally different from hitting generate once and calling it done. Instead of asking if AI art is real art, maybe we should look at what new creative stuff these tools let us do. The tech’s moving faster than we can figure out how to think about it anyway.
I’ve been watching this debate in my company’s AI research division for months. The arguments sound exactly like when we first got code generators - developers said it wasn’t “real” programming.
Here’s what I noticed though. When our design team started playing with AI tools, the results weren’t random. The best work came from people who actually understood composition, color theory, and visual storytelling. They knew how to iterate, refine, and mix AI outputs with traditional techniques.
One designer spent weeks perfecting prompts for a client project. Generated hundreds of variations, hand-picked elements, then composited them with her own digital painting. The final piece made people cry at the presentation. Was her creative process less valid because she used AI?
We’re getting hung up on the tool instead of the human making creative decisions. Photographers don’t paint with light directly - cameras do the technical work. Same thing here.
The real question isn’t whether AI can make art. It’s whether humans can use AI to express something meaningful. From what I’ve seen, they absolutely can.
Art’s definition has always shifted with new tech. Photography got the same pushback when it started - critics said it wasn’t real art since machines captured reality instead of human hands creating it. Now we accept photography as legit artistic expression. AI art still needs human creativity - you’re crafting prompts, picking outputs, and usually doing post-processing work. Your vision drives the whole process, even if you’re using different tools than traditional artists. People have real emotional reactions to AI-generated pieces, which shows these works can have genuine artistic value. Sure, AI doesn’t have conscious intention, but the human behind it does. Maybe we’re just seeing a new artistic medium being born, not traditional art dying.
I’ve been a gallery curator for twelve years, and I’ve seen this debate before. The AI art controversy feels just like when people freaked out over Duchamp’s readymades or Warhol’s screen prints. “Is this even real art?” Same arguments, different decade. Here’s what I’ve learned: the creation method doesn’t matter. What matters is the concept behind it and whether it sparks meaningful conversation. I’ve hung AI pieces next to traditional paintings, and visitors connect with strong visual stories no matter how they’re made. The best AI artists I know don’t just hit “generate” and call it done. They use the tech as one tool among many - mixing AI elements with traditional skills, critical thinking, and years of artistic experience. There’s clear intention behind their work. There’s a huge difference between an artist using AI to explore identity or technology themes versus someone randomly generating pretty pictures. The medium should serve the message, not drive it. Art history proves this pattern repeats. Every revolutionary tool gets rejected at first, then accepted once we figure out how to use it meaningfully.
This is like my dad saying electronic music wasn’t “real” music in the 90s. Look how that turned out lol. The debate seems pointless when someone uses AI to make something that actually moves you or makes you think.
