[Amahain]

Since everyone's weighing in, here's my take: I don't like AI art. We can go into the ethical issues surrounding it: it's copying the styles of artists who might not have given permission, it eats up a lot of energy and has an environmental impact (maybe not as much as crypto mining but still...), it can be abused by large companies to put professional artists out of a job... all of those are valid concerns. But even if we lived in a world where all the ethical issues surrounding AI art were dealt with, I still don't like it from an aesthetic point of view

It's not the uncanny valley thing - there are artists out there who use all sorts of digital tools to make very detailed and realistic images, and I'm all for that. I think what it comes down to is, knowing that an image was created with absolutely no effort beyond coming up with a prompt kind of ruins my experience of the image. All those DreamUp images on DeviantArt just feel cheap and soulless even if AI could get to a point where the images are completely flawless.

I think that, to me, the mindset of the artist, or at least the perceived mindset of the artist, is part of the overall quality of the work. I'm not good at mentally separating the art from the artist: if I think the artist is a jerk or a creep, I can't really enjoy their work no matter how good it is on a purely technical level (this mostly applies to music, film directors, or actors in my everyday life, but could just as easily apply to TF art and writing). With AI, there is no artist, so that intangible part of the artwork that feels important to me is completely absent and the AI-generated image has no appeal. I'm sure some people might think that's irrational, and they might be right, but I don't think matters of taste need to be rationalized.