I've been putting together my thoughts on art in general, and I've narrowed down what an artist "needs" to have and should look to improve on.

The three key things are: hand, mind, and eye.

Hand means you need to have some kind of command and control over your hands to do what your mind commands. Like getting the right stroke for illustration.

Mind means learning a few techniques and then controlling your hand to execute the technique, like having knowledge of anatomy, or how to draw a sphere, or shading a tiddy. These first two are what art professors mean when they say "learn the rules".

The last one, and most contentious, is eye. It basically means aesthetic, or taste. Understanding what your taste is. Knowing when something looks right, or more importantly when something looks wrong. This last one is contentious because it's entirely based on personal preference. This vast disparity as far as taste is concerned is really what takes an artist from "draftsman" to "master". You CAN train your eye, but you'll betray yourself if you always just create mass appeal. For example, there are "rules" for creating the humanoid form. Proportion and anatomy stuff. But these rules are more like guidelines. True mastery of a skill is working within, around, and outside of those rules to create something new. Eye is what art professors mean when they say "break the rules".

So what is art? Maybe it's simply a form of expression, appealing somehow. That doesn't mean art has to be visually pleasing...it means it speaks to someone somehow. Even if it's just one person. It's kind of like magic in that way.

Are AI generated images art? (First of all, AI is definitionally not intelligent but that's besides the point). I would submit my opinion that images generated by AI on their own is NOT art. Again, art is some kind of expression we as humans use to convey a meaning or thought. What AI does when you input a prompt is simply use the text or image input and algorithmically find relations withing a "graph of knowledge" (that's an actual mathematical term you can look up). The training of an AI is essentially generating the reference algorithm so the system can find pieces and put them together. The actual work being done has nothing to do with human input other than some kind of description. There are no decisions to be made by a person other than the initial input. I do not beleive this makes that person an artist, nor does the result provide a work of art. And no, your prompt and workflow are not art either.

The work of art in that context, would be the system (AI algorithm, not the trained model) itself. I do think there is art hidden in science, mathematics and technology, but what the end user "creates" is not art.

If it's not art, what is it? It's more like a solution to a math problem, where all you did was type the question into a prompt and write it down. That's not you doing math, that's you using a system someone else invented and coded to claim you solved the math problem. It's hollow, and meaningless is what it is. Because of that, it is not art.

Is AI art ok? I honestly don't know. I'd say, gun to my head, no it isn't ok. Simply because it's using other's work without permission or credit. Is there a place for AI in art? Maybe? You shouldn't use Ai images for references that's for sure...but if there was a way the AI could output what artists were used to generate an image, it would be an interesting tool to help visualize a new style you may want to strive for? Maybe? Is that an ethical use? Idk if i would even trust AI to credit use correctly...

...

What was i talking about?

Anyway,

I don't know where you are in your art journey, but holy shit is it a roller coaster. Covered in shit at times. But as long as at least one person (you) enjoys the process or end result, it's art.

In a few more years I'll post another journal and we'll see if I still agree with the definitions here, or the AI images stuff.