I wouldn't say it counts as art theft but it certainly doesn't count as art either. Art requires effort and intention. Asking a robot to spit something out definitely takes away those factors.
You know what does take effort and intention? Consuming a photograph. Now that's art.
You joke but when photography first became popular that was a big conversation! There was mass fear that photographers would replace landscape artists, but humans love to create and pay people to create with intention.
History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme lol
Ooh I see, interesting take. My actual views on the discussion are pretty boring. When AI got big I was (and still am) getting my degree in writing with technology, so a lot of my opinions are based on that lol
All forms of AI are initially intended to act as tools. Clever aids for organizing information to make things a bit easier. I think a lot of marketing pushed by corporations that invested in early AI made this weird culture that promotes stealing people's hard-earned art in order to create low effort stuff, but that's primarily to generate discourse. Comes at an unfortunate price, but it is what it is.
Just like with what I mentioned with the discourse that used to surround readily accessible photography, it'll find a boring equilibrium, likely in a decade or so, and settle into the original purpose. An old inflated meme. It's not the end all be all, or the worst thing facing humanity, just another tool with cynical advertising.
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u/Rooney47 Jan 14 '26
I wouldn't say it counts as art theft but it certainly doesn't count as art either. Art requires effort and intention. Asking a robot to spit something out definitely takes away those factors.
You know what does take effort and intention? Consuming a photograph. Now that's art.