People are not the largest consumer of paid art. Corporations are, and corporations buy "art" based on price, not quality. This article puts a positive spin on AI Art, but the numbers themselves show a terrifying trend. What the numbers on this website don't show is how much less money will be going to artists.
So the largest consumer of art is treating it as a commodity. That infers that most artists are not a actually producing an important societal impact they are just producing feedstock for corporate greed. I think that makes them less "special" not more so.
Taste? Really? Have you not seen some of the horrible advertising art that companies have paid for over the years? AI just allows them to pay less for the same product. I am not talking about masterpieces. I am talking about everyday art. Let's face it. It is unlikely any of us are likely to be capable of creating a masterpiece. Let's face it. Most of us can afford masterpieces anyhow. That is why we have reproductions or photos on the actual art. These are not art, they are copies of art, so best left out of this discussion.
So you assert that the majority of Art that companies have paid for (and by your argument above the majority of art overall) is not worthy of the name "Art" and presumably those that produced it are simply hacks. So also no more worthy of protection than the switchboard operators, welders, typist and all those other employees who have been replaced by automation over the years.
90% of the people I know, with the exception of some of my wealthier friends who use art as an investment, don't buy art at all. They may buy it indirectly, such as in a Traveller book, but 90% of them have never bought a piece of art in their lives. Every single business that I have ever seen has purchased art for advertising, for logos, etc.
Art as an investment or art to serve a commercial function. So again art as a commodity.
So again, businesses make purchases based on cost analysis, and AI will always be cheaper. So, most of the commercial art market just goes away. Where do your human artists go then to sell their art?
The truly great portrait art, such as that hung in galleries was commissioned by private individuals as a boast or as self aggrandisement. The artist was held to a high standard and even the good ones were rarely wealthy as at the time their art was just another product, but at least there was craftsmanship. If the art displeased the patron it would be rejected and it would often end up being painted over as the artist couldn't afford to have such custom stock hanging around (and it is hardly good advertising to other patrons to have a lot of rejected work on show).
The artist starving in a garret was a trope for a reason. They made art because it was a calling not a profession. the non-commissioned works were acts of love and might never be sold in their lifetime or sold for a pittance to someone who "got it" and that is why their art is revered. They were craftsmen as well as they had to execute well. They even made their own paint. Now anyone who doesn't want a mundane job can call themselves an artist, live off the state while they "find their muse" and churn out poorly executed tat with mass produced materials and claim that the "public just don't understand my art". They will bemoan more successful artists as having sold out. They might convince a public funded organisation to take some of their work, but that is only because some pseud in the council feels art is "important" without having the faintest clue what good art is or what the point of publicly funding art is. Much of the public funded art lasts as long as the next administration and then goes into storage or is disposed of. Regularly, publicly commissioned art is hated by the public who ultimately actually paid for it (and would rather the money had been spent on a library). We have a national art centre in our town and this regularly has exhibitions. Many are fascinating but frequently these are utter dross. I saw an article recently about an artist recently whose performance art was cutting a loaf of bread but persisting for 12 hours until they cut through the table as well as a statement about perseverance and "the divisions in society". I hear "it is a conversation piece" and the conversation is usually "WTF". There are a lot of people faking it.
I know far to many "artists" who are basically unemployed but prefer to pretend they are special than just get the crap job many others of us had to before we found our place in the world. I know a fabric artist whose sewing is worse than mine. I was shown a lamp by a friend of the artist that was a fine idea and looked good at a distance but close up was bodged together from milliput and old fluorescent lamps, poorly executed, painted and electrically dubious. There are those who would say "but you can see the hand of the artist in it". This lamp was a limited run of 10, so not even unique, he had a good idea and then churned them out to cash in on them. I would say he sold out. My blood boils when I see beautifully crafted old hand tools and those with elegant functional design hacked up and bodge welded together into ugly lamps or sculpture and offered up in craft fairs as "art" pieces. These people might have had an artist eye and if they focussed on acquiring the craft skills to execute it properly they might even be worthy of the name artist. Maybe allowing AI to do the manual bit for them could make them appreciated as they can focus on the bit they can do well.
Then there are those who don't even have the artists eye, but some how have managed to delude themselves they are artists. I do not give a rats a%$ if those "artists" go to the wall. They should have been shaken out of their delusion long ago. Ultimately they will learn the truth and regret the time they wasted trying to be something they are not. For them AI art is a blessing as it may force them to find their true niche and a more stable source of income.
It has already been demonstrated that there is no logical fallacy and continuing to claim so is disingenuous. You are the only one who seems to think this fallacy exists.
Not to me it hasn't. He is not the only one.
Art needs to be protected from philistines, sadly many of those philistines are the pseudo artists filling up the world with their junk. Creative AI is a waste of energy, but at least it is not a waste of a human life.
