Art is not evaluated based solely on the isolated output. Intent, context, and human effort are fundamental parts of why people value a work. People calling an AI piece "bad" by default are responding to that lack of human agency and intent. The process is part of the work, so factoring how it was made into your judgment is entirely fair, even as the primary deciding factor.
A fair retort is that holding every creative output to this standard, like a flyer for a community fair, is needlessly critical. That is not an unreasonable position. Still, I think it is fair for one to believe that using an AI image is a clear low-effort signal that strips away the human element that makes community events appealing in the first place. And for commercial products: if your ad is low effort, why should I believe your product is not?
Again, that is not what is being described here: "knowing it was AI irrespective of anything else."
> And no - I don't think it's fair to call the art bad when in fact what you mean is you don't like the way it was made. Saying "I don't like AI art" is not the same as "This piece is shit", which is how it is almost always framed.
I don't really feel like you engaged with the point at all. You fixated on the original commenter's exact phrasing to dodge the argument: provenance isn't separate from art.
If someone strongly values human agency and intent, knowing a piece lacks both (in part, or entirely) is a completely rational reason to call it bad. Many would argue (myself included) that the primary difference between "art" and "content" is human agency, effort, and intent. The more the outcome is driven by a black-box algorithm, the more that agency and intention are compromised.
I'm not dodging at all - I'm providing the quote which makes your point fail to land.
What is being described is not "factoring". Factoring implies multiple datapoints were merged together. The quote demonstrates that only one data point was used.
You can see it again with "provenance isn't separate from art". What the quote describes is "provenance replaces art", which is prejudice.
A fair retort is that holding every creative output to this standard, like a flyer for a community fair, is needlessly critical. That is not an unreasonable position. Still, I think it is fair for one to believe that using an AI image is a clear low-effort signal that strips away the human element that makes community events appealing in the first place. And for commercial products: if your ad is low effort, why should I believe your product is not?