AI image generation discussion.
All this whole thing about AI image generation it's a very difficult topic for me.
Far from being a black or white case as most people want to make it, for me it's the most of the grayest thing ever, so it's hard for me to stand behind one point of view.
For one part, as someone who is a fan of technology and all it's advances, i think AI image generation is no short of a miracle, and a technology related invention on the part of things of the internet or the very microchip, so it's only natural for me to be interested in this thing and want to experiment with it.
On the other side, as someone who has creative ambitions, i totally understand the feelings of artists who amy feel a little (or a lot) of discomfort with this technology: the fact that it syphons actual art to make images that may appeal to a lot of people. I totally understand the feelings that this technology can be a threat to the lifestyle and ambitions of my artists friends.
And on the other side yea, i think it's kinda scummy and borderline cringe to go around social networks posting AI imagery, bragging about them like they were 100% original creations and people calling themselves "artists" just because they know how to write and arrange words in a text box, when they themselves can't place a straight line in a pieceof paper.
I think there's really nothing to gain from shielding oneself trom a type of technology AND also there's nothing to gain to try to promote a view that tries to force other people to think and act against any of the two sides of this coin. Being all bitter about it just because people cand use it wrong, it can happen with a lot of things so i think the one thing one can do is to be as ethical and concious as possible when using it.
For one thing, you see that i post regularly AI images in this account and in the other, but i try to limit the visibility of it as to not steal away visibility from real artists on the internet, and also try to explicity label it as images created using AI, and as such, i take absolutely no creative rights or authorship about them. It's the least i can do.
And of course, none of this means that i'm stopping doing blender shit, remember that i'm on a holiday and will resume blenderings as soon as the start of next year, i am actually slowly working on a scene that some people have seen and i think it's coming together fine, and have a couple of others planned.
As the last part, are AI images art? My opinion is almost entirely a hard NO. Because it is certain that the person crafting a prompt has to have certain creativity when thinking on an image theme and elements, theres ZERO artistic craft put on the actual images.
I've said it before but prompting an image to an AI, for me it's more on the side of engineering rather on the artistic side. Because you can ask an artist to paint exactly the same picture three times, and those three times the image will be different, but in the case of AI, you have the same parameters (prompt, seed, CFG, etc) and you will get the exact same image.
@AshChapelsGhost even if an AI can somehow think on ideas on it's own (which maybe it can do now since you can still get kinda concise images even if you leave the prompt box empty), i don't think it would be true art since the images are literally pulled out of thin air. A true piece of art always has artistic craft and skill, even if it's computer-aided using tablets and the likes, but the images do not appear out of the blue thanks to algorythms, so yeah.
I think real art lies exactly in the balance of ideas and skill.
I've seen posted images like "This person recreates this hiper realistic image of an eye with a pencil", and yea, impressive and all but, it's all skill put only in copying one thing with barely any creativity behind it. It's pure skill with no idea behind.
On the other side, if you have the most innovative idea for an image / story / etc, you push some buttons and in record time the AI spits out several near finished projects that mostly resembled what you asked it for, can we call also true artistry of this? Could the person be proud of the final result even if it put very little effort into it?.
I think what makes something a piece of ART is the balance between creative ideas, skillfull interpretation, and the IMPERFECT nature of the human being, the fact that we as humans are imperfect and we aren't gonna pull out perfect things ever is what makes a hadcrafted image/book/song/etc more valuable than just asking a computer to generate it for you, that's IMHO.
I also hold with your contention that prompting an AI is more akin to engineering than artistry, no more different than solving a problem about how to run wiring in your house.
I would like to revisit this discussion if sapience is confirmed in an AI in the future, but your argument is excellent and unassailable.
@AshChapelsGhost glad we can have a good conversation about it 
of course this is just regarding the notion of artistry behind AI generated images, which i'm not convinced about it, but i understand it's impact as technology and on the field of art which is undeniable and i think that a lot of things are gonna change because of it.
The long answer:
I'm not sure I agree. Human sapience, the ability to plan, to explore our imaginations, and to communicate what we know to other humans as well as to future generations render us unique among animals. While current AIs might be able to plan and communicate, they have no imagination, nor any sapience. They look at a picture and it's meaningless to them because there's no real mind behind what they're doing, just working with a decision tree.
With sapience, imagination might follow, and once there is imagination, it becomes art. Sonny from I, Robot (the movie), for example, in drawing the thing he dreams about, is creating art. Stable Diffusion is incapable of creating art because it has no imagination of its own. If you don't prompt it, it attempts to create something spontaneously by running down its decision tree.
Artistic craft and skill are good at facilitating the imagination, but the imagination is an important part of making the art. Otherwise, it's just skillful reproduction. It's why human art has value. No machine has a bright, burning mind behind it, moving pixels around. The painter, the sketch artist, the 3D modeler, the novelist, the architect? Those are true artists, as their human minds are rich with thought and imagination. Their work has meaning.
I dunno. I spent a lot of words to say my tl;dr.