iunno how i'm feeling about AI art. like, i'm generally not a fan of presenting lowered barriers as a bad thing, but something about any dickhead being able to conjure up an image that, at least at first glance, looks very technically accomplished (before you notice the stray limbs and mindfuck geometry) has removed so much of what made someone posting pictures online notable. there's not even the art of someone collecting memes and applying them in a way that is appropriate or interesting, it's literally just someone typing in the most thoughtless thing into a prompt and posting the image result, and thus making the presence of images online less interesting.
like, had someone tried to paint a surreal picture like that, it'd be fascinating to dissect, but because AI pictures are omnipresent, weird and surreal images are now just a sign of laziness instead of actual creativity that would invite contemplation. it becomes harder to just sit and think about how a strange picture makes me feel knowing it isn't any more reflective of another human being than the pattern of grooves in the paint on my walls - technically put there by another person but far more the result of the tool being used than any sort of creative process. and then knowing that i'm gonna actually pass over something that actually would be interesting because i assumed it was just another meaningless AI prompt.
paying four dollars for a glass of milk to own the libs