My position is that AI "art" is absolutely a loss and not a gain for humanity. It is unfortunate that so many HN users are output focused on this and believe that AI tool -> output is the equivalent to human creativity -> output. Art is not the same as making a basket or glass. There are aspects to those processes that are painful, time consuming and tedious and therefore worth being automated. When it comes to creativity the process is part of the joy, even the painful aspects.
I use AI constantly for work because there is no joy in me whipping up a script or code snippet for something that isn't intellectually stimulating, in our work saving time is a benefit and automating things allow us to focus on the aspects of the work we enjoy. And the truth is AI will often do my work better than me when given the right context.
When I sit down to write some fiction I do not have the same desire to skip the labour and get an LLM to do the work for me. This would remove the entire point of why I do it. My art, be it better or worse than AI art, is an expression of self. This is not a tool as it is for coding, the endgame here is replacement.
Frankly, I find that most of the people that seem so dismissive of creative people's concerns have never attempted a serious creative project themselves and fail to understand the 'why' of art in the first place. If you do not care about meaning, process, and the millenia-spanning conversation that art is then it makes sense why you do not see this as an issue. If you see music as "pleasing sounds" and have no interest in the expressive side then sure, AI art is for you, but then it's not AI art, it's AI sounds, or AI images. Content is not the same as art.
This post will come across snobbish but I cannot find another way to put it. I want to have an open conversation but frequently reading comments that paint creatives as elitist is frustrating when these concerns are genuine. Art is not something that can be optimised and measured, no matter how hard you try, and removing the human aspect is removing the entire point.
I can't put all my thoughts here and I'll save you all the rest of the rant, but as someone with a deep respect for both programming and art I am confident that they are not equivalent despite many HN users treating them as such.
One day I hope to formulate the argument properly, but for now I'll leave you with this.