Your original point was:
> This is the same level of arguing that only painting is the real art and photography is just clicking the button
And my point was that these two comparisons aren’t the same. They aren’t the same because photography is an art form and so is painting. They both have essence that I think AI generated art won’t capture.
For example, if someone showed you a photograph of a buffalo that had a bird also in the frame on a fence post. How would you react?
Then let’s say they go “oh well, I actually photoshopped that in from another photograph I took.”
You might be a little less impressed but they still took this picture of a bird.
Then instead of them saying they cut and paste the bird in they say “Oh Photoshop generatively added that in.”
I think many if not most people would think that’s far less interesting than the other two scenarios. Maybe you don’t, and that’s fine.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-45202-3 is a good read on this with regards to the “value” of art.