That's one of my problems with AI art. AI art promises to bring your ideas to life, no need to sweat the small stuff. But it's the small details and decisions that often make art great! Ideas are a dime a dozen in any artistic medium, it's the specific way those ideas are implemented that make art truly interesting.

I couldn't agree more; I love what you said in your other reply: "AI art punishes the viewer who looks closer"

I feel like AI art promises the ability to raise the baseline art available for people who want some artwork for some purpose from stick figures drawn in MS paint to something reasonably artful. The sort of things that would previously have been filled by a Google image search, ripping something off deviant art or just browsing a stock images / clip art website until you find something “good enough”. I think part of the problem with AI art discussions is we do these side by sides with “real art” while glossing over all the places where “art” is used all the time and doesn’t need to rise to the level of “something that will be displayed in a museum”.

When the quality AI images are created, like these in the post, that description doesn't really apply. If you hang out in those discords, you'll see people obsessing about details and inpainting things that don't look like what they wanted. The high end of results is very specific in the implementation.

Eh. That’s an artificial goalpost. Realistically, it’s a tool in the toolkit.