I've never liked the argument that there's some imaginary line between the acceptibility of AI as a tool for creating art and Photoshop/Krita/Procreate/etc as a tool for creating art.

Rubbing a brush on a canvas was good enough for the renaissance masters, why are we collectively okay with modern "artists" using "virtual brushes" and trivializations of the expressive experience like "undo" when it's not "real art" because they're leaning so heavily on the uncaring unthinking machine and the convenience in creation it offers rather than suffering through the human limitations that the old masters did? Are photographers not artists too then, because they're not actually creating, just instead capturing a view of what's already there?

The usual response to this is some trite response about how AI is 'different' because you're 'just' throwing prompts at it and its completely creating the output itself -- as if it's inconceivable that there might be someone who doesn't just shovel out raw outputs from an AI and call it 'art' and is instead actually using it in a contributatory role on a larger composition that they, themselves, as a human, are driving and making artistic decisions on.

E33 is a perfect example here. Is the artistic merit of the overall work lessened by it having used AI in part of its creation? Does anyone really, truly believe that they abdicated their vision on the overall work to machines?

Just because someone can drag and drop to draw a circle in an image editing app instead of using their own talent and ability to freehand it instead doesn't mean what they then go on to do with that circle isn't artistic.

I agree with you, and I frankly wasn't trying to reopen the can of worms about AI & art. As I said, I just don't like that particular line of reasoning about AI usage.

Like most things, art exists on a spectrum and there are many levels. Most would say a single pixel isn't art, yet at some point many cross some invisible line where it becomes art. Likewise, at some point a bunch of logic and pixels become a best-selling indie game. It's more than the sum of its parts, and I don't agree with saying that sum is suddenly less just because one of those parts was AI generated. The sum should logically be the same value regardless.

But then that's a very mathematical way of looking at it. Art and the appreciation of it has never been logical, but instead emotional. AI invokes negative emotions in many people, and so the art is diminished in their eyes. This makes sense to me.

However, I don't necessarily agree with this approach of yanking back the award. It reeks of horse buggy whip manufacturers trying to push back the tide. But then I've never understood comparing one piece of art to another and declaring one the winner. If art is simply something that invokes emotion in the viewer, and everyone's emotional response is different, it makes no sense to have awards to me.