they tell a machine what to do, and decide whether to rerun or tweak the prompt after seeing the result
Replace “machine” with “film crew”, “rerun” with “do another take”, and “tweak the prompt” with “provide notes”. If they’re giving notes to a computer or a person doesn’t really change the nature of their work, only the language they use to provide those notes.
Just like there are bad directors, there are bad AI artists.
And just like I’m sure there was a surge of bad directors when digital video made lowered the skill and cost bar to film making (see: YouTube), so to is there a surge of bad “artists” now that AI has lowered the skill and cost bar for aesthetic image creation.
I don’t think that some AI art produced by some random idiot is really art, just like I don’t think that making a backyard YouTube video makes you a director. But I don’t want to automatically discount something as art just because it was fully or partially made using AI.
But like I said, I don’t actually think this is an important question. If something is art is a question that everyone has to answer individually, and there will simply be no demand for things that people don’t view as art.
Instead the question is about who does AI help? Does it help people who might otherwise be unable to bring their creative ideas/vision to life? Or does it help a bunch of corporate overlords lay off a bunch of creative staff so that they can get big bonuses and pay their shareholders big dividends?