Hm, can you elaborate further? I don't think you've supported in your point in that you say that AI art can achieve the same subjective outcome of invoking emotion and getting a person to think, but you concluded that it's not the same.

I feel like there's a finer point you want to make but haven't gotten across yet.

some art is meant to get you to think
some art is meant to fill a gap on a wall

i don’t think a poster from ikea is meant to get you to think. a live laugh love slogan isn’t even creative (any more; maybe the first one was?)

there’s lots of things that visuals are meant to do, and get you to think is just 1 of them

I agree, but alot of people don't see it that way. As an example, Sakimichan is a very popular artist, they have been active for like 20 years now, maybe more. As a result they had alot of art on the web. Their style was shnthed a lot, without their permission. If you generate art, you're very likely to get something that looks like their art as a result.

They cannot keep up with the instant result of AI art synching their stuff. They used to just do tasteful pinups. Now they are doing full on porn in order to compete with the AI blight on their career. And it's very obvious to me that they do not enjoy drawing that kind of stuff.

Sakimichan is not the only one seeing the fallout of AI art, a lot of artists are having trouble. And it is getting harder and harder to tell what is made by AI. Then you have photoshop's thing that can enhance your art with AI...whatever thst means. Art communities have joked for years that PS had a "make art better" button when asked how people draw so well. Now it actually has one.

True artists create their own pigments from scratch and harvests their own minks for brushes. Anyone who uses pre-made paints is a fraud!

AI is another tool and while it won't be artistic on its own, art can made using AI just like any other tool. Just like Clipart, spiralgraphs, and paint can be used to make quality art or just random crap.

The main problem is the copyright infringement since it is basically a more technical version of tracing someone else's work.

I'll agree that AI isn't art, in the same way a paintbrush isn't art or photoshop isn't art. It's a tool that can be used to create art. I think a fascinating application of it is when Corridor Digital worked it into a creative pipeline to make their Anime Rock Paper Scissors video.

That being said, the shareholders don't see AI that way. They see it as a way to copy the unique art style and aesthetic of another artist without paying that artist for the years they spent getting good at making their art.