TL;DR The point is to create and enjoy the process of adding to the human experience and, with a bit of luck, get paid to do it professionally. Doing traditional work is participating in processes done for centuries if not millennia. Ai will not replace traditional. People still want it and will continue to want it. —The LONG Verson: I think the point of art is self discovery and self reflection through your chosen medium. I don’t mean this in any sort of philosophical way either. The point is not to be a human printer nor an idea factory that pushes out multiple iterations of the same ideas with a slightly different coat of paint. Art, whether it be writing , drawing, painting, dancing, acting: is a way to tell a story in your own human way. Ai, to me, is a means to an end. Not the end itself. Use it to ideate. Use it to come up with visual aids to create original work. It can be and should only be relegated to being a tool in an artists toolbox, not replace the artist. Do you have something that has never been seen before and cannot visualize it fully in your mind? Can you describe it in words? If so, then use Ai to create a base visual for you to build off of! Need some iterations of a concept done to get you started? Use Ai to make iterations then create your own thing from, not with, those iterations. Ai cannot create on its own. It cannot form original thought. All it does is scan millions of images, then regurgitates them into an amalgamation which to me sounds more like a glorified printer than an artist. We are not machines, and i think giving into the idea of Ai replacing artists or asking “why bother if a machine can do it better?” is giving into the notion that what artists do does not matter. Dont get me started on the idea of the “democratización” of art, which i also have strong feelings about.