Anarchism

I'm not here to tell you what to think, but I actually think that both images are not art. In my view, the purpose of the banana piece is to stimulate this exact discussion, i.e. to deliberately exist on the boundary between art and non-art, so reasonable people can definitely disagree. I see you've been getting dunked on for your opinions on art, which isn't cool and I don't mean to police your tastes. But I do want to comment.

In my view, the banana stuck to a wall is performance art. It is presenting an ordinary banana as if it was art. It's quite funny 😆. But the banana itself and duct tape itself?...not really art. The image? Not really art. It's funny, it's definitely worth something...but it's not art. It's a banana. It's a random product of evolution, and the image is just a photograph of that with a piece of duct tape. (You could argue, perhaps, that the cultivation of that breed of banana is art...but that's not what's on display here. It's just a banana.)

It's not the same class of thing as a painting. In particular, it's not the same class of thing as a toddler drawing some crappy little scribbles. That is art. It's incompetent art, but it's art. I can't quite put my finger on why...but I think it has something to do with the intentionality of the toddler. It has to do with the fact that something is being attempted. There's a story to that toddler, what they wanted to achieve with that scribble, what they wanted to communicate if anything. You feel me? I'm not an art critic, so I am absolutely willing to admit that my opinion is a little imprecise.

Similarly, I don't think that the AI generated image you provided is art. Perhaps it is straddling the boundary since someone prompted it into existence, but it is not within the interior of art. It's compelling, it's aesthetically interesting...but it's not the same thing as a toddler scribbling on a paper. And if you were to eventually change my opinion on this image, you would basically have to convince me that you (or whomever was the person who caused this image to come into being) were more intimately involved in the creative process.

That doesn't mean you can't like it. That doesn't mean you can't even present it like art, critique it like art, or enjoy it like art. But I would argue that it, along with the banana, are not art. They're each some other category of objects.

I suppose you could then argue that presenting AI generated images as art then is a performance art piece, like presenting a banana taped to a wall as art. In my view, this has two problems:

1. It opens up the action as critique of posting AI generated images as performance art. And at that point...what really is the value of the performance, especially now that everyone is doing it? It's just...kinda generic from a performance art perspective. It's like the banana thing but consumes more water probably.
2. Most people are, frankly, not thinking enough to be posting AI generated images as performance art. They want the value of art as a product without putting in any of the time, effort, and creative energy to bring that art into the world. I.e., art is about so much more than making technically competent media. It's about everything; the techniques for sure, but the message if there is one, the medium, the imperfections, the stories of the creators, the creative process and its frictions, the historical moment, the technological landscape, the aesthetic, the meaning to the artist and the meanings that viewers get from the art...it's everything. Art is one of the things that makes us human. Its depth is unbounded. AI generated images cannot achieve this alone because AI systems are not truly intelligent like humans are. AI systems are tools. Sometimes they are useful, but ultimately they are not intelligent beings like us. They need a human (or otherwise sentient) touch. And the further the human is from the root of the creative process...the more the product is gonna resemble the nature of the machine than it will resemble art.

So I am not necessarily against the use of AI within a larger art project, but the idea of presenting an AI generated image to me with no further modification of the product...the first few times it was neat, but now it's taken over our culture. And it was never art to begin with. It was (and sometimes still is) a compelling technical product, but it's not art in my view. That does not mean you should feel bad about enjoying AI images or whatever, whatever makes you happy, but I do feel that calling unedited AI generated images "art" is a category error.

Again, reasonable minds can differ on this issue. I just want to offer my perspective.