“You’re Not a Real Artist”
The Dumbest Take in Tech Right Now
There’s a post going viral on LinkedIn right now. You’ve probably seen the type:
> “People love to ‘create’ with Generative AI. YOU’RE NOT CREATING ANYTHING. AI IS CREATING FOR YOU.”
It goes on for several paragraphs about how AI users aren’t “real” artists, how they have “no artistic skill whatsoever,” and culminates in the bold claim that “AI Artist is an oxymoron.”
Let me be direct: **This is one of the laziest intellectual takes I’ve seen in years.**
Not because the person is wrong to have concerns about AI. There are legitimate debates to be had about training data, compensation, and the future of creative work.
But this particular argument? It’s historically illiterate, logically inconsistent, and (ironically) shows a complete misunderstanding of what creativity actually is.
Let’s break it down.
The “You Didn’t Make It, The Tool Did” Fallacy
The core argument goes like this: If you use AI to generate art, you didn’t create anything. The AI did. You just typed words.
By this exact logic:
- **Photographers aren’t artists.** The camera captures the image. The photographer just pressed a button.
- **Electronic musicians aren’t musicians.** The software made the sounds. They just clicked a mouse.
- **Film directors aren’t creators.** Actors performed, cameras recorded, editors assembled. The director just... talked?
- **Architects aren’t builders.** Construction workers laid every brick. Architects just drew pictures.
See how stupid this gets?
The argument confuses **execution** with **creation**.
Creation is vision. Intent. The thousands of micro-decisions about what to make, why to make it, and how it should feel.
Execution is the mechanical process of bringing that vision into physical (or digital) reality.
**Every artist in history has outsourced execution.**
Da Vinci didn’t manufacture his own paintbrushes or grind his own pigments. Michelangelo didn’t quarry his own marble from the mountains. Renaissance masters ran workshops where apprentices did significant portions of “their” paintings.
Were they not artists?
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“But Da Vinci’s Paintbrush Didn’t Paint the Mona Lisa!”
This is the centerpiece of the viral argument, and it sounds clever until you think about it for 30 seconds.
The claim: Da Vinci’s paintbrush was “just a tool.” The artist did the real work. But with AI, the “tool” does everything.
Here’s the problem: **You’re drawing an arbitrary line based on vibes, not logic.**
What percentage of the “work” must a human do before they qualify as an artist?
- If I use a camera with autofocus, auto-exposure, and computational photography... am I a photographer?
- If I use Photoshop’s content-aware fill, neural filters, and AI-powered selection tools... am I a digital artist?
- If I use auto-tune, quantization, and AI mastering... am I a musician?
- If I use Grammarly, which literally rewrites my sentences... am I a writer?
The answer, obviously, is yes to all of these. Because **the creative decisions—what to capture, what to edit, what to keep, what to discard—are still human decisions.**
An AI image generator doesn’t wake up in the morning and decide to create. It doesn’t have opinions about composition. It doesn’t iterate based on emotional response. It doesn’t know when something is “done.”
A human does all of that.
The person prompting AI makes hundreds of creative choices:
- What concept to explore
- How to describe it
- What style to reference
- What to regenerate
- What to keep
- How to refine
- When it’s finished
That’s not “typing words.” That’s **creative direction.**
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The “Stolen Art” Misdirection
Here’s where the argument shifts from wrong to hypocritical:
> “It stole all of that inspiration from real humans without their consent, credit, or any compensation.”
Let’s be clear about something: **Every human artist “steals” too.**
Every painter who ever studied the Old Masters. Every musician who learned by covering songs. Every writer who absorbed the styles of authors they admired. Every filmmaker who referenced shots from movies they loved.
Human creativity is, and has always been, **remix culture.**
We learn by imitation. We create by recombination. We innovate by standing on the shoulders of everyone who came before us.
The only difference with AI is that it’s **explicit about the process.**
When a human artist is “inspired by” Van Gogh, we call it homage. When an AI is trained on Van Gogh, we call it theft.
That’s not a principled distinction. That’s just discomfort with transparency.
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The Real Issue Nobody Wants to Talk About
Here’s what’s actually going on beneath all the “you’re not a real artist” posturing:
**People are scared.**
And honestly? That’s valid.
If AI can generate images, write copy, compose music, and produce videos... what happens to the people who built careers doing those things manually?
That’s a real concern. It deserves serious discussion about economics, labor, transition support, and how we value human contribution in an automated world.
But here’s what’s NOT a serious discussion:
Pretending that AI-assisted creation “isn’t real art” so you can feel superior to people using new tools.
That’s not critique. That’s cope.
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A Brief History of “That’s Not Real Art”
Every generation has this fight. Every time.
- **Photography (1839):** “It’s just a machine capturing reality. Painters are real artists.”
- **Recorded Music (1920s):** “It’s not a real performance. Live musicians are real artists.”
- **Synthesizers (1970s):** “It’s not real instruments. Rock bands are real musicians.”
- **Digital Art (1990s):** “It’s just clicking a mouse. Traditional painters are real artists.”
- **Auto-Tune (2000s):** “It’s not real singing. Acoustic performers are real musicians.”
- **Smartphone Photography (2010s):** “It’s not real photography. DSLR shooters are real photographers.”
And now:
- **AI Art (2020s):** “It’s not real creation. Manual digital artists are real artists.”
Notice a pattern?
The “real art” gatekeepers have been wrong every single time. Not because the concerns weren’t valid, but because they confused **the method of creation with the act of creation itself.**
The tools change. Human creativity doesn’t.
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What “Creation” Actually Means
Let’s get philosophical for a second.
What is creativity, really?
It’s not the physical act of moving a brush, pressing keys, or clicking a mouse. Those are just outputs.
Creativity is:
- **Intention:** Deciding something should exist
- **Vision:** Imagining what it should be
- **Curation:** Selecting from possibilities
- **Iteration:** Refining toward an ideal
- **Judgment:** Knowing when it’s right
None of these require manual execution.
A creative director at an ad agency might never touch a camera, write a line of copy, or open Photoshop. They direct others who do. Are they not creative?
A film director might never operate a camera, edit footage, or compose the score. They guide the people who do. Are they not filmmakers?
A composer might use a full orchestra of performers to realize their vision. Are they not the creator of the music?
**Creation is about decisions, not labor.**
And AI users make thousands of decisions.
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The Compensation Problem (The One Legitimate Concern)
Now, let me be fair. There IS a real issue buried under all the gatekeeping nonsense:
Should artists be compensated when their work is used to train AI models?
This is a genuine ethical and legal question worth debating. It’s similar to questions we’ve faced before:
- Should musicians be paid when their songs are sampled?
- Should photographers be paid when their images are used as references?
- Should writers be paid when their work influences others?
We’ve developed systems (imperfect ones) to handle some of these cases. We’ll develop systems for AI too.
But notice: **This is an economic argument, not a creativity argument.**
You can believe artists deserve compensation AND believe that AI-assisted creation is legitimate creative work.
These aren’t contradictory positions.
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The Future Belongs to Centaurs
Here’s my actual prediction:
The best creative work of the next decade won’t come from humans alone OR AI alone.
It’ll come from **human-AI collaboration.**
People who understand both the capabilities of AI tools AND have genuine creative vision will produce work that neither could achieve independently.
Just like:
- The best photography comes from people who understand both their camera’s technology AND composition principles
- The best music production comes from people who understand both their software AND music theory
- The best writing comes from people who understand both their tools AND storytelling
AI doesn’t replace creativity. It **amplifies** it.
The people screaming “you’re not a real artist” today will look exactly like the people who said photography wasn’t real art in 1850.
Technically correct that the process was different. Completely wrong about what that meant.
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The Bottom Line
If you’re using AI to create things that didn’t exist before, guided by your vision, refined by your judgment, and finished according to your standards...
**You’re creating.**
Full stop.
The gatekeepers can die mad about it.