AI art is folk art, and a revolt against the arts establishment – which is why they hate it

Left-liberals despise AI-generated art. Not because of the themes explored by its adherents (that would be akin to disliking canvas and paint due to the way Goya used them), but because, they say, it has the potential to steal work from artists. Both in the sense that it deprives them of opportunities, and that it uses their images, in aggregate, to inform its output. I suspect the reason for their animus is more culturally contingent than these pragmatic explanations suggest. AI art democratises a medium they see as belonging to them, putting the ability to create arresting images within easy reach of anyone with an internet connection. The monkeys have typewriters, and they’re not using them to write Shakespeare.

I first ridiculed the Taylor Wessing photography exhibition in the (virtual) pages of this magazine nine years ago, and since then its problems have calcified. An alien seeing the catalogue might reasonably conclude that race and gender are the only subjects we consider worthy of artistic inquiry.