I feel like the comment made by the author's friend captures a lot of my feelings on AI art. AI art is often extremely detailed, but that detail is often just random noise. It's art that becomes worse and makes less sense the more carefully you look at it.
Compared that to human art. When a person makes a highly detailed artwork, that detail rewards looking closely. That detail forms a cohesive, intentional vision, and incentivizes the viewer to spend the time and effort to take it all in. A person could spend hours looking at Bruegel's Tower of Babel paintings, or Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights".
Overall, I've never felt the need to spend the time looking closely at AI art, even AI art that I couldn't tell was AI right away. Instead of rewarding close inspection with more detail, AI art punishes the viewer who looks closer by giving them undecipherable mush.
Compared that to human art. When a person makes a highly detailed artwork, that detail rewards looking closely. That detail forms a cohesive, intentional vision, and incentivizes the viewer to spend the time and effort to take it all in. A person could spend hours looking at Bruegel's Tower of Babel paintings, or Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights".
Overall, I've never felt the need to spend the time looking closely at AI art, even AI art that I couldn't tell was AI right away. Instead of rewarding close inspection with more detail, AI art punishes the viewer who looks closer by giving them undecipherable mush.