Thoughts on AI and art

You probably have seen the sentence that "AI art is not art" online. I personally am against AI in art (visual artworks, writing etc) but also, the sentence is false. Art is a pretty open term, and the definition of it has been debated for ages. Some definitions will exclude AI art completely, while others will include it. But I think that wether it is or is not art is the wrong question to ask. What is the meaning of "it doesn't have soul" in the first place? You could argue that art created to advertise some company does not have a soul either. The question should be about the ethics of AI art. It is a fact that AI companies took all the images available on the open web, and even pirated books to feed to their datasets. That work is protected under copyright law, but let's even pretend that intellectual property isn't a thing at all. They took the exact unedited work of millions of people, without their permission, many times against the wishes of the creators, and monetized it. I…