AI "Art" Doesn't Exist

AI “art” doesn’t exist. What I mean by that is that AI “art” shouldn’t be called “art”. You can’t type a prompt into a computer and call yourself an artist.

When we talk about art, we’re not just talking about the final image. It’s about the process, the decisions, the mistakes, the hours spent practising, the story behind the work, the emotion the artist puts into it – that’s what makes art feel alive.

Typing words into a computer is not the same thing. Here’s an analogy – you have a vision in your head so you commission an artist to create it. They create a drawing and it’s not quite what you had in mind so you give them some feedback and ask them to make some revisions. They revise the drawing and eventually they create the image you had in your head. You would never presume to call yourself the artist of that drawing. You’re an art director. That’s how it is with AI – you’re directing the machine. You’re not putting yourself into the work, and you’re not building the skills that make something truly yours.

 

How to Spot AI “Art” (And Why It’s So Hard)

The scary thing is how good AI is getting at tricking people. So how do you know when you’re looking at AI instead of real artwork? Here are a few clues:

Portraits

• Hands and feet are usually a giveaway. Too many fingers, bent toes, or a hand that looks like it’s melted into the background.
• Faces might look fine at first glance, but then you notice one eye is higher than the other, or the expression just feels… off.
• Skin and hair are often suspiciously smooth, or hair just disappears into the background with no clear strands.

Landscapes & Architecture

• Depth and perspective can look wrong. Trees blur together, mountains look smudged, rivers vanish into nowhere.
• Lighting is often impossible — sunlight coming from two directions at once, or shadows that don’t follow any logic.
• Buildings sometimes look like they’re melting. Windows don’t match up, doors are the wrong size, stairs lead nowhere.
• Repetition crops up too: forests where the same tree is cloned over and over, or skies filled with copy-paste stars.

Illustrations & Stylised Work

• Lines are inconsistent — some fade, some wobble, and they don’t look deliberate.
• Text is a big giveaway: AI still can’t write proper lettering, so signs and labels usually come out as nonsense.
• Details don’t stay consistent. A character’s clothing might change halfway across the picture, or accessories appear and vanish.

But what about digital art? AI is infamous for its smooth, airbrushed look, but so is a lot of digital painting. The difference is intent. A digital artist chooses that finish. Their brushstrokes, edges and colours are consistent because they’re making decisions all the way through. With AI, that smoothness just happens as a by-product of blending thousands of images. Look closer and you’ll often see surfaces that look plasticky, or shadows that don’t make sense.

Some AI images even have a fake canvas texture or shiny paint effect added, so you think you’re looking at a photo of a real painting. It’s incredibly deceptive.

 

The Moral Quandary

And then there’s the ethical problem. Let’s not sugar coat this – most AI image platforms are trained on other people’s work, scraped from the internet without permission. Artists’ styles are copied, their images chopped up and reassembled, and the results are then passed off as “new.” It’s not inspiration, it’s theft.

 

The Engagement Trap

You’ve probably seen those viral posts: a child or an elderly person shares their completely unrealistic, unachievable “artwork” online, with a sad caption like “Nobody liked my work, I feel worthless.” Cue thousands of strangers rushing in with praise and validation.

Except… the “artwork” is AI-generated. It never existed; it never will. These posts are designed purely to farm engagement, exploiting people’s kindness while drowning out the voices of real artists who pour their heart and soul into their artwork only to get no attention online at all.

Would people still leave all those comments if they knew it was just a prompt typed into a computer?

 

Why It Matters

Here’s the real danger: if people can’t tell AI from real art, artists get undervalued. Years of practice, craft, and passion are set against a few seconds of machine output.

AI isn’t evil on its own. But passing off its results as “art” erases the very thing that makes art meaningful: the human behind it.

When you buy or share work from a real artist, you’re supporting something no algorithm can fake — creativity that comes from lived experience, emotion, intention, and sometimes, even struggle. AI can generate an image, but an image isn’t the same thing as art. Art has a heartbeat and carries part of the soul of the artist who made it.