> That's normal for any kind of creative work. Some days it just happens quickly, other days you keep trying and trying and nothing works.

For me, the artist, sure. I've not yet had a day where Affinity Photo just doesn't have the juice, and I don't see the appeal. Photoshop, for all it's faults, doesn't have bad days.

That's the difference between the artist and the artists' tool. A difference so obvious I feel somewhat condescending pointing it out.

> I spent some of the 90s and 00s making digital art. There was a lot of hostility to Photoshop then, and a lot of "That's not really art." ... But I found that if I allowed myself to experiment, the output still had a unique personality and flavour which wasn't defined by the tool.

"People were wrong about a completely different thing" isn't the slam dunk counterpoint you think it is.

Also as someone else in that space at that time, I genuinely haven't the slightest idea what you mean about photoshop not being real art. I knew (and was an) artists at that time, we used Photoshop (of questionable legality but still) and I never heard this at all.

> The requirement for interesting art is producing something that's unique. AI makes that harder,

Understatement of the year.

> The reality is that most hand-made art is an unconscious mash-up of learned signifiers mediated by some kind of technique. AI-made art mechanises the mash-up, but it's still up to the creator to steer the process to somewhere interesting.

The difference is the lack of intent. A "person" mashes up what resonates with them (positively or negatively) and from those influences, and from the broader cultures they exist in, creates new and interesting things.

AI is fundamentally different. It is a mash up of an average mean of every influence in the entire world, which is why producing unique things is difficult. You're asking for exceptional things from an average machine (mathematical sense not quality sense.).