My favourite commentary of specific art pieces comes from Patrick MacGoohan who said (of a piece of modern art) "it means what it is."

Were John Berger here, I'm sure he would remind us all that art does not exist in a vacuum, but lives in a social context.

The most meaningful (to me) critique of AI generated works are that they deprive the artist of the benefit of the investigation. As media become more disconnected (intermediated), the reasoning path between urge and resolution is obscured for the artist.

Generative models are highly intermediated.

The purpose of art may be thought of as the effort to produce artifacts. But at a societal level it is a process to reveal "truths" embedded in commonly held "lies."

I like this specific piece in the same way I liked Duchamp's urinal. It makes a statement about art more than being art. And in concretizing that statement raises itself to the status of "art."

But if Duchamp (or anyone else) tried to pass off a second urinal as a second fountain, the impact would not be there and it would not be art.

Which is to say... I think the Bedminster piece IS art because of its context. But subsequent AI generated pieces would need to be judged on different merits.

If the Bedminster piece is indicative of the quality of output of generative AI, human artists have nothing new to fear.

There has always been the danger of art patrons subsidizing substandard public art because of budget concerns. This is just the next chapter in that story.

Bedminster is not known for its patronage, and it's unlikely that will change anytime soon.

Though yes, to the degree that generative models rip off existing artists, whirl it around in a convolutional neural network and barf up something... Yes, this is a prime example of what Massimo Vignelli called "visual pollution."