>As Stable Diffusion and Dalle are clearly showing, art isn't a process of creation.

As current LLMs are showing, art isn't just creation, indeed. Making art is easy. We all did it as kids doodling on paper.

It also shows that if is very easy to be "slightly off" and have it tank the entire artistic integrity of the piece. It's hard to criticize a stick figure, we're very good at filling in blanks as long as the general details are there and the art style is consistent. It's easy to criticize a hyperrealistic drawing with a human missing a finger and light casting incorrectly on their body, because we spend every waking moment seeing the world around us. These are important artistic details with nigh objective natural properties behind them, but an LLM as is lacks that 3d data space artists have, since it learns from 2d art pieces that projects from a 3d world.

All of this is to say: LLMs as they are now are a great analoige for why pal world feels off. It has the right "creation" but the wrong "direction". That's why art directors who can explain that process are key (i unfortunately lack the eye and vocabulary to explain why exactly Palworld feels off, but I'm sure a proper art director can)

(p.s. This also isn't an accusation of Palworld using AI. Them using AI to make fully rigged/textured game ready models would be a bigger story than any of the sales news).

>Everything is inspired" isn't bad faith, it's facts. You can disagree, but it does capture the artistic process exactly

If you understand my above arguments, I hope you understand now why I call this bad faith. An artist is "just getting inspiration" as much as a programmer is "just using math", or a musician is "just hitting keys/strings". There are entire curriculums designed to break down why those keys or lines of code can make pleasing sounds or process some given logic. Likewise, we do indeed have art theory and artist studies to break down why art looks good (or at least, distinct). Again, not everyone can describe why something sounds/tastes/or looks good, an expert can and then applies it to produce more good stuff.

I don't particularly care about the arguments of "ripoff" nor "copycats". I care about emphasizing the work an artist puts into a style and why ripoffs/copycat look lower quality. It's a literal skill issue (or more kindly, knowledge gap).

I guess you can take offense to an artist "owning" a style, but that's a societal quirk. We love assigning namesakes as a mark of credit or legacy (even if the person the self is fictitious, "flanderization" is a favorite example). I wouldn't take too much stock to it other than that, I think we both agree that art styles can't be copyrighted.

>When Palworld is eventually used as inspiration for the next monster capture game, people will be saying that the Palworld art is 'iconic' and shouldn't be copied.

I'll take you up on that wager. I don't see the inspiration nor strong art direction for that. The only future accusations people will have for future copycats is "the gave an animal guns" or "they subjected animals to slavery". It will lose a bit of its edge factor the second time, though.

>Disagree, groundbreaking art is almost always judged as 'uncanny' by it's contemporaries.

Maybe in the grand history of it all. I feel in the last century of commercialization, and especially the last 20 years that art is used as a hook. Often misleading hook (it's easy to make a good ad banner. Hard to make a good game), but there's nothing more telling than a AAA key art making social media go a buzz, showing how instantaneously a certain style can resonate with millions. That isn't done by accident. Pandering, perhaps. But effective nonetheless.

What you describe still can happen (e.g. Klasky Csupo of Rugrats fame was and still is contentious. But there's definitely mode appreciation now for the grungy style than before), but most commercial art is made to be appealing by contemporaries.