You can make art with literally anything.

I once hooked up lasers, galvos, and a web cam with some band pass filters to make an interactive art demo where people could draw onto the side of tall buildings using a laser pointer. The web cam tracked the laser pointer and the projector I built traced your work and displayed it with persistence.

None of those ingredients would scream art at face value. It takes an artist to assemble them into something that captivates others.

AI is simply one more tool in the tool belt for an artist.

You might be talking about "prompting". Such as someone typing something lazily into ChatGPT and calling the output "art". I'll give you that. Without sufficient intention, taste, or curation, it's not going to hold attention.

I'm talking about tools for artists like these:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQaorWJETXe/

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQakfG2D3tN/

https://x.com/get_artcraft/status/1972723816087392450 (something I made)

Or tools for musicians like these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN2CQLZIlbI

Or even interactive art that leverages AI and involves the viewer, like these:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fW9LI6dwCX8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hnIPdVZK1A

I'm a filmmaker and I've made countless "photons on glass" films. AI tools are incredible at getting ideas out of my head and into yours on both a time and monetary budget.

I'm elated that Disney- and Pixar-level VFX are now within scope and that I don't have to be born as a nepo baby in order to direct a film with "Disney-caliber" visuals.

One last analogy using pre-AI tech: not all cameras produce art. We have them in our cell phones and can use them to snap selfies and food pics. But in the hands of the right person or under the right conditions, we might call the outputs of the process of photography "art".