> Is true art a hermetic endeavour which must be gate-kept to seal out the lesser folk?
Kind of. If everyone on the planet can paint the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, then it’s not anything special anymore is it? Especially if it reduces the process to asking the world’s most prolific counterfeit machine to do it for you.
Besides, if everyone could paint the Sisten Chapel, then we'd have works equivalent to the Sistene Chapell everywhere.
Why is that a problem?
That to me sounds like the opposite of a problem.
Used effectively, these tools are elevators, enhancing the capabilities of everything they touch.
Telling them to paint you a picture results in the word you envision.
Painting a picture with them is how you see mine
Is art then just the outcome? The artifact that was produced?
What's your criteria then for who is allowed to produce art? If allowing everyone to create it lessens its value such that it becomes worthless, there must be a cutoff.
If your goal is to ensure the continuity of human expression, limiting who is allowed to create art and narrowly defining art to great works kind of misses the point.