AI Art Is Trash: Why AI-Generated Designs Are Theft, Not Talent
AI might be great for some things—meal planning, work calendars, or spitting out quick grocery lists—but let’s get something straight: using AI to create art and designs is absolute trash. If you’re typing a few words into an AI generator, slapping some text on the image, and calling yourself a “designer,” you’re not a designer. You’re stealing. Period.
This isn’t just an opinion; it’s the truth. Here’s why AI-generated art is unethical, lazy, and straight-up theft.
1. AI Art Is Built on Stolen Work
AI doesn’t “create” anything original. These tools are trained on millions of real artists’ works—without permission, without credit, and without payment.
Every “vintage floral illustration,” “grunge t-shirt design,” or “realistic fantasy painting” an AI spits out is basically a digital Frankenstein monster, stitched together from real people’s hard work.
If you take an artist’s work, cut it up, rearrange it, and claim it as your own—that’s theft. AI just does the stealing for you.
2. AI-Generated Designs Are Soulless and Lazy
Real designers study color theory, composition, typography, and how to tell a story through visuals. We pour hours (and years of practice) into learning the craft.
Typing “retro 80s logo with neon palm trees” into an AI tool isn’t design. It’s lazy. And honestly? It shows. AI art looks cheap—soulless, flat, and disposable.
Customers can tell when something’s made with heart and when it’s just regurgitated machine garbage.
3. Calling Yourself a ‘Designer’ When You Use AI Is an Insult
If you use AI-generated art and call yourself a designer, you’re insulting every real artist who actually worked to get where they are.
Design isn’t just “making something pretty.” It’s about solving problems, evoking emotion, and creating something original. AI can’t do that. AI doesn’t care about your brand story or your customer’s experience. It just spits out a mash-up of other people’s stolen work.
Stop pretending that typing a sentence into a generator makes you a creative professional. It doesn’t.
4. If You Care About Art, Support Real Artists
AI-generated art is fast and cheap, but that’s exactly what it looks like—cheap, soulless, and disposable. If you actually care about art, support artists. Buy from small shops. Hire real designers.
And if you’re selling AI garbage while calling yourself an artist? Let’s be blunt: you’re not an artist—you’re just stealing from them.
The Bottom Line: AI Art Is Theft, Not Talent
AI might be useful for organization, research, or writing ideas, but for art and design? It’s trash. It steals from real artists, cheapens the industry, and encourages lazy shortcuts over actual creativity.
If you value art, respect the people who create it. And if you’re still cranking out AI “designs” for profit? Don’t call yourself a designer—you haven’t earned it.