Art is as much an accidental result of a creative process as it is planned. Both elements, chance and plan, are contained in works of art that are generally regarded as meaningful. Where only pure chance prevails, without some planning (or determination) one may see only splashes of colour on a canvas.
Where only planning drives the maker, the spontaneous, the unexpected is missing and the viewer feels neither surprise nor has many questions. A work that contains only the intentional can do little to surprise and irritate, a work that sets out to express only the unintentional will not get around that very part of the intention, to let this unintentional emerge. What energetic charge is contained in a work is determined by the artist, as you also mentioned here. Where someone creates a work that does not contain the artist's soul, it will hardly be passed around and perhaps only be quite "nice" to look at or listen to.
AI art, as it is made possible, can also be both. A thoughtless mind, basically completely disinterested in art, using the spontaneous random mixing of the machine. Or someone who integrates his soul into this process and pursues an artistically interested intention.
AI-generated art seems to me to take chance into the programme, after which an artist searches but does not actually search for it meticulously. But where nothing is deliberately sought and unintentionally found, there is no artist at work, but merely an operator, a user of technology. Basically, this does not distinguish AI art from art with brushes, paints and canvas in physical form. Where the soul is missing, it will not grab the viewer.
Art is a collaborative act in which artist and viewer (audience) alike give feedback. A work of art is charged with energy by the many, the soloist is unable to achieve anything if the many do not play back the energy they felt before in the contemplation of a work of art. Soulless art will also remain unconsidered in the AI-generated approach, so the medium basically doesn't matter.
As long as there are organics that give meaning to each other, all art is organic, even the inorganic.
The meaning, that is a part known, something we can understand, because otherwise art would be uninteresting with at the same time something we cannot understand, cannot really grasp, define, analyse.
This is an interesting insight. Just earlier I was watching this amazing video of a woman creating 5 pictures at the same time, drawing with both hands and both feet! You've probably seen it. But I questioned whether, at this point, it could even be considered art, instead maybe in the realm of 'craft'. She had mastered the ability to such an extent that I wonder if any creativity was left in her creations, or was it just routine, auto-pilot. And, does it even matter?
It at all seems to cycle back to this new-fangled Chat GPT which I have yet to try, but I've read about creations and I feel it's as transformative to the global society as something like smart phones and the internet, it's that terrifyingly powerful.
If we can get a bot to do what a lawyer, an author, a philosopher, a professor, a research paper, a student, can do in 3 seconds flat to a level almost indistinguishable from the person, where does that leave the human? A novelty on the planet?
At some point, we will be using AI ambassadors to engage with people, send out emails and legal documents, convictions of criminals and so forth, without any human involvement whatsoever. Students will graduate their entire course simply plugging in a dataset, and professors will upload into the AI bot for in-depth grading.
We might end up indeed trapped in a metaverse without even knowing it, where we spend our days appreciating art which was never made by a human, discussing it alongside avatars online with no human behind them while listening to music which no human had ever made or heard previously.
Is that an artistic space? Phew...