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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 22, 2025

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It doesn't matter AI makes me a better painter but I can't really have have said to have painted it. I find it really unfortunate you are so content to mix your thoughts in the AI's.

It doesn't matter AI makes me a better painter but I can't really have have said to have painted it.

How do you feel about photographers? Are they not allowed to take credit for their photo, given a senor put all the pixels where they are?

Or a digital artist who uses photoshop, which even pre-2022 was full of (and increasingly adding) algorithmic editing tools to streamline editing/digital art tasks that previously were done by hand?

How do you feel about photographers? Are they not allowed to take credit for their photo, given a senor put all the pixels where they are?

They can absolutely take credit for their photograph - what they can't do is call themselves painters. If self_made_human wants to call himself a prompt engineer, I'm not going to stop him.