I made these images using Midjourney.

The human creative process has historically eluded description. As American novelist and journalist Theodore Dreiser once said, "Art is the stored honey of the human soul." The 19th-century painter Vincent Van Gogh once said, "I dream of painting and then I paint my dream." For many, art draws from a deeper well of subconscious imagination. 

How, then, do we fit art created by AI into that conception of art? If humanity defines art, is it enough to reduce the definition to keywords typed into a generator? 

It's a question that's not theoretical any more. In late August, an AI-generated artwork won a state fine arts competition. Jason Allen entered the Colorado State Fair in the digital art category with a collection that he had selected from AI art generator Midjourney. The winning piece, "Th