Editing Openai/6972ace2-0ae4-8007-9392-57a315ba0ea5 (section)

=== Assistant: The fight over terminology is really a fight over legitimacy, so the best terms are the ones that describe what’s actua… ===
The fight over terminology is really a fight over legitimacy, so the best terms are the ones that describe what’s actually being done, not how offended someone feels about the tool.

A few that hold up under scrutiny:

Art Director
This is the cleanest and hardest to dismiss. It already implies vision, taste, iteration, rejection, and coherence across a body of work. Using AI doesn’t break the definition; it just changes the production pipeline.

Creative Director
Slightly broader, more conceptual. It emphasizes theme, mood, and intent over visuals alone. Works well if the output spans images, narrative, design, or world-building.

Visual Curator
This one foregrounds selection and judgment. It signals that the value lies in choosing, refining, and contextualizing images rather than raw generation.

Computational Artist
More academic, less punchy. It frames AI as a medium rather than a shortcut. This term has historical precedent in generative and algorithmic art circles.

Synthetic Artist
Philosophically interesting. It suggests synthesis across human intention and machine capability. Some people bristle at it, which is often a feature, not a bug.

Prompt Artist is popular but weak. It overemphasizes the input mechanism and undersells everything that happens after the prompt: iteration, constraint, editing, sequencing, and refusal. It plays into the critics’ caricature.

If you want a blunt, reality-based framing: AI-assisted artist is accurate and boring, which is often how language survives long-term.

Underneath all of this, the uncomfortable truth remains: no term will fully protect against bad-faith criticism. People who think “real art” must hurt to make will keep inventing purity tests. The durable position is to use a term that matches your function, then let the work demonstrate whether vision is present. Over time, the vocabulary follows the practice, not the outrage.