Why do people pay for art portraits when they can already take pictures instead? Shoot, clients often give artists pictures to use as reference to make portrait drawings. People can already add graphite drawing filters to their pictures, to imitate the look of a pencil drawing. But why do people still choose artists these days?

The reason as I understand it is because there’s value in having a portrait drawn by an artist. Its singular , flawed and unique, and the technique and skill behind the art gives it value. An AI artist that can imitate that but the end result will be as disposable as a picture taken by an iphone.

So I wonder if the “job” of the artist really will go away. People already don’t buy art for the end result, but the process instead.