Out of random curiosity, I have often asked such questions not only to Copilot, but to other AI solutions (Gemini, Claude, etc). Obviously things like these are a bit "hard coded." And they tend to come up with the same "mistakes".
IMO, just like some ethical matters —some other ones that have more potential to bring them legal trouble— I can see how the devs "force" some particular direction for these answers ("aligning", as they call it... but IMO, used in a not-so-great way, for this concept). Especially knowing the huge impact that this has on artists' livelihoods, the necessary theft for Gen AI to exist, etc, and the general social reaction against this. Of course an AI is going to say there's no wrongdoing in it!
But an AI made by a corporation, defending its money-making machine, is not the most reliable source for these matters. Not when it is an interested party and it has been said that what I described in the paragraph above does happen quite often.
Besides the described huge issue for art-related questions, an AI is not a "venerable oracle" that has the ultimate truth for everything. It has been demonstrated too many times that these things do not always pick the criteria from the most reliable sources. IE, they often are based on just reddits! Without needing to refer to the extreme of listing glue as an ingredient for a pizza recipe (and that happened), it hallucinates with many other smaller things. And it is never "the best source", as even when it does the right thing and at least picks first from Wikipedia content, Wikipedia sometimes is wrong (some non-revised document, and I am finding that even some of the revised ones!). It is NOT like academic studies where there's a consensus from the science community, historians, or etc. It will coincide with those very often, but not always. This is clearly one instance of that (and IMO, not by accident, which is much worse).
It would be interesting to go analyzing each of its statements :
[WJGO]
When you produce artwork from a prompt that I have authored, is that artwork art?
[Copilot]
Absolutely — it can be art. Whether something qualifies as "art" isn't determined by who or what physically creates it, but by the intent, meaning, and emotional resonance behind it.
False. This is fabricated and very partial. With that definition, which betrays itself (who or "what". Very intentionally added to give validity to AI as an "artist". A thing cannot have "intention" ! ) an oily puddle (it's a "what", a thing) from a truck could be considered art. But it is not. Like with the elements defined for a message to exist, by definition (art is a form of message/communication) there needs to be a sender, a receiver, and the message itself.
Also..."can be"... smart, lol.
[palette emoji redacted] Here's why your AI-generated image can be considered art:
Creative Intent: You authored the prompt, which means you initiated the creative process. That intent — to express, explore, or evoke something — is central to art.
I will repeat myself from my previous long email: Nope. A client (a patron) from the Renaissance would also be "initiating the process": becoming automagically "the artist". Leonardo...sorry man. Or much more mundanely, any client from today who sends a paragraph with the requirements of what they want for their dining room wall (or other project) would become The Artist just by writing what do they want and for which part of the wall they want it.
But hey...hmmmm.... I like Copilot's way of thinking! Then when I call the plumber, it is not him the skilled person with 30 years of experience in fixing huge problems with pipes! It is ME! I AM A THE PLUMBER! All these years. I can be now an astronaut (my intent is enough... no need for all those boring engineering studies and hard physical tests!) just by writing a prompt too, right? I will try that later. Man, my CV is going to look soooo much better pretty fast! Thank you!
/sarcasm.
And Gen AI defenders often use also the emotion that looking at something causes on the viewer....When a patron in any history period would order a painting from an artist, with the intention that it would convey an emotion in the people who would visit their house, palace, or etc, and the artist was able to create something that generated certain emotions on people, it was *not* the patron becoming the artist. As far as monarchs have had typically big ego problems, crazy narcissism at times, I doubt king Leopold II saw himself as the musician creating La Clemenza di Tito, instead of Mozart. But the king did write the "prompt" (or some servant did, I dunno, lol). He commissioned this opera. But he did not CREATE it.
Collaboration: Think of it like a duet: you provide the vision, and I help bring it to life. Many artists collaborate with tools, assistants, or even algorithms.
Wrong again (on purpose; it's clearly fabricated and partial). It is confusing concepts on purpose....That duet is better described as client + artist (but in this case there's no artist). But if we wanted to play along here, there is collaboration not in the execution of the art, not in the 99% of the work, which depends on the artist's criteria, skills, knowledge, expression, human experience, etc...when it is a real artist who does it. Also "I help bringing it to life". Nope...more like: "I plagiarize from a gazillion human made works". And... "I" would not be a proper subject for these matters, really, it is a thing (reason why there are so many issues with AI and copyright).
Yes, artists collaborate, when both are actually doing art (ie, shared canvas/murals/graffiti, etc), both are painting (or sculpting, etc). When a football fan goes to see a match in the stadium, this person is not the individual playing football, no matter how far the imagination can go for some.
Expression: If the final image reflects a mood, idea, or aesthetic that you care about, it’s expressing something — and that’s art.
Hmmm...Neither. If I throw some dices in the air, and they fall in a way that sums up a number that means something to me (like 7, if I had seven children), that is not art. There has been no artistic process. It was a random factor, not intentional, and there was practically not even intervention by me.
Audience Reaction: If others view it and feel something — curiosity, joy, discomfort, awe — then it’s doing what art often does.
The easiest to refute. Following this logic a baby Panda makes most people feel compassion or tenderness. A human disaster makes most of us feel sorrow; that won't ever be art. Many things can make us feel something (bad results in an exam, a letter of dismissal, taxes raising, etc), and by no means that is sufficient to match any (even crazy) definition of art. They are redacting some things internally in the code, twisting it to their interest, propaganda and convenient PR.
Also, AI is -as often- contradicting itself. There would be NO intent there, which itself had declared as necessary some lines above. And this statement makes it look like the audience reaction would be enough by itself to consider the output as art.
Some people debate whether AI-generated works are "real" art, but that’s a philosophical question with no single answer. What matters most is: does it mean something to you? If it does, then it’s already doing the job of art.
It has a single answer, and they know which it is. It is just not convenient for them.
And the concept is not as vague as it pretends it to be. Also, that something "does the job of something" does not convert such thing automatically to a particular entity (I can hold a hammer in very aestehtic ways but I won't ever be a carpenter...unless I train and study in that field, for years. Maybe not even if so). Then again, something that "means something for me" can be literally anything, and does not match any serious definition of art.
Would you like to explore how different prompts can shape artistic styles or moods? I’d love to dive deeper with you.
No, thank you. You have been so kind, Copilot. 
Anyway, I insist. I'm very happy that you and other people enjoy using LLMs to generate pics. Keep doing so!. But IMO it is not great to confuse concepts.
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(no big deal, though).
. My favorite ones are those that force the uploader to state that it was AI made, and that ban those users not respecting this.