As artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes the production and circulation of images, the legal foundations of authorship are being tested in unprecedented ways. At the center of the debate lies a fundamental question: who, or what, can be considered the creator of a work of art? Recent legal decisions in the United States have reaffirmed a principle that has quietly underpinned copyright law for over a century — that artistic authorship must originate with a human mind. As c

The article explores the parallels between Walter Benjamin’s 1935 essay on mechanical reproduction, Andy Warhol’s factory-produced Last Supper prints, and today’s rise of AI-generated art. It questions how authenticity, originality, and artistic authority hold up when machines can emulate any style, and whether the essence of art shifts in a digital age dominated by replication.