It’s been a wild year for AI-assisted image synthesis and the discourse surrounding it. In an attempt to look at the present through a rear-view mirror, Sebastian Schmieg and Florian A. Schmidt sift through the highs and lows of #AIart hysteria on Twitter. By closely reading some of the most enthusiastic, hyperbolic, hopeful, hateful, and ridiculous hot takes on what it means that machines can now create photorealistic imagery of anything and everything, the two will map the outer poles and central conflict lines of image synthesis. And maybe they’ll figure out, once and for all, if AI will destroy or enhance TrueArt™, whether it is a gift for humankind or rooted in theft.