Perhaps a more optimistic way of looking at it: When mass production became available to art, the idea of an "artwork" had to be abstracted from a unique piece

Perhaps a more optimistic way of looking at it: When mass production became available to art, the idea of an "artwork" had to be abstracted from a unique piece (Walter Benjamin gives the example of a statue of Venus, which has value in its uniqueness) to the idea of art as the output of some process. Each piece has no claim to authenticity, and the very idea of an "original" would be antithetical to its production. I think art will survive, just like photography didn't kill the painting, the idea of art might simply begin to encompass this new mean of production, which no longer requires the steady hand, but still requires a discerning eye. Sure, we might say that the "artist" is simply a curator, picking which algorithmic output is most worthy of display, but these distinctions have historically been fluid, and challenging ideas of art has long been one of art's function as well