I just see it as another tool, ultimately. It's a shame there isn't more nuance involved in the typical discussion surrounding it.
On the one hand, I fully agree that a lot of AI is outright slop. I used to enjoy searching Google for fantasy art for inspiration when creating and writing characters. It's now increasingly difficult to find drawn art that isn't made by AI and some are very obviously full of uncanny mistakes, such as weird faces and hands.
At the same time, many other industries have been impacted negatively by the rise of technology. Artists are not unique on that front, yet many demand that AI is not used at all whilst demanding boycotts...even as I imagine they quite readily and gleefully use technology that has negatively impacted other professions. There's also a monetary bias to it, in that because artists stand to make money through commissions they are liable to speak out against AI purely on that basis.
I would, perhaps have more sympathy if a lot of the same artists lashing out at AI were not also prone to defiling established aesthetics in various settings, such as demanding that cool fantasy races are hijacked and redesigned to resemble the same demographics as modern day big cities.
