A
dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it." - G. K. Chesterton
Was it the purpose of the inventors of cameras to replace painters? Obviously not. They sought to record light levels on silver in order to create a facsimile of a human's perspective of a single moment. In doing so, they certainly affected the world of painting (and in ways that were by no means unilaterally good), but their main effect was to create a new medium, in which a different kind of artist could work.
It is the clear and stated intent of the developers of art-generating AI to replace human beings. A new medium is not being created here, just a mechanization of an already-existing one. The designers of these machines wish to remove slow, expensive human beings from a tradition to which they have submitted, into which they poured their lives, which shaped and sustained their character, which gave them great powers and meaningful work. They are to be replaced by machine-herders, bot-whisperers, middle-managers who no longer need to bother with managing flesh and blood creatures, but rather infinitely compliant and obliging parasite algorithms.
A good human life is keenly dependent upon the ability to contribute meaningful work to one's fellow man. The great revelation of the last several hundred years was that meaningful work is slow and inefficient--and it has thus year by year been purged, pushing humans into less physical, less vital, and more abstract work, as the beautiful and community-sustaining crafts that once defined their lives gave way to cheap mediocrities and spreadsheets.
I won't pretend the battle isn't already lost. In the best case scenario of the current run of AI workers, perhaps digital artists will find themselves drawn back to negelected traditional media, in which they can make objects upon which the machine-makers have not yet turned their baleful eye (but I doubt it). As sold-out and shallow as the majority of art made for major industries today is, it is at least still made by talented human beings firmly committed to improving themselves through a craft that has existed for the whole of human existence. I weep for them, and I refuse to accept aid and comfort from their murderers.
It's essential in the moral life to be capable of drawing lines in the sand--to gaze past the present moment, perceive the direction of the wind, and decide when things have gone too far. Everyone must choose for themselves where these lines are--to others, they will almost certainly look arbitrary, because they are final-straws, not sea-changes. I will never use virtual reality; I will never again carry a smartphone; I will never wittingly use LLMs, or command AI to make art for me. No doubt there is some technology that I do use which could be compared to the above, and be cause for accusations of hypocrisy. So be it--I have been driven to this point, and I endeavor to go no further, whatever compromises I have made to date. I see where this is all going--this machine hates humans, and it will do everything it can to destroy them.