Ai "art". I will only refer to it as Ai generated content.
Ai generated content trained off of datasets that include copyrighted content of other creators without their permission nor compensation is 100% Bad. It is content theft. Ai generators WOULDN'T WORK without the direct use of other's content. Artists' works are directly used for this product. Whether a product uses one artists work or one thousand artists works without proper permission, it is STILL CONTENT THEFT.
Ai is not using other people's artwork as "inspiration or references" because as I have said before, ai generators wouldn't work at all without the use of other artists content. People's artworks are directly being used in the product that is ai.
Ai content generators should ONLY be using Public Domain and Creative commons content in their datasets. But they are not. They are using ALL content without any artists permission for it to be used in this product. All 3k of my artwork I have posted to devianart regardless if it was a commission, personal art, or one of my creative commons pieces are in the dataset being used in ai.
Aside from how messed up with Copyrighted materials ai generators' datasets are created, the use of ai generators are also abysmal. At first you can definitally see it as a Fun, novelty toy to play and mess around with. That's absolutely cool. It's a neat idea. However, ai is not just being used as a fun toy. People are taking Work in progresses of artists who art streaming and "finishing" them in an ai before the artist finishes their artwork. This leads to some real frustrating copywrite disputes, makes it so that artists will have to decide whether it's worth streaming live anymore before posting their content, eating at any revenue they may have gotten through streaming.
People are taking just dead artists content, not even burried in his grave yet (Kim Jung Gi), and uploading their works to ai against the deceased family's wishes. The deceased are being taken advantage of through ai.
The living are also being taken advantage of through ai similarly. "It won't effect jobs of real artists" except it has. Instead of streamers, musicians, etc commissioning for album covers or art thumbnails, a number have started using ai generators. Living artists are having their names used in the generators to create content. It's a step above people asking a cheaper artist to draw in X's style", but just straight up getting robots to do it for them. And even more so the folks who are opening commissions as an "ai artist" doing these things. People creating content in this way and selling it are just extensions to the art theft and Scam that ai content generators are.
The ai community is very toxic and manipulative regardless if the toy is neat and COULD be used for cool things. It's not being used in the cool good way. It's being used in the scammy and deceptive way. No permission for content to be used. No compensation for the content to be used in the product. No sources for the generated content of what was used in it. Often not even indicating a content is ai generated.