I appreciate this point of view! My BA is in visual arts, but I’ve also leaned heavily into tech, programming as a hobby, etc.
I think there’s a lot of different topical threads at play when it comes to AI art (classism and fine art, what average viewers vs trained viewers find appealing in a visual medium, etc) – but the economic issue that you point out are really key. Many artists rely on their craft for their literal bodily survival, so AI art is very much a real threat to them.
But, when I first interacted with Midjourney, and seeing my mom (just an average lady) being excited about AI generated art, I can’t help but see it like photography – all of a sudden the average person gets access to a way of visually capturing things that make them happy, that they think look cool, something they saw in a dream but didn’t have the skill to create visually… and that doesn’t sound like an inherently bad thing to me.