I wish that conversations about AI could be had with a shared understanding of the factors involved, because the more I interact with tech people, artists, etc. the more it becomes clear some of these people live on completely separate planets in terms of what they think AI is and does, and as a result their behavior ends up being based on mutually exclusive assumptions and sometimes even provable untruths.
I also want to be clear that this isn't exclusive to a particular position, either—there are people who make pro-AI arguments that are missing key components, and there are people who make anti-AI arguments that are missing key components
For example, there are arguments for and against AI that misinterpret or misrepresent what the technology is: these include arguments that it is or equates to a living being capable of creative expression (it doesn't) as well as arguments that describe it as essentially collage or procedural generation1 (it isn't), among others.2
There are also arguments that misrepresent what "the other side" looks like: pro-AI arguments assuming anyone raising concerns is a technologically illiterate fearmonger (plenty of concern is warranted!), anti-AI arguments assuming anyone exploring the tech must not value human artistic intent or labor (some uses are in service of human art and labor; I am not referring to DALL-E or Midjourney), etc.
It's a complicated field we barely understand the implications of and unfortunately for all of us the big players in the public eye are unethical shitheels.
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You can theoretically use AI tools to perform these tasks, but you can also use AI tools to vacuum a house and that doesn't make AI "essentially a vacuum cleaner."
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Frankly, those examples could go either way—"it's alive so it's making creative choices" / "it's alive so this is exploitation"; "it's collage and collage is art" / "it's collage and therefore literally reproducing copyrighted images"