so i mulled this over for a Long time before replying. this kind of irks me and i will explain why.

first, i have a BFA among other degrees.

second, i have been a professional artist in one regard or another for over 20 years, mostly in game development. that includes environment art, user interface art, 3D modeling, texturing, hand-painting textures, and a bunch of other digital art endeavors. In those 20 years, I have seen a lot of art production tools and techniques in use in production. And a lot of those techniques have been called cheats, short-cuts, or scams.

third, the artists that i have seen use these tools and techniques have produced beautiful and useful art, regardless of the methods that they have used to achieve a final product.

in the concept art realm i have seen photo-bashing, 3d render paint-overs, traditional concept art, and many others. the end result is always the same: a beautifully rendered piece of art that enables other artists and designers to attain a look, feel, or tone for something that they are working on.

fourth, this seems to come up every time a new tool or method arises. is a photoshopped photo really a photo? did they adjust they f-stop? did they adjust the color balance? if so, is that really a photo? capturing the image that a person had in their mind at the time they took the shot is the goal.

an expenditure of creative effort is enough for me. did a person spend time, thought, and energy into crafting this image that they present to me?

if the image is inspiring, interesting, or captivating, sure. i don't care how they got to the end result. if a person spent creative energy on creating the image, good on them. they had a vision and wanted to share that with you.

so does photo-bashing require a tag, does a paint-over require a tag, are those techniques deemed "cheating"? in production art, no.

as far as putting in the effort, each of those tools and techniques require a base knowledge of art, composition, and color theory to produce a captivating image. people that just throw junk into a prompt don't get these results. regardless of the mechanical skill of the person that constructed the image, there is a creative input that crafts some of these images. in each case there was creative input and manipulation in order to achieve a vision. creativity and agency were absolutely ingredients in creating the intended result.

i've seen career concept artists bang out absolutely stunning work in 30 minutes, is that not enough effort for you? do those techniques cheapen good concept art for you? does digital photo manipulation cheapen a really amazing shot for you? what if they used photo-bash? what if they did a paint-over? what if it was photo-manip?. i spent 4 hours crafting an imagine using an art tool. an art tool which i had to manipulate, nudge, and coerce into producing a final image that i was happy with in terms of composition, color grade, and theme.

regardless, ai art is another tool in a digital artist's tool kit. same as photoshop, same as digital photography, same as digital painting, same as a hundred other innovations in digital art. i use the tools in my tool kit. regardless of the method i still employ creativity, craft, knowledge, and aesthetics to every piece of art that i create.

and i am happy with what i create, regardless of the medium in which i create

again, ai art is another tool in a digital artist's tool kit. the knowledge of the tool and how to use them is what makes artists great.

so if you and me shot the same sunset with the same camera and camera settings and one of us did some editing would you cry foul as well?