A lot of people don't have the motivation to learn all the necessary techniques to get to a capable level of artistry. I have a feeling some of those people are too insecure about themselves to enjoy creating art by hand. Those people will probably be drawn to AI tools instead, where they don't have to think deeply about themselves and their experiences to have a finished result in a few minutes. Those people will probably enjoy whatever process AI gives them, because before they had no process that didn't feel like subjection to self-flagellation for hundreds of hours, but some part of them still wanted to produce "art" anyway.

That is not to say that most people feel that way. In the long run that kind of thinking is detrimental to creativity and a healthy spirit. But it gives those people a voice where they wouldn't have had one before, whether or not that's a net positive overall. It's probably going to create a sort of artificial codependent relationship between the artist and AI that serves as an enabling device for quick results with little to no introspection. In the past that probably would have reached its limit at the sketching phase or something, but now you can get somewhat decent results with that mindset, shattering the ages-old idea that only hard work can create passable final results, and the convincing nature of the outputs will encourage people to entrench themselves further in that mindset instead of taking the harder path.

But of course there are shades of grey. There is nothing stopping professional artists with a lot of confidence from generating a base image and doing significant editing work in Photoshop. Even if there's no joy in it, for a certain lower bar of quality like placeholder/concept art, I think the productivity gains will outweigh arguments about virtue, especially once the tech managers have all awoken to the endless possibilities AI provides.

One more thing, I'm very interested in how humanity as a collective whole can "choose to use" AI for any given purpose. Who's deciding what to use AI for? The "douches" smart enough to uncover the math that's always been there and publicize their results? The laypeople that find the papers online, develop their own versions and spread the results around link aggregators because they think it's a cool weekend project? It's going to be nearly impossible to completely control either group, although the researchers are probably going to adhere to a stronger code of ethics than any random person on the Internet.

But as of right now, what stops the researchers from developing a future AI that you can attach to a skateboard and use to pull off perfect versions of any given trick every time? It would ruin the experience for traditional skateboarders that have spent hundreds of hours learning the same tricks, that's for sure. But what stops them from attempting to develop that if enough prior art was there?

I have a feeling that most regulations and laws are written in blood. I think most AI researchers at this stage don't have enough foresight to look even a couple of months into the future with regards to potential consequences after the release of a new breakthrough. Maybe they figure it's better to release their results right away and let the world at large sort out the effects. It's going to take a few more Stable Diffusions disrupting and dehumanizing other art forms for enough people to shout at governments that something must be done to stop ourselves from becoming too innovative.

And even after that we probably won't have universal international law or code of ethics banning the development of new AI. Not until it's reached the perception of gain-of-function research in the eyes of the public, which would mean widespread association of AI with the life or death of millions. And unless that happens someone that isn't affected by those regulations could release a better AI into the world.