And without Grak thumping two rocks together 20,000 years ago your favorite band wouldn't exist today. So what?
Every artist builds on those who came before them. Only the most pretentious snots delude themselves into thinking that anything they'll ever do is truly original, and in the end all of their arguments are just a cover for the one and only thing that really bothers them: No longer making money off a skill that is rapidly becoming obsolete.
So let me tell you something: I took art classes for over two years. When I realized that CGI was going to make everything that I was being taught worthless I changed my major, which is why I'm not homeless or worse, working at Starbucks.
When when the wheels of progress come rolling up behind you there are only two options: Adapt to the new paradigm and survive or whine and cry as you get trampled.
An artist using reference is not the same as an AI taking a bunch of existing work putting a shitty coat of paint on it and passing it off as something new.
How is art going to go obsolete if AI art needs exiting art to thrive
Like AI art is literally stealing folks work fucking around with it and producing a worse version and thats improvement to you?
Folks aren't mad that "AI art is taking away jobs" folks are mad that their hard work is being stolen and "remixed" by the same companies that won't pay them to create actual good art.
Like there are so many things that AI art get wrong hands faces hair etc
Why? Because those are things that the humans that the AIs are stealing from have difficulty drawing so of course the Ai would have a worse problem.
Art takes time to create and that is normal if your just typing in dumb prompts into a computer you aren't creating anything