AI generated images can be pretty but there's still work to be done to make it beautiful. Whenever I browse r/midjourney for example, I can see that there's a lot of tweaking and rolling needed to achieve a desired image. Much more if you actually want the image to look less like a soulless husk and more of a meaningful picture. So in a sense, artists are still needed to make these these things come to life.

Also, if artists depend on making art as their source of income, shouldn't they already think how to use this new piece of technology to their own advantage? Like, how AI generated images will help waking up your muse faster or how will it help your work flow? You know, like how businesses needed to think how to adapt to the ever changing trends and technology in order to survive?

I'm just saying that perhaps it is more profitable to treat the AI as another tool to your artist's arsenal like Photoshop, for example? There's no point in making it your enemy. It's not like if you use AI, you have to use it exclusively.

Also, if the person you think as a potential client thinks that it's better to use AI art because it is "cheaper", then that person is never a potential client in the first place. There would always be people who would pay good money for human artist's because they prefer communicating what they want to have in a picture instead of typing prompts into a terminal and hope that the machine understood what they're trying to say. (Let's face it, using AI art at its current stage is like a box of chocolates).

Although I think this drama started when an AI generated art won in a painting competition of some sort. All I can say is, whoever decided on that did not help with the case. AI art should have its own category, just like digital art and photography.