Ah, the elephant in the room
I'm sitting on the fence for my opinion, I see very good reasons to use AI but also reasons to not to.
Ignoring copyright issues and people's work being used without permission to train AI, I see it as a powerful tool much like a computer, internet, calculator, camera and so on. Actually when the camera was first invented, I understand artists were rather angry then as well, and understandably. But 100 years on, photography has become an art form on its own, painters still paint, the job market shifted to create jobs for photographers, and perhaps shrink the number of, e.g. portrait painters. But people still draw, professionally and for a hobby. When computers were invented a lot of jobs were both lost and created as well.
So I suspect with AI it will be similar, some jobs may be lost where AI can handle the job, but jobs will also be created (and have already from what I hear), where using AI
is the job. Operative has highlighted the many issues with AI so I won't repeat those, but basically you need to have someone who understands how AI
doesn't thinks to generate the output you want. Or someone with artistic or writing skill to "fix" the output.
Personally I don't like to use it at all simply because I want my own core skill to be very good. I want to know how to draw, not how to get a good picture as fast as possible, otherwise I would pay someone else to draw for me, simple as that. However I can't ignore the usefulness of certain tools, such as a ruler to make straight lines, that I can't do without. So there may be some subtle aspects of AI that I do start to use in the future, to compliment my skill rather than replace it.
I think that AI art looks great as long as the images have been cleaned from AI artefacts, but there's always that "yeah but it was made with AI" feeling that I can't shake. Like you wouldn't look at a rendering of a 3d model/scene and say "wow, such realistic shading!" because of course it is, a computer did it.
I do however, feel strongly against non-drawing-artists using AI and calling themselves an artist or an AI-artist. Although I also feel similar about "amateur" photographers calling themselves artists as well to be honest. So maybe I'm just not flexible enough there.
And finally, as a programmer, I love the under the hood part of AI, it's absolutely amazing that computers can generate anything remotely original with just a words prompt. So I've spent more time training AI myself and coding them, than actually using them so far, and that's actually just as much fun for me XD
I realize I didn't quite answer the question maybe :P