Artists

I understand what you are saying, yet you apply legal terms that may or may not be applicable.

Many artists are worried, and as a retired journalist, I understand. Heck, AI writes better than most of the population already.
AI writes cleaner copy than I do, but it has not kept me from writing. But how is AI any different, except by degree, than the invention of cameras, Illustrator, and and those poem generators we wrote in BASIC back in the '80s?

How is AI art different from perfectly legal derivative art? Has anyone paid a fine for using AI art that mimicked a flesh-and-blood artist?

Have any actual laws been broken?

How is your argument that people should use and respect real artists rather than use AI art any more compelling than someone in the 1880s arguing that people should use and respect real coachmen rather than drive an automobile?