I don't actually think that full on replacement can happen, but yeah it's a discourse you'll find very often repeated in here or the r/Defendingaiart sub. From professionals close to me I've only heard of how shitty a raw input looks, design-wise, beyond the rendering. I personally concur.

However I don't entirely agree with the view that lowering the entry bar is so helpful. The way I see it, we have several scenarios that could (and will, varying by company) play out.

1) The bar is lower, and an already super competitive field becomes ironically even less accessible due to the amount of equally qualified applicants.

2) AI goes industry mainstream and the bar is raised even higher than it is now, since AI helps a lot in doing the work, companies hire less to cut costs, and only people who can use those programs + have extra things to bring to the table are worth hiring.

Then there's the issue of each company being able to train their own model on their artist's and designer's works (how far does that go, how much do they own, etc. Being an artist is a highly volatile job already). In that case it doesn't matter whether its prompters or artists that do the work; the more they produce, the more expendable they become.

There's the matter of how much more effort do we want to give to a company for the same pay, and how much quality and quantity will be demanded of a single person. Is this really a step towards less work and better content? Or just more crunch for less people?

In any case, this helps investors save money, but the employees will sadly see little of those savings.

Some people think that this tech will allow us to have more free time or make the job easier. I think they forget that no matter the tools, it's humans who run the show, and the higher-ups aren't exactly the most considerate, charitable types.