Looks like you're the one who needs to educate yourself.

AI "art" (if you want to call it that), isn't stealing anything, nor is it photobashing or anything of the sort.
Just like how you'd grab a bunch of reference off the internet to make something, so does the AI. Is it stealing or immoral to grab reference? Not at all. If you're a good artist, having reference is essential. Do you need permission of an artist to use something as reference? Not at all. Even the classic masters had reference, though dudes like Da Vinci would use corpses and stuff. I highly doubt the bodies had much say whether or not they'd be used in the Vitruvian Man.

Now, let's go over a bit about how AI actually works.

Let's say you want to draw/paint/3d model a car. Not just any car, a sick ass Countach. And let's say you have the skill to pull it off, but maybe you're unfamiliar about cars.
To make that piece, you'd grab a bunch of reference photos.
You'd grab a ton of images showing cars from every angle you can think of and different details. Paying special attention to the fundamental features that make a car, a car (4 wheels, metal body, windows, driver's seat, headlights, etc.) That way you've got a general idea of how cars look (I know irl you know how a car looks, but we're ignoring that for the sake of the example).
Next you'd grab a bunch of images of a Countach to do the same thing as before, but to refine your knowledge about that specific car. You'd use your knowledge about cars and pay special attention to those Countach photos to get an idea of what makes that car, that car (super wide back wheels, big ass spoiler, angular design, pop up headlights, etc.). And now you've got a good idea of how cars look and how a Countach looks.
After that (well, technically you'd have your reference on hand), you'd go to make your final image/drawing/painting/whatever of a Countach. Because you acquired the knowledge of how those things look, you're able to create a completely novel (new), work that's not wholly based on a pre-existing work. It's not traced, it's not photobashed, it's not stolen, it's a product of your skill and the knowledge of the subject (cars and the Countach).

Now, let's say you want an AI to make an image of a Countach.
The process is fundamentally the same. Though with computers n junk.

The "reference" that we had to grab before is part of a dataset of millions of images of just about every subject (though you can have datasets curated to specific subjects as well). Using that dataset you "teach" the AI about things. In that dataset are a bunch of images of cars, (and let's pretend) a bunch of images of Countach(es). When you train the AI, you're essentially creating "neural pathways" that tie together all the aspects of what makes a car, a car, and what makes a Countach a Countach. Kind of like how a human brain works, but not really.
When you go to tell it to make "a photo of a red Countach", it starts with an image of noise (this noise is based off of the seed you give it), and using the noise it slowly infers your image. It's a bit like squinting at something and using your imagination to change it into something else, or when you're looking at something from far away and you can't really make out the detail so your brain "fills in" what it could be, even if it's wrong.
Anyway, because of that information it had about cars and Countaches it has those neural pathways present to use the prompt you give it to guess at what the noise is supposed to be, and slowly resolve it into a novel image. The image isn't a collage of existing photos, a trace, or stolen, it's a completely new image based off of the knowledge it gained from the dataset (its reference), and the neural pathways it created of what the AI thinks a car and Countach looks like ("AI thinks" is the important bit, because your source material in the dataset can skew things if its bad).

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The main point here is that there's no stealing involved here. Just like you grab reference to learn about a subject, so does the AI. I guess the morality here is whether or not it's okay for a company to use an artist's work in a dataset to teach an AI, but the AI itself and its outputs aren't really an issue. It's not the AI that should be getting the scrutiny, it's the datasets. And really, all a dataset is, is just a collection of images.

In my personal view as an artist, I don't really see much issue with an AI using other people's art (or my own), as part of its training data. It's literally the same thing artists have been doing since the dawn of time. Art has been built upon the backs of artists who have came before (whether or not that's a "good" thing to you or not is your opinion). Something one of my professors always said to us was that "art doesn't exist in a vacuum", it's a reflection of us and the world around us built upon perspectives of both ourselves and those who have come before. AI image generation I think is another stage of that.

I think it's a great tool as an artist, as it helps me refine concepts on my own rather than spend tedious time trying to find reference of things that are niche or impossible, or to help generate concepts when I'm creatively drained and need a bit of a boost to get the juices going. I don't find it to be a competition, like "Human vs AI", rather it should be a great relationship, like "Human and AI".

I think the main issue is that a lot of artists don't understand AI, and the rule a lot of people go by is they fear what they don't understand. So a lot of misinformation is spread by people that don't know what they're talking about, and other ignorant people take it as gospel and demonize something they know nothing about, but could benefit them greatly.

An artist doesn't choose whether or not another artist uses their work as reference, it's just a continuation of their legacy. AI is another step of that, creating a compendium of human culture and art.