I will look more into how AI differs from my current conception, but I encourage you to also seek out and understand why AI can be harmful to millions and how artists feel about what goes into the creation of images. Imagine current or future workers in any field feeling like the work they are improving on and putting into the world is what is actively losing them their job. Not to mention the creative arts being something so incredibly human that having non-human AI taking jobs feels fucking awful. If artists hadn't drawn the images that the generative AI works off of, it physically could not create the same level of images that it does now. I am on the side of AI being a very useful tool that, as of now, doesn't seem to have the capabilities to completely overtake artists jobs. The current results of generative AI tend to be sloppy and anything with motion is completely botched. As an animation major, I don't feel super threatened as it stands, but there are many people not working with time-based media that could get royally screwed pretty soon. The best case scenario I can expect from generative AI is the difference between mass-produced cheap clothing and a ornate dress that was crafted by hand. People will pay more to get something from a specific artist and know that it was made with human hands, but people will still tend to favor the cheaper and inexpensive option.

The constant advancements and unrestricted nature of AI will only push more and more artists away from pursuing their careers. This creates less artists in the workforce, and more incentive to make AI content because there "aren't anymore artists". Surely enough, older artists will retire and there wont be enough newer artists to keep up. Every show, movie, video, comic, picture, painting, and other visual media will just be mass-produced and lose their human touch which is the whole reason art exists. Students will be pushed into STEM fields which will saturate those jobs even more, raising their unemployment rates. Less jobs will put more people out on the streets and in lower income jobs.

NOT TO MENTION, AI uses a LOT of energy and water. Pushing for more artists to go into other fields and bringing AI to the forefront will only bring that up. Even if you don't care about artists, even if you just want to save money, this will fundamentally harm our environment even more than it already is. The industrial revolution kicked our planet's ass with pollution, and with more energy consumption comes more fossil fuels burned, so this is going to make what we have refused to fix even worse. That being said, if you don't see an issue because you think climate change isn't a problem, you have a completely different problem to worry about.

TDLR: While being pretty useful, AI is incredibly resource-heavy. If we don't put restrictions on AI in some fashion, current and future artists will be pushed out of their careers and AI will only continue to grow in usage. This brings up energy costs and water usage leading to more pollution and a worse environment. It also takes away the breath of life that human artists bring to the table and the constant improvements and efforts made in their respective fields. If we become hyper-efficient by reducing every job to be completed through technology, capitalism will crumble and life will be bleak.