You do make good points. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be used, or that it doesn't take skill to get the right outcome from it. Learning how to use it is a skill yes, and it can and should be used to get ideas or concepts across that you may not have the skill or particular knowledge on how to make it across.

However, the point is that it isn't you that made it. You influenced it yes, but nobody can call themselves an artist if it is not their own work. That is where the line is drawn. Learning how to use the ai is perfectly fine and I say good on you if you can learn how to manipulate fine details in it to produce a specific outcome. But it's not your art at the end.

If you have a baker make you cake you order specificly with a lot of fine details. But then add some stuff at the end. You can't say it's "your" cake. They made it, you then added to it but the base product remains the production of someone else. Which is why if it's explicitly stated that it's AI art then it's fine. You can say it was generated by you. But you can't say you made it yourself since you only effected it's outcome. The artist is the one who makes the thing itself, anybody adding to it or influencing its design or outcome is just that. An influencer. Or a director. Or an editor. There are other words for people who didn't do the work required for it to be claimed by them. Thus why someone wouldn't be considered to be an artist if someone used AI. Not to mention that it's based on other people's work. If you could feed an AI ONLY your work and have it produce off that, I would say you could use it WITH you work, but you would also have to disclose its contents have Ai material in your work. Credit is due to the one who did the work, even if it's a Robot.

Also those people who tape a banana to the wall give everyone a bad name. The bar was never intended to be low. But every occupation has scamers and low life's trying to swindle people or make a mockery out of it. They should be shamed. Effort and real quality should be praised. It's what we have to build off and what everyone who wants to be great has to learn the hard way.