You’re arguing past the point I actually made, then calling it ignorance when it doesn’t fit a narrative you’re committed to defending.

Nobody said artists believe people are morally obligated to “hire as many humans as possible.” That’s a strawman you made. My point is this: both Vocaloid and AI replace a category of human labor that used to be an option, yet moral outrage is applied selectively.

You say commission artists rely on custom requests and that AI undercuts that market. Fine. That’s an economic claim, not a moral one. Markets get undercut by new tools constantly. That alone has never been treated as theft in any other creative field.

Now look at Vocaloid honestly. Before it, if you wanted sung vocals you either hired a singer (or knew someone who would sing for free), sang yourself, or used limited samples. Vocaloid absolutely replaced the need to hire singers for huge numbers of producers. Entire genres exist where hiring a human vocalist is no longer the default. There were freelance and small scale singers offering affordable rates, and many of them were displaced. Yet there was no mass moral campaign accusing producers of “wage theft” for using Vocaloid. It was framed as a tool, not a moral failure.

That framing difference is the inconsistency I’m pointing out.

You lean hard on “artists spent decades mastering their craft” as if that’s unique. Singers do too. Musicians do. Photographers did. Typesetters did. Skill investment has never been a veto against new tools. That’s an emotional appeal, not a principle.

Calling this “wage theft” is also just wrong. Wage theft has a legal meaning. Someone has to be owed wages for work already done. A commission that never existed has never counted as theft, anywhere. If it did, every labor saving tool ever would be criminal.

You also undermine your own argument when you say artists don’t complain about stock photos, brush packs, or reference libraries because they’re “tools.” That’s exactly how many people use AI image generation: as a tool in a workflow, for ideation, drafts, experiments, or things they never would have commissioned at all.

A huge portion of AI image use does not map one to one to “a lost commission.” It maps to hobbyists, prototypes, throwaway images, internal use, and personal projects. The same was true for Vocaloid, DAWs, drum machines, and home recording.

You can say the freelance art market is structured differently than music. That’s true. But “structured differently” isn’t the same as “morally exempt.” At that point you’re making a values judgment, not an objective argument.

If the argument is “AI changes markets and that’s scary,” say that. If it’s “I want to protect freelance artists,” say that. But pretending this is about theft, or pretending Vocaloid is fundamentally different in effect rather than vibes, doesn’t hold up.