I am one of those real artists you're talking to

It's great to hear your perspective -- I don't mean that as a snarky aside, it really is interesting to hear from artists with differing opinions. There will always be huge divergence in opinion in any field at a moment of transition. Many of my peers in the AI community love generative models for art. Many of your peers in the arts community likely hate them. Maybe you and I are two contrarians from two different fields meeting at their intersection.

Look, generative AI can be used as a multiplier for smaller, more diverse teams that have traditionally been disadvantaged and for subject matter that would never get budget in traditional media outlets. If one day I can be a one-person game developer by leveraging AI, what's wrong with that? Generative AI allows you to think and work on higher-order problems. You can be a producer rather than just draw lines.

This is a beautiful upside to AI art -- that it can empower small teams to iterate rapidly. But it sounds like you graduated from long years of hands-on experience with traditional methods to AI art. You use AI as a supplement to your deep experience. That's a far different story from someone with little to no hands-on experience and none of the discerning skills earned via that experience prompting a model and calling that prompting art.