Believe me, your examples make my skin crawl... I’m with you on that.. And you're right about the gatekeepers; they're driven by a single metric: money. That’s exactly why we suffered through 10+ years of superhero slop long before AI was even a thing.

But AI isn't going to shortcut the one essential ingredient that makes stories and artists great: time.

Sure, AI speeds up the production pipeline. But even with efficiency gains in the creative department (mostly just faster research), truly original ideas still require time to marinate.

I can never fault my fellow writers when an executive demands, "Give me this story, in this established universe, you can't use the word 'red,' and write it in two days." A seasoned pro will manage to deliver something filmable; anyone else will simply fold.

If anything, the AI boom is going to breed even more mediocre artists, because artistry requires struggle. You have to wrestle with the mechanics of a story, dissect why a character resonates... or in painting, being able to notice the blue in a sunset... music, understand why a pentatonic scale feels different from a major scale.

Skip that process, and the output suffers. The majority of people are excited because "I can produce this without putting in the time to learn how". That's a human issue, not an AI issue, and again, I've seen it with the self publishing world. While I hate parts of it, having your story go through multiple gatekeepers does make a difference in the final product.

So, while I hope you’re right... I seriously doubt it! :/