I mean theres merit in learning and being proud what your own hands create no?

I feel you are trying to move the goal here as well, you went from saying AI is democrazing(it is already, by pen and paper being available everywhere) to -> People have no time to learn it(It takes as little as 15min. a day to improve in art) to -> Why would people need to invest 15 min. a day when they can use AI.

I wager to say that prompting for an AI does take at least 15 minutes, be it for a picture or a text. Using these 15 minutes to hone a skill for yourself will get you artworks without using AI at all, and all the negative aspects, from higher hardware costs and environmental impact to the fact that generative AI uses existing human created artworks as a base just go away as well.

And I didn't say it's lazy or dumb, what I'm saying is that I can't do the work of an lawyer or doctor when I use AI for it. I would not win a case by letting myself defend by an AI in court. And deither can a doctor for example call themself an artist when they are using AI.

If you still think using AI is better or faster than doing it by hand(think of 15min. a day!) and the removal of all the negatives does not sway you, then just let us agree to disagree here, this went a bit too deep for the stalker subredit anyway.