Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I like AI art. It can be fun and interesting, I play around with a couple engines myself. I occasionally use the imagery to kick-start my imagination or as inspiration for things I might be working on or thinking about. It’s useful to give your brain a “starting point.”
What I don’t like is people trying to pass off AI computer generated images as some form of accomplishment for themselves (excluding working out a good prompt or modifiers, that can be a bit of work) or trying to pass off the imagery as real in any way. Real IRL or like “I painted this.”
As far as the corporate models scraping content…yeah, they are definitely playing the usual game that it’s ok for them to fuck over the little guy but heaven help you if you’re a day late with a payment to them or torrent a movie.