It’s the context. There has always been the stereotype of the starving artist which is quite prolific in our society. As a result it is already thought that as an artist you are not marketable or that you are not valuable enough to pay. As a result a lot of companies coughcouthwotccoughcough are already in hot water for refusing to pay artists. And now they’re using tools based on those artists actual work to generate art in the style of those artists for profit and the artists still won’t be getting paid for their work? Doesn’t seem fair. I don’t want to see it with writing or publishing of any kind. I don’t want to see AI generated art at the cost of the people who make real art. And further I don’t want people to use AI that’s been trained on the hard work of others (without recompense to those people who’s work the AI is being trained on) without their consent. That’s what’s happening.

What WOTC for caught out on was an artist using the generative AI system to enhance artwork they created. I don’t necessarily see a problem with that, except when you consider the other artwork the AI has been trained on.