The moment the art was scraped into the AI it was stolen. Wholesale thievery doesn't make it OK thievery. We are even seeing artists signatures appearing in AI output.

It isn't being misunderstood, it is being mis-sold. The lies are twisted into some sort of justification because of 'art wants to be free' or some other made up postmodern drek.

They could have made the tool something that artists could use with their OWN ART. Instead, they decided to go for the cheapest, and lowest hanging fruit and hope to hell that the uneducated and uncaring masses lulled into free by the TikTok generation wouldn't care that someone else was being ripped off.

I guess it worked.

Sadly for us all, but I believe it will make human created art even more valuable and turn "AI artists" into the laughing stock they should be.