That's the thing - no, they weren't. They were inspired by how neurons communicate with each other. But that's not "the workings of the human brain", you're making an incorrect abstraction, same with these AI.
Why should I believe you and move on? "making art for decades" doesn't make you an authority on any of the relevant subjects: "how art is processed in the brain" nor "how AI processes these images." I don't think you understand the fundamental differences between the process of looking up references/inspiration and kitbashing.
Are you implying that the process of training the AI with images, which usually involves statistic models, is in any way similar to the process by which a human brain creates images? Or that the way people look up references is similar to the way AIs use images? Because if that's the case, I'm afraid you have a very odd idea of how these AIs function.
Otherwise, you have to agree that we're talking about apples and oranges here.
AIs don't get "inspiration". They get the source images they need to function. An AI also can't produce an output that's outside of the realm of their dataset.
1 - Not the same situation. No one stole already-done work from the people who used to "compute" to create the computers themselves, or its output.
2 - You're twisting my argument. I don't care if artists are employed or not, or that some jobs are transitioned out from the economy. I care that people who put in work get the value proportional to that work. You should, too.
When you use one of these AIs that have been fed millions of images in order to train them and generate an effective output, you are necessarily consuming the images themselves, without which the AI wouldn't do anything. In that process, the artists - whose copyrighted work is, again, fundamental to the development of the tool - have been paid nada, they have not even consented to the use of their images in the training process. How does that track?
This would be a very different conversations if these AIs only used public domain art, of which there's plenty. But then again, it wouldn't be much profitable, would it?
Unless necessary regulations are put in place that stop people from stealing art to use in training datasets, then yes. Those artists are going to get replaced. We should be discussing how to regulate these AIs.
Why should I believe you and move on? "making art for decades" doesn't make you an authority on any of the relevant subjects: "how art is processed in the brain" nor "how AI processes these images." I don't think you understand the fundamental differences between the process of looking up references/inspiration and kitbashing.