If you look at art as an elitist tradition largely fuelled by the wealthy and supporting only a very, very small number of living artists, requiring a kind of professional leap of of faith that anyone who isn't blood related to a wealthy person would be called stupid for making, then AI art doesn't seem so scary anymore.

Well, I don't look at it that way. Art is a creative tradition, one that every person is capable of realizing in some form or another (and should, for their own health). Artists are, by and large, common people, too. Millions of them have made that "professional leap of faith" without a safety net because they wanted to pursue their passion for art, not because they thought they might one day make millions off of their works.

I get that it's really cool that people who haven't dedicated their lives to art can now bring their visions to life. But I personally think it's callous and unfair to call artists the greedy ones in this equation when they've, by and large, always been struggling to get by despite what they contribute to billion dollar industries and to society.

I also challenge that only the very wealthy buy art. That may have been true for much of our history, but the ability to sell copies of their art while retaining the original has given consumers much cheaper ways to enjoy art. And that's not counting all of the art we get to view/listen to for free, even if it wasn't made specifically for us. Patreon and similar sites have also created a great way for people to support and interact with the artists they love even if they aren't wealthy. I think it's fair to say that we're living in the least classist era of art.