Is your point that what you quoted is false?
> I used to commission avatars every year or two from a specific artist. It wasn't super cheap (hundreds of dollars). At the end of the day though, spending hundreds of dollars, waiting weeks, and then maybe getting 85% of what I wanted doesn't make sense when I could instead spend ~$0, wait 30 seconds, and get 98% of what I want.
...because you just gave an anecdote that shows the truth is "if someone is using an AI avatar, they might have been your customer before AI".
> In my view, artists should be moving up the 'stack'. If they are a commission artist, they should be having customers come to them with their '98% efforts' or only taking on commissions that either mean too much, too elaborate for AI, or otherwise sensitive.
That doesn't make sense. That's not "moving up the stack," that's the work drying up and only a small remainder of the most difficult/sensitive things being left. And that might mean being driven out of your profession because there's not enough left for you to feed yourself.
