I found it to be not a lot different than normal doodling or painting on an existing photo. Where AI helped me was only at the start point. It enabled me to quickly prompt a scene, which I then painted on for my own purposes. I controlled the final result, but AI furnished the reference I chose to start from.
I have drawing skills and have used an iPad for a decade, so I already use all sorts of app filters and special effects, along with native drawing skills to create original digital art. I regard the above artwork as a parody on the AI photo prompt below. However as an artist, I have a theoretical problem with where that AI photo came from. If this was an exact copy from someone’s illustration it would be copyright violation. My understanding is that AI is not copyrightable, because it is not one artist’s work, but an infinite amalgamation of whatever has been done in the past, reworked to answer a given prompt.
Where I found AI most helpful was in finding me reference material. I gave AI the prompt of “two apes riding motorcycles.” I liked what it pulled up, so I gave them Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses, and treated the background with a special effect. Now the whole thing could have been done with just AI, but it wouldn’t bear my own artistic input, which is where I have my fun.
Since I am the one who gave it the prompt, and I gave the same prompt several times with different results, I assume no one else has ever seen or will ever see this exact image again. Based on that reasoning, it seems okay to use it as I have. But if it exists somewhere as art by another, it is not okay.
A further observation: If you wanted to change a position of an arm, that is easy for a human illustrator, but is currently difficult for AI to deal with–as a specific prompt. However, that may change as it evolves. And there are now lawsuits being decided that will draw the lines on AI usage and copyright. Its current development seems to have a deceptive past, since it started as innocent non profit research, and morphed into for-profit enterprises, with the data used in a very different way than was originally explained or intended. The future holds the answers to AI’s moral and practical usage.