HOWEVER, if a person were to ask for permission to use my pictures to feed into an AI to generate a number of images, and that person _selected_ a few and decided to sell them, I wouldn't have a problem with that. Something to do with the permission provided to the artist and an editing/filtering criteria being used by a human makes me feel ok with such use.
Edit: Silicon Valley exceptionalism seems to preclude some thought leaders in the field to remember the full definition of copyright: it's an artist's exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work.
A number of additional provisions, like fair use, are meant to balance artists' rights against public interest. Private commercial interest is not meant to be covered by fair use.
No one is disputing that everyone, including companies in the private sector, is entitled to using artists' images for AI research. But things like e.g. using AI-generated images for promotional purposes are not research, and not covered by fair use. You want to use the images for that, great -- ask for permission, and pay royalties. Don't mooch.