AI replacing artists functionally is just the surface fear. The real problem is using AI as an automated method of copyright laundering. There's only so much hand waving one can do to excuse dumping tons of art that you didn't make into a program and transform it into similar art and pretend like you own it. People like to pretend that it's like a person learning and replicating a style, but it's not. It's a computer program and it's automated. That the process is similar is immaterial.