Let's stop for a moment and define advancement (or "progress", as it's sometimes called). It's always tacit, and never explicitly defined, and I think it bears examination.
By advancement/progress, I'm taking the argument to mean "betterment". i.e. When we say "advances in science", we're usually referring to things getting better, as a result of more science.
However, science/technology are not good in themselves. They're just tooling. You need to stop and ask which direction you've taken this advancement in the tooling in, because whether you meant it or not, both advancement and progress have direction.
> Similarly, artists exist for their output for society. If these AI models can truly fulfill the needs of society that artists currently output (that is debatable), then that simply raises the bar for what artists are expected to output
I somewhat agree, and would say this is very much like when the camera was invented. Artists lamented that they no longer had a purpose, until they invented one for themselves with surrealism. Art shifted from visual reproduction to meaning and feeling.
Surrealism is then a good example of the direction that the advancement in science (of the creation of the camera) took. What is the direction that AI generated art is taking?
It's a tool. Folks get excited about statistics, massive datasets, and computer science is hip again.
Would we not want a push for folks to experience the exacting caress of an unforgiving compiler?
I thought this stuff would be easy!
Hopefully what doesn't happen is a fragmentation of folks into content caverns, where they may gaze into a mirror and see exactly what they wish, day after day. A literal instantiation of Plato's Caves, where scientific progress is frozen and forgotten.