The issue isn’t ego from any artists I’ve talked to. The issue is that most enjoy DOING their art for a living, and AI threatening their ability to make a living doing the thing they love, by actively taking their work and emulating it.

Add to that, that no one seems to believe AI does a better job than a trained artist, and it also threatens to lower the quality bar at the top end.

Personally I think that if AI is free to use and any work done by AI cannot be covered by copyright (due to being trained on people’s art against their will), then I don’t have an issue with it.