I think it's totally understandable if you don't care about this kind of art and it losing value, but what you're really saying then is "The art apocalypse will happen and that's good". I share this opinion, but I can also definitely see why working artists don't like it!
Most commercial illustrations (esp commisioned by companies/institutions) are mostly created to evoke a longing for consummerism (eg lifestyle advertisments), and it is often mindless. People's interests are in the feeling they are promised the thing would give them, and often not the thing itself. Or, at worst, as a stress-coping mechanism that has direct and grim consequences. eg America's sugar addiction (which are implanted into the population at young age when they are most vulnerable.)
These are not arts. They are Machiavellian traps for the mind.
Arts, in the simplest defintions, are just things one makes to express a certain feeling/thought/sentiment/etc. A piece of art is good when it can connect/resonate with you. It's a human connection thing. Tech would be an enabler for more novelties. But the story has always been there. A story about mankind.
You seem to have completely missed the point of this discussion:
> ShutterStock should be concerned, but artists and graphic designers don't need to worry. Just another tool.
That's the thing I was disagreeing with, and they're obviously talking about artists in general, including commercial artists, not just ones who are engaged with the platonic ideal of art.
And so are urban consumerism, artistic demands from brands, the arts industries, the defintions of galleries (eg Can an amber wine bar also be an actual gallery? What about a BOBBLEHAUS clothing store in Manhattan? What defines a space for "fine" arts really)... people's thinking will change. I can assure you things gon be very different in the next 10 years.
Some people may get angry about it. But that is how society progresses.
There are two types of people: those who keep still and those who move.