For artists who continue to paint, or use other physical means of expression through base materials and sell them as physical works, this entire AI art surge remains largely irrelevant in a practical sense. A buyer or patron who wants real, physical art will still need and want real, physical art, and I don't see an AI imitating much of that easily any time soon.

The people or organizations to which AI-churned art appeals to most desire commercial visual churn. They are the same people who would in any case have least cared about art in its more creative, communicative forms. And there's nothing creative or imaginative about the results of machine-generated visuals. They're the very opposite in fact, visuals created literally mindlessly.

If anything, I can see AI art giving a new breath of life and interest to real man-made art, much like industrial food production gave organic "local-grown" food producers a chance to brand themselves with a distinct, desirable identity.