author of the piece here! I think these tools are best understood as a step in an artist workflow that people will use to varying degree. Many painters use photography or sampled images to audition compositions, for example. Musicians use samples to spark an idea or set a palette for them to create within. The satisfaction of creating on a blank canvas won't change, but most artists use tools to help them realize what they want to create, and these are incredibly powerful to that end.

I think that typing to create imagery is cool, but also agree that the ability to instantly create convincing images (with those images being considered the final work) is not the most exciting/rewarding part, at least when those images are isolated as singular works to consider(like in painting) and not part of a greater narrative. This perspective was part of our motivation to frame the subject differently!

Seems trite. Like why not, "a painting that I could sell for millions"

Honestly, you could come up with some painting you would be proud of. But you'd actually have to engage with the tool and make something.

The verb paint is open to interpretation.

I downvoted this, not because I don't think there's the germ of a valid point, here. It's just that a flip dismissal doesn't help us dig into this in any way.

Creating stuff has multiple goals. I'm currently getting a lot of "satisfaction" from AI image generation. Does that rebut your point? It's hard to know...