Does Google.com allow anybody to instantly mimic an artist's style? Obviously AI laws haven't been put in place yet - it doesn't mean it's not unethical.
What's notable is "AI users are trying to copy an artist" != "AI has learned from an artist" != "AI has seen the artist's images in the first place". The most popular supposedly stolen-from artist Greg Rutkowski is not in StableDiffusion's training images, even though users are actively trying to copy him, it's a coincidence that it appears to work. Is that unethical?
Also, AI laws (text and data mining exemptions) /have/ been put in place - to make this explicitly legal!
> complete with watermarks and all
That's not the AI "copying their watermarks", it's the AI learning "sometimes images have watermarks" and giving them some of its own.