with that analogy, OP's solution is akin to banning the use of knives to harm people, as opposed to banning the knife itself

But we do ban tools sometimes: you can't bring a knife to a concert, for good reason.

In this case, image generation and editing AI is a tool which we managed just fine with until three years ago, and where the economic value of that tool remains extremely questionable despite it being a remarkable improvement in the state of the art.

As a propaganda tool it seems quite effective, but for that it's gone from "woo free-speech" to "oh no epistemic collapse".

> we shouldn't ban tools

When I see the old BuT FrEe SpEeCH argument repurposed to impinge civil rights I start warming to the idea of banning tools.

Alternately "Chemical weapons don't kill people, people with chemical weapons kill people"