It's hardly comparable. The excavator does not owe its creative influence to the hole diggers. The quality of its work does not result from someone else's intellectual labor. It's 100% the digger doing the digging.

It's technology putting people out of work.

We care a lot about Copilot, we care somewhat about artists, we care little about manual workers, and less so if they are in another country.

Not quite. It still relies on their inputs. It doesn't just put them out of work, it feeds off them.

I'm not sure of what I'd call this relationship, but parasitic is close to it.

It’s a teacher-student relationship, except the teachers don’t do anything specifically for the students. Let our jobs be taken by Copilot. Are you that afraid?

> The excavator does not owe its creative influence to the hole diggers

But it does. While not as complex as AI art generation, the excavator is mimicking the hole digger. It takes a human action, generalizes it, and offers it in a more efficient manner.

As you allude to, this analogy works if you're creating art purely because there is a demand for it and you only put in the effort required by the customer.

But that is generally not the case with illustrators, and certainly not in this case.

Also creating a new model is dependent on artists (at least right now!) while excavators are not dependent on hole diggers.