Also, if anything, being included in a training set means you are already notorious. The big ones are usually trained on stock art or famous professionals/classics, and the ones trained by random people are going to use quality filters to get the best images of a specific subject. If you aren't already notorious, you simply will not make it into a set. The other possible motivation is spite, but that'll only happen if you participate in internet slapfights.
And...Patreon? Fans? Influence? "younger PRO" (so a non-pro doesn't count even if they are trying their best?) I sincerely recommend you choose sentences more carefully. Makes you sound phony and using art as a social strategy. When there's so much talk about art and its "soul" you really don't want to make yourself sound like art is a mere means to an end or you risk making the cold, calculating machine seem "purer".
Personally, art should be its own goal. I had plenty of time to stomach one isn't entitled to anything just because effort, so I just want to make my art better. And saves me from the trouble of chasing trends to stay relevant.
companies stealing your work isn't a thing that just happened to become possible because AI can make it easier to imitate. The real world scenario is much rather: _they just steal your existing work_
ever since I've been publishing my own illustrations I've always ran an image search on the stuff I've got on my homepage once or twice a year, and almost every time i did this I've found multiple individuals or companies who just used my illustrations for something without ever contacting me.
On the other hand, if my style was ever to become known and sought after enough for people prompting AIs with my name, I'm pretty confident that this would mean that:
A) I've grown big enough to have more inquiries than i could serve anyway and
B) The ones doing this are neither people or companies I'd liked to have as clients, nor would they have booked my services for the price I ask if it weren't for AI.
Big agencies with interesting clients couldn't allow themselves to risk their reputation with faking original work, and other large corporations that just don't give a fuck because they are ready to litigate if i challenge their usage are likely to have such reach that they'll end up still contributing to the desirability of my original artwork if they appropriate it. And the smaller ones, they fulfill premise B) on the one hand and would also feed the hype.
So I truly feel what actually bothers you, forever I've been drawing first and foremost because i want to inspire people to express themselves and make experience the same experiences I've had when loosing myself in a drawing. And i do think the bittersweetness of imaging AI remains that while some people will gain the confidence to DO try to express themselves creatively, others will at the same time never want to seek achieving this by their own physical skill and raw will.
But when it comes to myself and my art, I actually see only benefit and progression, regardless of what current dystopic scenarios might manifest :)
It could just mean AI can imitate above a certain "good enough" level the kind of style you and others working in a similar vain do (say "whimsical children illustrations") and all other styles besides, so once-would-have-been-customers now just use some AI stuff with a generic prompt.
In other words, AI aet doesn't have to request your specific name to affect you. It's enough that it provides art for many/most gigs that would now go to a human illustrator.
It would be hard to see just "good developments" when paying gigs dry out.
Most customers currently paying an artist will just slap some quick AI stuff and call it a day.
Big customers might still make it a matter of prestige or pride or "quality" differentiator to use "real human art" from some famous graphic designers, but that is like 1/1000 of the commercial gigs going on today.
I am catastrophically unhappy at the prospect of a corporation ingesting a copy of my work and stuffing it into a for-profit machine without my permission. If my work ends up significantly influencing a generated image you love, nobody will ever know. You will never become a fan of my work through this. You will never contribute to my Patreon. You will never run into me at a convention and tell me how influential my work was to something in your life. Instead, the corporation will get another few pennies, and that is all.