In the circles I'm in 2019(GPT-2-era) AI was seen through the lens of the artist as a new sort of artistic tool - something that could enable new forms of expression and take media to places it had never gone before.

Sometime toward the end of the diffusion days though, the property rights scissor cut through the community. The conflict had a dramatic cooling effect on AI-created/assisted content.

I just think it's neat how the perception of AI shifts depending on proximity.