Since Nov 2022, I have been asking (sometimes in comments such as this) why AI-generative imagery is being done. Why is all this massive resource utilization being used to produce useless images (especially after who-knows-how many, myself included, were ripped off to produce them in the first place)? What is the purpose, the goal? How does this new toy-tool do anything other than help to produce more useless crap?

You speak of "value." Please define what that would be.

I also notice in scores of other posts by self-proclaimed "experts" at this junk, that the holy grail of AI image-gen is to achieve "photorealism" and to become indistinguishable from photographs (as I continue my fight against the equating of AI-gen imagery to photography). All that has been accomplished is to rip off the "real" works of others, especially those accurately representing reality through their photography, to create unreal artificiality. Again, I ask, to what end?

I believe this is these are questions many are asking themselves but are afraid to ask in public. I suspect that is probably the reason your post had no comments up to now.

This is not an attack. I genuinely want to know the answer to my questions.