You seem to think that an AI is a person. It is an expert system that can do one thing and one thing only. It has no agency, no motivation. It is literally software. A thing we created to do a task. In other words: a tool. You hear AI and think about those robot science fiction movies, do you? There is even one that has that exact name, AI.
No one cared about keeping skill sets with mass production, job quality or whatever fulfilling means. You think AI is designed to kill jobs? Really? Would you make that same assumption about electric light? That it was designed to kill the jobs of the guys lighting the gaslamps at night? Because that is what happened. They were out of job overnight.
The tool of neural networks that can be trained how images "work" in relation to concepts and then be used to create an image is not designed to kill jobs, it is designed to do what I just wrote. It's early adaption will of course be to make things cheaper, like each and every other advance in technology. And that is, why this is to be treated the same, not only because it is a tool. Being a tool just emphazises that it is not a free agent, but used by other humans. If jobs are destroyed, they are not taken by "AI", they are taken by other humans that use more efficient tools or different methods. We need to discuss (not here), the limitations that should or should not imposed on that technology. Just because it might or will destroy jobs, is not enough. It never has been.
People get emotional, because they think that somehow "art" is any different from mundane tasks like painting a wall or mowing a lawn. And we do have lawn mowers with AI that were built so people would not have to do the work, because there is a market for that. Just like washing machines or how farming machines do the work of hundreds of field workers.
Just read your post. It reeks of emotional appeal. You even go so far as to appeal to the improvement of people. And I do not think you got my view on the matter.
My view is, that most "art" is not that different from boring mundane tasks. Like field work or preparing fast food. You create something that has no practical application other than being looked at. Maybe it is because of that? If you cook good, your art has a practical use. If you paint good, your art has to have meaning?