I agree with that, AI isn't a 1:1 copy of someone else's work, it's definitely an 'inspiration' of a reference, much like how majority of artists always get inspiration either from references or other people's work. Sometime down the road an artist will always be inspired by something and they make a version of it, and AI generation is the very definition of that, just at a very extreme level.
I don't see any issues with someone using AI as the backbone of their assets, if it's what's helpful to them then the better. From what I've observed what makes AI-assisted development hard to implement is the potential backlash coming your way. You'll get so many people bashing you for using "stolen" content and not so naturally-looking details.