Raw LLM Responses

i was just called a thief yesterday because i used AI to make photo realistic images. I never give it images to use, i created the concept, the very rough sketch to use as layout, the prompts, sometimes hundreds of words long, which were changed over and over and over (one image took over a week and a few hundred prompt changes), then i brought them into photoshop to edit them more. what part of that is theft? because AI learned what a person looked like, or what a lake looks like, or galaxies? where is the line? i spent months working on something, never looking at another image for even concept ideas, and yet i'm being told i'm immoral for using a new tool that was provided to me? i went to school for graphic design, i specialized in layout and typography. i took many photo classes and did poorly in all of them because i just dont have that skill no matter what i try (granted, this was film days, so maybe if i could try to take the photo a 100 times and see feedback right then and there i had a better shot). but where does the tool become the issue? people who learned photoshop 20+ years ago were being told the same thing, and now how many graphic artists use those tools on a daily basis and no one bats an eye? is a DJ not an artist because he's just pushing buttons that are using sounds many times created by another person? or what about today's animators? people who did animation by hand probably thought the use of computers to do so was wrong and stealing their jobs... ugh. sorry. rant over.