I find so many artists I've never seen before when researching ref on every single painting I make. This is the way we make connections. Using genAI to make reference is creating unseen missed opportunities at unprecedented speed and removing one more human element of art making.

Like man, my career only exists in the way that it does now because a production designer was googling "realistic pokemon" and found me. If he could have just had a machine spit that out, I never would have gotten a job. This is a major issue hitting artist discoverability.