Genuine question: what positive use cases are sufficient to accept the harm from image generators? One that i can think of: - replacing photography of people who may be unable to consent or for whom it may be traumatic to revisit photographs and suitable models may not be available, e.g. dementia patients, babies, examples of medical conditions. Most other vaguely positive use cases boil down to "look what image gene…
The same question could be poised of art in general. I know that response would (and probably should) ruffle peoples' figurative feathers, but I think it's worth considering. A lot of art isn't "necessary for society". The question still stands, "are the benefits worth the cost to society", but it bears remembering we do a lot of things for fun which aren't "necessary for society".
I will say, it can be emotionally resonant though - but it's a borrowed property from the perception of human communication and effort that made the art the models were trained on.