Buying a license for a stock photo is paying someone who has put the effort.
Well, okay, I am not sure how much effort goes into creating your typical stock photo, probably not a lot, just still more than 0 effort it takes for the AI to generate it.
And yes, I see difference between an automated system flooding the web with AI generated "news" in disguise vs a niche blogger using AI to iterate on an image with hand crafted prompts. Labels are not perfect, just better than nothing.
Well, okay, I am not sure how much effort goes into creating your typical stock photo, probably not a lot, just still more than 0 effort it takes for the AI to generate it.
And yes, I see difference between an automated system flooding the web with AI generated "news" in disguise vs a niche blogger using AI to iterate on an image with hand crafted prompts. Labels are not perfect, just better than nothing.