"pretty much any image that can be imagined is now trivial to produce in under a minute"
That's overstating it a bit.. but it is likely we'll get there within the next decade or so.
Currently there's still a lot of art that's hard for AI to mimic effectively, and only certain types of art can be created quickly and without much effort using AI.
The above is based on my experience of creating well over 5000 images in Midjourney, and keeping a close eye on AI generated art created by others.
It's amazing tech that's close to magic, but it still can't do everything.
You're neglecting the fact that the types of art that can be created quickly are the ones that make up the bulk of the training data, which are also the types of art most people will want to make.
That's overstating it a bit.. but it is likely we'll get there within the next decade or so.
Currently there's still a lot of art that's hard for AI to mimic effectively, and only certain types of art can be created quickly and without much effort using AI.
The above is based on my experience of creating well over 5000 images in Midjourney, and keeping a close eye on AI generated art created by others.
It's amazing tech that's close to magic, but it still can't do everything.