The program might have required skill to write, but that's not an excuse for it to threaten entire industries.
We don't live in a world where industries exist just because it would be nice for them to and people need work.
An industry is a productive environment that creates products for others to buy. If the people buying from the current art industry care about human inspiration and the uniqueness they add to art, they will continue to buy from humans. If they do not, why should the state use it's monopoly on violence to cripple any other source of product?
Are artists some special class of people above every other group of workers who've lost their jobs to automation?
The ability and willingness to generate images in a style associated with a person, without consent, is a threat to that persons job security and shows a lack of value for them as a human. As if their creative expression is worth nothing but as a commodity to be consumed.
You can't own an art style. Copyright only extends to discrete works and characters. If I pay a street artist to draw a portrait of me in the style of Picasso, I'm not devaluing Picasso as a person.
It sucked for candle makers when electric lights were adopted. It sucked for farriers and stable hands and saddle makers when cars became affordable for the average person. Such is the cost of progress.
This is true in US law but it should probably be noted that a lot of the "misconceptions" you're outlining in OP's comment are things that are legal in other jurisdictions
Artists don't own their styles, so it's interesting to see them fight to protect them.
The only thing that makes anything valuable is that someone wants it, or at least wants it to exist. Nothing has intrinsic value because value itself is a human construction. This necessarily includes art.
You can get a cheaper apartment easily. Like the cheapest 1 room ones are like 40k and outside the capital it's way cheaper still or it was last I checked.
They were going on an adventure