It's likely be copyright infringement even if it's not for profit unless it's proper permission or enough to be covered by a copyright limitation such as fair use.
Other than this small point made here, this certainly does bring up a point. If the issue with ai art in general is that it "steals" (and some say blatantly that it means using certain art without permission), and that argument is the source of the so-called "it's not ethical" claim then yes it does seem hypocritical to turn around and then defend general fan art when it does exactly the same thing outside of permission or copyright limitation I believe. Even if the argument comes up saying "Well, it's made by a real artist" or "it's usually harmless", it doesn't change the fact that it does exactly what some anti-ai art folks claim and thus misses the point and renders broken logic, especially when one could argue that some cases of ai art could be done the same such as using certain ai tools in private on certain pictures, and probably some other uses where it's around copyright infringement but could sometimes still be as harmless-ish enough as many cases of fan art.
So to maybe fix one logic up, I go with this: If some cases of fan-art without permission is fine then some cases of ai art usage is fine without permission, or if any circumvent of copyright infringement of ai art isn't, then neither is any fan art without permission. If clearly circumventing around copyright infringement is the issue, then it doesn't matter if it's a robot doing it, and it doesn't matter if it's easy.
By the way for anyone reading, I might post a general opinion about this cancel culture problem when it comes to healthy debating.
It's likely be copyright infringement even if it's not for profit unless it's proper permission or enough to be covered by a copyright limitation such as fair use.
Other than this small point made here, this certainly does bring up a point. If the issue with ai art in general is that it "steals" (and some say blatantly that it means using certain art without permission), and that argument is the source of the so-called "it's not ethical" claim then yes it does seem hypocritical to turn around and then defend general fan art when it does exactly the same thing outside of permission or copyright limitation I believe. Even if the argument comes up saying "Well, it's made by a real artist" or "it's usually harmless", it doesn't change the fact that it does exactly what some anti-ai art folks claim and thus misses the point and renders broken logic, especially when one could argue that some cases of ai art could be done the same such as using certain ai tools in private on certain pictures, and probably some other uses where it's around copyright infringement but could sometimes still be as harmless-ish enough as many cases of fan art.
So to maybe fix one logic up, I go with this: If some cases of fan-art without permission is fine then some cases of ai art usage is fine without permission, or if any circumvent of copyright infringement of ai art isn't, then neither is any fan art without permission. If clearly circumventing around copyright infringement is the issue, then it doesn't matter if it's a robot doing it, and it doesn't matter if it's easy.
By the way for anyone reading, I might post a general opinion about this cancel culture problem when it comes to healthy debating.