You've never seen those stands at the boardwalk where artists draw caricatures? They're extremely formulaic and rarely resemble the subjects aside from a few distorted features, but humans have being paying other humans to pump out that slop for ages.

The difference is that the AI results are accepted as real photos restored, not the caricatures that they are.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/842315653616542/posts/149825...

Random example I just found in a group called "Photo Restoration Facebook Group"