I'm old enough to remember when such arguments were had about 'real art' coming from pens, pencils and brushes, not programs. Took a good long time for 'digital art' became a category.

I don't think it did take that long actually? And I don't think it's even a good comparison. AI art vs human art isn't the same jump as physical media to digital.

Honestly I'm okay with "AI art" becoming a category. The issue is when it's presented as handmade, causing confusion.

Digital artwork being presenting at an oil painting conference would cause similar confusion and outrage for the same reasons.

There was also a brief moment where digital art wasn't cheating as long as you didn't use layers and the clipboard.

This too will pass. Soon everything is going to be rendered at 60hz in real time, and demands that everything needs to be rendered by hand will be as absurd as claiming every frame of a 3D game needs to be hand rendered in Photoshop.

I remember this as well, but I also remember those who thought that merely expressed their disapproval.

This time around the response as been aggressively adversarial. Not only do they disapprove of the new thing but anyone who express a contrary opinion is considered a target.