There are obviously multiple ways people can see the act of making software. And many at once. Profession, craft, passion, art.

And the differing perspectives on that do at least in part explain a lot of the conflict here.

Personally, I think "AI" use in art is an abhorrent thing that warrants a highly negative response. And when I was younger and even more pretentious than I am now, I often thought my code as some kind of "art." So I can stretch my mind to see how people who see things that way would have that same gut reaction.

But many like you only see the point as being the end result, so to them this all looks like pointless theatre.

One of the many dramatic things the "AI" tooling has done is to make all these divisions in perspective more obvious and more dramatic.