It's not just time, it's also effort and other non obvious things like supporting a real human being

> I would place FAR more value on a comfortable functional mass-assembled chair than some wobbly piece of crap some guy spent two weeks cobbling together in his garage

If it's wobbly then sure, but what if it was made by someone with a modicum of expertise to make it not wobbly.

then again, i don't mind a good wobble, it's a fidget opportunity and i like to fidget

Time and effort are not indicitive of quality.

I suppose we're talking about "craft" vs "art." Making chairs is a craft. There are objectively "right" ways to do it. You can still be artistic about it, so long as the craftsmanship is sound. That being said, I will take a well-crafted chair over one that is not every time over the "artistic" one.

With regards to writing, I can't just throw word salad together and call it a day. But my writing style is my own voice - I pretty much write the same way I speak. With AI... well, after you've read enough of it, you notice that it, too, has its own voice. Like, I can distinguish the writing style of Gemma4 real quick. It smells like ozone.

I don't necessarily mind, so long as its telling me something coherent and accurate. You could argue it lacks originality, and it certainly lacks agency: But it IS usually well-crafted. I'll take it. Won't stop me from reading, say, PKD novels. But miss me with the artistry of, say, Finnegan's Wake, or even Ulysses, I'm apparently way too dumb for those (yes, I've tried). PKD would crank out multiple novels every year, Joyce took like decade to write incomprehensible nonsense.