This is definitely another way to see this situation. It's true that the small artists didn't create these models or trained them on stolen work either, but I also did feel like a fraud when I asked the AI to tell me its opinion of my work. It felt like I was cheating in some way. The feedback I got was good though and the AI got me to think about some parts of my novel where it mentioned that it was going too fast. I then thought to myself "A real editor would say the same thing though, right? So if I use AI, it's ok. I'm just skipping a step." But then I felt guilty about it because I thought that using AI makes me lazy. Had I googled for tips on writing or watched a Sanderson video and it would tell me the exact same thing as the AI, would that then be better? I don't know. I'm just as conflicted about this entire thing since I first discovered it.
As far as stealing other works, I steer clear of that as much as I can regardless of AI. It's not really possible nowadays to not have some sort of trope found in other works, but I avoid copying other novels like the plague. For me the problem with copying someone else's work is that I feel it diminishes my message. I even avoid reading certain books if they're in the same genre of what I am currently writing for fear of subconsciously taking parts of that novel and implementing them in my own work.
But I do agree with your last point. AI is a tool. Nothing more.