There is a limit, of course. If someone paints a huge mural with a single hair brush, it doesn’t automatically make it better than a 2-minute sketch by a master. Aesthetics are huge, and so is creativity.

The effort involved is also sometimes behind-the-scenes: for the 2min sketch, the master prepared by honing their art for thousands of hours.

I agree with you that AI images often lack aesthetics, and i believe they necessarily lack creativity. Prompts can be inventive, but not creative - when you write a clever prompt, the result is still a surprise to the user. Creativity is the realization of an inner vision unique to the artist.

But i still think the effort is important to the value of the piece. If Michaelangelo had a scanner and a 3d printer, he could have produced a plastic David in a couple of days. I don’t believe, though, that the detail he achieved would be as impressive if it weren’t cut from a chunk of stone.