Wasn't it even Tron who didn't qualify for the special effects oscar because they "used computers"?
It's interesting that it's no longer "computer bad", now it's "AI bad".
I may be wrong, but I get the sense that computer art was welcomed by people actually working in the field (did professionals criticize the computer graphics in Star Wars or Wrath of Khan?) and it was mostly the lay public that saw it as somehow not real. The opposite seems to be true for AI "art."
People at the time also said using a computer was fundamentally different from putting in a ton of work into building physical models.
A lot of tech adoption is motivated by economics, so the argument that "before it was more work, now it's less work" will almost always apply regardless of the specifics. I don't think it's a useful thing to focus on. It's almost a moral argument: I deserve it because I suffered for it, but he did it easy so he doesn't deserve it.
In fact, I would even go further. I would say it's part of the definition of technology. What is technology? Technology is a thing or an idea, created or discovered, that makes work easier and/or cheaper.