[loudmax]

How do you even determine whether or not an an AI-generated image is what you desired?

If a human being is making that determination, their time is probably worth more than the 6 cents it cost to generate the image.

[causal]

Of course it is, but it's not an either-or expense it's both-and. For most projects you need to do a lot of trial and error to get the right image, so it's the cost of someone who knows how to do that trial and error effectively + probably a few hundred generations per hour.