the "excuse" is that AI doesn't have an upfront cost (or at least not as expensive) or waiting period.
with a human you have to pay a lot and wait for them to finish and you might not even like the finished result, but with AI, it can shit out 20 different versions of what you want and you can pick and choose.
for the average person that's all they care about, they don't give a fuck that it actually cost a fuckton of energy, or that it had to steal thousands of hours of real human work and effort in seconds to "magically" make their slop appear.
Every night I can feel my leg.. and my arm.. even my fingers..