I'm not saying an idiot with a pencil will produce good art, or art that's worth anyone else's time. But they will always have the potential to draw something worth their own time. Anyone can engage in a worthwhile artistic endeavour using a pencil. It's not about quality, or originality, or theming. It's about intention. Any idiot can communicate what their own ideas with a pencil, on some level.
For example, take Adolf Hitler. He was a terrible artist. He had no understanding of proportion. His paintings don't make logical sense. And you know what? That suits the man. Hitler was an idiot who couldn't make logical sense of the world. His paintings reflect his terrible mind. There is that much value in them as an endeavour of self-expression. I can look at a painting by Hitler and say "that's a Hitler".
I can also look at an AI generated image by Highborn Flunky and say "that's a Flunky", but Flunky is a good artist. Hitler is not. That's the difference I'm talking about. A painting reflects your soul even if you suck.
The difference between a camera and Stable Diffusion is that a camera makes it hard to convey artistic intent, while Stable Diffusion adds artistic intent that isn't yours. Making art with a camera is hard, but anyone can know it when they see it. Making art with Stable Diffusion is an endeavour complicated by the fact that the AI is using mass manufactured intent to pass of intentless creations as art. If you fail to convey your intent with a prompt, you don't get a dull scene, you get trendy bullshit.
And people are way more offended by being shown trendy bullshit by bad artists than boring scenes.
Smeagol was redeemable, but it couldn't be done in the middle of a warzone by two desperate men who are carrying the source of his addiction.
Smeagol needed years of therapy by trained experts far away from the ring.