I used to send my kid to art class. Three times a week, about $130 a month, something like that. When class was about to end I'd go stand out front and wait, and the second the door opened my kid would come out holding something with both hands. "Dad, I made this today! Teacher said it was great!"
That's fine for a day or two, but keep it up and problems start creeping in. Milk cartons, toilet-paper tubes, dried noodles, straws… once they start making things out of whatever's left over at home, that's when it becomes unmanageable. A year goes by and the kid's bookshelf is packed with projects. Clearly precious, and yet you can't throw any of it out.
I started calling it pretty trash.
At some point I came up with a system. When my kid brings something home from class, I praise it first. Really praise it — and then, while they go "wash your hands," I quietly deal with it.
There's one line that sums up the difference between generative AI and art class. Art class only leaves you the finished piece. There's no record of the process. Generative AI leaves the process behind, layer by layer.
So I changed my approach. When my kid brings something home, I praise it plenty, then take a photo with my phone right there on the spot. And I show them immediately. "Look, I saved it right here." That way the kid feels like something got recorded. Then when I say "okay, let's clean this one up now," they're on board with it.
As those photos piled up, once generative AI became common I attached the image files to a prompt, and it learned my kid's drawing style and started drawing things in a similar way.
You're not throwing pretty trash away — you're recording it as you clear it out.