Would you rather have a dozen back and forth interactions?
Besides, this is something I've heard from other artists, so it's very much a matter opinion.
The main opposition to ai images by artists is that it steals art from artists to make plagiarized versions, thereby taking away from paid work from those artists. If in the end, an artist is still being paid, what's the difference between a commissioner handing a pile of reference sheets? Annoying, sure, but not immoral.