Low effort art still requires more effort than AI "art", and at least I know someone put some thought into it even if the thought is "hahaha that looks so bad its funny".

Remixing existing art into new art isnt appropriation, its been part of the cultural institution of art since inception 😅

Its only gross when ai does it because ai is a commercial product designed to take that art, wash it of its human origins and then provide it to people who dont wanna pay artists, and has no artistic vantage point. It doesnt get inspired or have a relationship with anything it gets trained on. If you ask a human to create something like starwars, they will create something based on what speaks to them about starwars and it will be uniquely them. There will be parts or starwars they're in love with, and parts that dont speak to them, maybe even parts they hate or are exhausted by. If you ask ai you will get an actual literal image of Darth Vader

Personally I find their silly little Photoshop fun and endearing, even if it is low effort 🤷🏻‍♂️

I wouldn't really call it appropriating, at least not any more than one could say the same for a song that samples or remixes another. It's just a derivative work. Like replacing the Mona Lisa with a portrait of some other character.