Thanks for the reply (and the upvote, although I've hidden all lemmy scores from my account so I really don't care about voting for that matter).

My thought experiment is a lot more complicated if the "AI tool" is sentient, i.e. it can be proven without a hint of a doubt that the robot is essentially no different from a human. If we ever get that far, it's a whole another can of questions.

What I tried to (perhaps unsuccessfully) argue is that, yes we have and are replacing humans with tools all the time, but there's also a line (I think) most wouldn't cross, like replacing a loved-one with a tool. In my original argument that tool would just be an imitation, not a sentient machine. Maybe even a perfect imitation, but nothing more than that - a machine that has learned how to behave, speak etc. I don't think many of us would be happy with a replacement like that.

For me it's same with AI art. I can't appreciate art made by AI because it's just imitation made by a tool. It has no meaning, no "soul".