Perhaps I'm not the right person to reply to this, because I am just a beginner pixel artist, but I feel so much better when I finish my art projects when compared to the time I spent fiddling with stable diffusion. Maybe because I struggled so much to make it because of my mediocre skills?

I got the same feeling as when you defeat a boss in some soulslike game, it's frustrating but you feel so good when you're done with it.

AI art didn't feel special to me because you can generate as many as you want, I got bored very fast. I guess this is because I'm a process oriented person.