"AI = low effort" is becoming a heuristic regardless of the assertion's absolute accuracy. It's probably not going to die soon as long as it keeps appearing in scammy or low-margin business places.

AI-generated visuals aren't the first to go through this. I'd say the early-to-mid 90's "desktop publishing" went through this too - as soon as everyone could make ads and flyers cheaply with Word, everyone did.

>I’m hoping this tired narrative dies out soon.

It won't die off until AI stops being used with low effort. Which it is the majority the time used for.