My issue is that I only have a 6gb and from what I could figure out it has some issues with "half precision" or something, which makes it less good for AI (Not going to pretend that I know what it is) But even without this issue 6gb is on the limit already :)

I didn't want to make it sound as if controlNet is not useful, it is very useful, but I still think in its current state, probably due to how the AI-generated technology works that it has its limitations as you say it isn't exactly smart. And btw I think I read that it was released for SDXL the other day, but might be mistaken as I only read the headline :D

The issue with AI is consistency in my opinion, but what you can do is use img2img combined with PS mockups, it will not completely solve the issue of consistency, but if you keep repeating this, you can to some degree control the image, also there is support for transparency as far as I know to control which areas should be generated. But obviously, it ain't really the optimal workflow.

I agree with your product example, but im not so sure that it will stay like that as the AI tools improve, because even when doing let's say product presentation there are some techniques that work better than others obviously depending on the product. But I don't see any reason why an AI couldn't learn that, especially if you got some AI image generation tool integrated with ChatGPT or whatever. 

For instance, I just did a quick example using Chatgpt, to make up some cooking book and then told it to use the AIDA model for writing a description to sell the book:

Discover "Wild Feasts: Cooking Beyond Campfires"!

Are you ready for a culinary adventure that takes you beyond the ordinary? Dive into the pages of "Wild Feasts" and explore the thrill of cooking in the great outdoors. Imagine creating mouthwatering dishes surrounded by nature's beauty and flavors. Delve into the art of foraging, master shelter-cooking techniques, and infuse your meals with the essence of the wild. From angler-inspired delights to backcountry gourmet wonders, this book is your guide to extraordinary outdoor cooking. Are you prepared to unleash your inner wild chef and turn every meal into a memorable feast under the open sky? 

I didn't spend a whole lot of time on this, but I think it illustrates the idea well enough that one could imagine that it could also be done with a product image, as long as the technique for what works is available. Let's say you had to make a commercial for travelling to some nice sunny place, then you wouldn't make an image of it raining or put some unattractive and angry people in the image. So my point is, that if the AI (Chatgpt) knows this and my guess is that it probably won't take long before it can be fully integrated with an AI image generation tool, I think ChatGPT can already create prompts if im not mistaken. Then the margin for why you would spend 1000s of dollars hiring someone to tell you this might be somewhat blurred, compared to just telling the AI to generate an amazing image using well-known techniques. 

I agree if you just run with the AI image generation alone then you will as you say, probably get something decent out, but it might not sell the product as well as one might hope. The question is obviously how all this AI is going to work in the future, we know that people are very creative when it comes to making use of these tools and new technologies in unexpected ways.

Also want to stress, that I don't think that AI will replace all humans, so when I talk about the potential impact Im simply speaking about whether it will reduce the number of people required. Just like I don't think that AI will replace all journalists, but there are definitely some that will be replaced I think, simply because they become more effective. 

I don't think it is as much about adapting, as you might. Because I agree with your example about the mechanic in the scenario you use. But I think it is an incorrect scenario of what is going on. Because it should be, the mechanic repairing cars and then some robot (AI) thingy comes along and can repair the same cars day and night and much faster, and maybe 5 cars at a time. The AI image generation tools, in broad terms, don't really do anything that humans couldn't do, they just do it insanely much faster and in a way that makes it extremely easy to do. It could probably be compared to a person driving their car into a garage and then pressing a button on the computer saying "Fix my car". So even if the AI can't fix all things that a mechanic could, it might be able to fix let's say 70% of the things, which would still mean that mechanics would lose that percentage.