thoughts on using AI for references in art

ill preface this with saying i dont see generated ai as art and nothing will or should replace real artists. however i wanted to gauge people’s opinion on using ai as a tool or reference.

i am struggling to find figure and pose references for my painting class that are of good quality and what i am actually looking for. finding references that were not behind a pay wall was already hard enough but now everything is ai. the current reference i was using was ai without me realizing and now im wondering if using ai references are that bad?? it is high enough quality that i didnt realize it was ai to begin with and the type of poses im looking for are so specific with lots of drapery to the point that i dont think i can find it anywhere else and i dont have to means to make photo references myself. im also not a painter/drawer who specifically isn’t fond of figure drawing so im really not great at using purely my imagination or can justify paying for references. i would only be using ai as a reference for a pose and not for the rest of the piece.

so any artist or honestly anyone wanted to give opinions on this or any suggestions it would be greatly appreciated! ^^