I think this is one of the moments where the adage "it's the thought that counts" makes sense! If you're just throwing a prompt at a generator and send it to your friend as a birthday gift then that's a bit tacky. I once got a hand drawn picture in a card from one of my best friends. It was terrible! But I knew how much effort he put into it.

If I found out that he just used AI to make the picture, then I'd probably ask him what his workflow was.

I'm not against using AI to generate images and stuff! I actually have been playing with image generation (Nano banana and also comfy ui). I like making silly pictures for friends and family as e-cards (or whatever they're called now). If it's not a close friend, then I'll exchange prompts with nano banana and generate a few dozen images and then pipe it into veo to make an animated e-card. Maybe takes 10-20 mins including image generation time.

For closer friends I'd spin up comfy ui, spend some time looking for workflows or loras, probably generate a few dozen images as well, and pipe the one I like into Wan video.

This process can take me about an hour, which includes generation time. But I tell my friends they're ai generated, not that I need to because they all I know I can't draw. They don't mind, even if they don't necessarily know how much effort I put into their picture. To their eyes, maybe I just used nano banana. But no ones ever accused me of being lazy with them. It's all in good fun anyways.