But this has become an essentially religious argument. I know authors who are making bank from AI fiction. The audiences either can't tell, or can tell and simply don't care.

And the reality is that even if you write your novel without any AI assistance, unless you have a hand-typed manuscript - better still, hand-written - you're in danger of being accused of AI becomes someone finds an em-dash, or decides your words are too hard, or your skin is the wrong colour, or for some other completely arbitrary reason.

Anyone who uses a word processor is in danger of this. Any digital proof-of-work trail can be faked. (Unless it's on the blockchain - which no one is doing, and would be deeply ironic as a final boss literary application.)

In this current example, the author was suspected of using AI. No solid proof was offered. And unless you have copies of AI sessions, no solid proof is possible.

Meanwhile the world has moved on from trad pub. It's where the very big money is (relatively) but the number of authors making that kind of money is low-three figures at best.

Everyone else who writes one of the >600,000 books that get trad pubbed every year gets a pat on the head and two weeks in B&N before their multi-year project has it covers torn off and is returned to the publisher.

There are entire professional communities of authors who have had enough of the nonsense. They're making adequate-to-incredible money bypassing the big four, they have access to their own readers, and AI is more of an opportunity than a problem for them.