Is using AI as drawing reference unethical?

I am animator/digital artist. Sometimes I can't find the reference I'm looking for and sometimes I struggle to get certain scenarios illustrated correctly. I recently started using Ai during my process to generate reference photos. I don't trace over them to make an exact copy of it but I use it as a reference to position my characters, design backgrounds, etc. I never use it to finalize my drawings

Would it be unethical to use AI to generate reference images for my art and is it the same as using reference images from Pinterest and stock photo websites?