I see literally zero problems here. Did they have a contract with an artist? They didn't? Well then it sounds like they have no obligation to use a real artist.
AI art is here to stay, and companies will be using it heavily. It's ignorant to think they would choose otherwise. Why pay an artist to make an image you may not even like over the course of a few days when you could get hundreds of images to choose from in a few seconds using AI? It's 1000 times easier and more convenient.
The art and images that image AI's are based off of, are stolen. They diffuse them as a legal loop hole. That's the main issue. I want to see AI pushed forward, but not when they're scraping data and not crediting artists. The amount of data required for an image AI is crazy; we have to figure out a way of legally and respectfully requiring that data.
Text AI's are marginally better, because a lot of the data acquired was opt in. It was just people talking. There is the issue with them ripping books, though.
It does make it different by virtue of sheer scale and efficiency.
A single human artist, no matter how good and fast they are, could ever singlehandedly damage the livelihoods of millions of other human artists. But a machine can. That's a meaningful distinction.
Granted, your point is valid in its purest sense. If we lived in a world where everyone could benefit from AI art without the real-world downsides, I'd agree with you, full stop. But we do, and those ramifications matter.
I think basically every industry has been dealing with automation for 100 years now. Art is only unique (imo) in that they've been avoiding it for awhile. That's why I only ride in vehicles where every part is hand made and assembled.
We're far past the era of cottage industries. We live in a world that exists because of automation. Be angry at the game (capitalism), not the players.
This is the only point that matters. Even if AI is here to stay, that's fine, you just don't use it when specifically highlighting the demographic most threatened by its usage. The post was just a bad business decision; they should have known how it could come across. It's their job to know that kinda stuff before hitting Post.
If an independent developer is threatened by AI, then they're using it wrong.
From a development standpoint, it is so nice if you are someone who is good at coding but bad at art to be able to use AI to help with the visual design of the game. It's easy to say "just hire an artist" when so many indie devs are literally one-person operations who can barely afford rent, let alone wages for an artist.