why would they have used it in the first place?

Because 30 seconds with an image generator looks nicer than 30 seconds in MS paint, the deeper point being the deciding factor is that it took 30 seconds of time.

It shaved off work hours.

I think this only makes sense in some abstract of a net aggregate of artistic labor hours. The reality though is that this work was never done by the artists, never given significant time allocation, and would never lead to hiring more artists.

It was placeholder art. They didn’t reduce the artist hire because they weren’t going to have the artist make orange boxes and MSpaint character icons.

The reductio ad absurdum is equally silly the other way. “Does the seeded algorithmic generation of a cloud texture disqualify anything that uses it as AI???” This is a debate stage level talking point, and is unconvincing in reality.

You do?

And I said nothing because ACAB