Dear Alatreon,
I usually don't respond to drama but I think there needs to be some clarification:
For the images I commission artists. Some of the artists used AI to improve the quantity and quality of their images. And I think thats okay.
This saves them time and effort. The images are drawn by hand but made with help of AI, which increased quality and quantity. I still pay the same money - but I get slighty more for the money. The money comes from my patreon, these are people paying and supporting the game and they agree on this, and expect fast updates.
I use AI myself for insignificant things like the blurry background you see on the sports-field. I'm not that good in creating 2d-arts myself.
so... tldr, I think its okay to use AI to speed up my update-time. Patrons are paying and waiting... its my responsiblity to update fast.