I don’t agree with the scolds who claim that every GenAI use is immoral by default, but I do think that the tech itself when applied within capitalist practices is immoral as it’s meant to deskill and disenfranchise workers.

All capitalist practices are immoral in functionally the same way. Capitalism works to use worker exploitation but also use of the commons for private gain. Generative AI is now part of the commons that capitalists will inevitably use for profit. The fight over worker disenfranchisement in this case was functionally instantly lost the moment generative AI became usable at all.

Anyway, any defense you can make for your “little indie game” can be made by mega-corporations using GenAI just as well.

They already do and are going to regardless. In fact, using Generative AI will likely become functionally mandatory given a capitalist market system. If you take on labor costs that other firms don’t, then you will not be able to compete. This applies to big corporations and small indie devs already. A company wont abstain from Gen AI if their competition wont and all it takes is one company to start using Gen AI.

A person working to make profit might not actually believe in copyrights. Nor hold any ideological kinship with the system they exist in.

Further, virtually all resources to do anything originated in “the commons” and the sort of person who’s trying to produce a game as their means of making money probably are just trying to get away from a miserable 9 to 5 (or not live under a bridge).

People who work and give away their shit for free are good people, but they are also usually people who are financially comfortable already. Its not right to dictate what resources some individual game dev is trying to use to make a living off their work.

Wanting a good GUI doesn’t mean you don’t know what you are doing.