I understand that you think you're being reasonable, it's just ai isn't a good tool to use. Training an ai model itself produces as much carbon gasses as 5 avg American cars- it's really not good for the environment and you shouldn't use it just because it's easier than making art yourself or in the respect of someone who died.
Listen I appreciate your concern about environmental impact. But I think there may be some confusion here, I did not train an AI model. The “five cars” statistic only applies to training large models, not generating a handful of images from one that's already been trained.
The actual energy cost of generating the assets I used is relatively small. Comparable to playing an Xbox for a few hours.
This project was also deeply personal. Finishing it was about closure and honoring a shared vision. If there had been other realistic ways for me to complete it, I would have done that instead.
I understand that AI use is controversial for some people, and I respect that perspective. But in this case, it helped me complete something meaningful.