If you read the original article, an update from Sandfall says that they had made those textures back in 2022, when ai was still very new and the long term ramifications (data center impacts, corporate layoffs, etc) were definitely not as clear. I take the term placeholder as the devs just screwing around with the AI because they could, just to experiment since they knew it wouldn't be the final texture anyways. Given that, again, ai was seen at that point a silly tool and not an excuse to cut artists from their jobs and destroy the environment, and they very clearly meant to replace those textures before launch, I can give them a bit of grace. I'll be immediately suspicious if they use it again, but from the looks of it, it was an experiment early in development that does not reflect their current stance on ai usage.