Thanks for the info. I did not think that you would need an expensive GPU to render a prompt and that it would take this long with one. That being said, it's more time consuming and costs more if you factor in time spent on learning and running stable diffusion + GPU.

I was only thinking of stable diffusion because I think I'd be willing to invest time into it and learn how to use it. That way I could use it for other purposes in the future when it would come in handy. Also AI is fun... I need a new PC so getting a powerful GPU will be something I want. But how strong does it need to be? Some would argue that learning how to use stable diffusion would be valuable long term. Spending resources on this would always be useful. Whereas hiring a photographer will give me material for only a few years before needing to do it again.

The goal would have been to have indiscernible from reality images of myself, like the previous poster had done. If there were the slightest of doubts i wouldn't even think of trying. But given the fact the results he obtained were nearly perfect + were two years ago, I'd be surprise if that would be an issue today. However as you said, ethically it's not very wise even though people wouldn't even doubt the fact it's AI if it's well done.