TLDR, it wasn’t because of any ethical qualms but legal concerns.
Valve sent back a message explaining that it “cannot ship games for which the developer does not have all of the necessary rights,” suggesting it will be taking a hardline stance where AI-generated assets are concerned.
“After reviewing, we have identified intellectual property in [Game Name Here] which appears to belongs to one or more third parties. In particular, [Game Name Here] contains art assets generated by artificial intelligence that appears to be relying on copyrighted material owned by third parties,” reads the message.
"As the legal ownership of such AI-generated art is unclear, we cannot ship your game while it contains these AI-generated assets, unless you can affirmatively confirm that you own the rights to all of the IP used in the data set that trained the AI to create the assets in your game.
“We are failing your build and will give you one (1) opportunity to remove all content that you do not have the rights to from your build. If you fail to remove all such content, we will not be able to ship your game on Steam, and this app will be banned.”
Importantly, they are not consistent with it, and there are many approved games with AI art. Steam moderators have a surprising amount of autonomy, and this isn’t necessarily indicative of a company policy.
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Good. Another reason to love Valve.
Thank goodness.
I note that the developer in question decided not to comply, instead obscuring “obvious signs of AI” and resubmitting, after which Valve did refuse to publish. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, I guess.
