"Interesting" is a very brave and British way to put it, but yeah.

Let's say I'm polar opposite of them, and we're on the same page with you.

Maybe. I could also interpret this as the friend being misunderstood.

The whole "you'll be forced to do it" comes from the alternative being that you lose. You no longer get to be a player in the "game". In the same way that coopers and cobblers are no longer a significant thing, but we still have barrels and we still have shoes. Software engineers who refuse to employ any LLMs won't be market competitive. If you adopt it, you at least get to remain playing the game until the game changes/corrects. That's the part that's "not so bad".

Choosing your own survival isn't ethically bankrupt.