It’s not an excuse. I just simply don’t support AI slop. AT. ALL. I don’t care that they used it for a placeholder texture. And that texture didn’t end up in final release. If I have anything to say about it, these companies will not get my money if they dipped their toes in AI. AT. ALL.
There are workers that could have made placeholder textures for fucks sake.
While AI is just tool like anything else, the fact it is being used to replace talented artists just to save a quick buck is why it is understandably being called evil. Context matters.
Except in this case it wasn’t used to replace talented artists.
AI is precisely for this kind of work, the uninspired, “someone’s gotta do it” kind of boilerplate bullshit. No artist is enthusiastic about having to make brick pattern number 3591. But someone’s gotta make it. At that point, it might be just one artist generating all required 8000 patterns via AI, knocking it out in one day, then getting back to working on things that do require their talent.
Holy shit, I haven’t felt whiplash like that from a comment in years.
I’m not even mad, I feel alive.
But to be serious for moment, in the future when you’re about to make a similar comment out of nowhere, please pause and reflect on why you chose to say such a thing to a stranger on internet in the first place?
Our time to converse genuinely with others online may be finite and coming to an end sooner than any of us expected. Is that how you want to conduct yourself in these fleeting moments?
There were no artists who would have been paid to create placeholder textures. They would have used textures from open source sources, or from previously used textures.
I agree that AI should never replace the job a person could do, but in this instance the user of AI caused no loss of income.
This is the kind of nuance I came back to the comments for, thank you. It’s an interesting question and I would like more details on how various game studios typically treat such material. Is it some stock photo? And if so, are they paying for it?
A contractor used it for placeholder background assets in 2022 when the best genAI tech available was DallE-Mini and literally no one was even remotely aware of any ethical concerns yet.
Like I get that time feels nonexistent since 2020 but people seem to forget genAI was literally not even a known thing until 2024 at the earliest.
Today genAI and all those who support it in any capacity deserve to rot in hell, and it shouldn’t even be used for placeholders or concepts at any stage in the process. That’s a given. But why are we applying 2025 standards to something clearly done at a time before anyone knew anything about this shit?
Also the article people keep bringing up about Sandfall admitting they use “AI” is nothing but conflated buzzwords and has literally nothing to do with genAI, they’re very obviously referring to regular ass machine learning and Unreal tools that have existed for ages.
They used it for background assets but patched it quickly. It’s not as egregious as it sounds.
Read the article. I understand.
It’s not an excuse. I just simply don’t support AI slop. AT. ALL. I don’t care that they used it for a placeholder texture. And that texture didn’t end up in final release. If I have anything to say about it, these companies will not get my money if they dipped their toes in AI. AT. ALL.
There are workers that could have made placeholder textures for fucks sake.
AI has been around for years well before the LLM craze. It’s not all evil ffs.
While AI is just tool like anything else, the fact it is being used to replace talented artists just to save a quick buck is why it is understandably being called evil. Context matters.
AI has not replaced any jobs to any significant degree
Tell that to all the people who lost their jobs.
LOL who? The layoffs from over hiring during covid, high interest rates and the boneheaded tariffs this past half year?
Who?
Except in this case it wasn’t used to replace talented artists.
AI is precisely for this kind of work, the uninspired, “someone’s gotta do it” kind of boilerplate bullshit. No artist is enthusiastic about having to make brick pattern number 3591. But someone’s gotta make it. At that point, it might be just one artist generating all required 8000 patterns via AI, knocking it out in one day, then getting back to working on things that do require their talent.
People who are not artists love saying things like this.
Too true. I love making my creative outlet’s equivalent.
Generative forms as we now know them have been around for 2 years.
I take it you never made it beyond high school?
Holy shit, I haven’t felt whiplash like that from a comment in years.
I’m not even mad, I feel alive.
But to be serious for moment, in the future when you’re about to make a similar comment out of nowhere, please pause and reflect on why you chose to say such a thing to a stranger on internet in the first place?
Our time to converse genuinely with others online may be finite and coming to an end sooner than any of us expected. Is that how you want to conduct yourself in these fleeting moments?
There were no artists who would have been paid to create placeholder textures. They would have used textures from open source sources, or from previously used textures.
I agree that AI should never replace the job a person could do, but in this instance the user of AI caused no loss of income.
This is the kind of nuance I came back to the comments for, thank you. It’s an interesting question and I would like more details on how various game studios typically treat such material. Is it some stock photo? And if so, are they paying for it?
A contractor used it for placeholder background assets in 2022 when the best genAI tech available was DallE-Mini and literally no one was even remotely aware of any ethical concerns yet.
Like I get that time feels nonexistent since 2020 but people seem to forget genAI was literally not even a known thing until 2024 at the earliest.
Today genAI and all those who support it in any capacity deserve to rot in hell, and it shouldn’t even be used for placeholders or concepts at any stage in the process. That’s a given. But why are we applying 2025 standards to something clearly done at a time before anyone knew anything about this shit?
Also the article people keep bringing up about Sandfall admitting they use “AI” is nothing but conflated buzzwords and has literally nothing to do with genAI, they’re very obviously referring to regular ass machine learning and Unreal tools that have existed for ages.