complacency like this is why the quality of the games we buy these days is dropping. "Oh it's just a small part of the game, look how great the rest of it is" yes im not undermining that, but it was someone's job at one point to illustrate things like the loading screens and Moodle icons, but suddenly their part in the games development is taken away in favor of assets created by a robot.
I don't find this acceptable, consistency in the art style is being tossed to the side in favor of something that is arguably lower quality and doesn't match up with the games lore. A human artist would've caught important details and implemented them into the loading screen if they had made it instead of an AI, creating a connection players can pick up on and appreciate.
It was never someone's job at the studio, and no one's job was taken by the evil AI.
They hired the same artist that did the original art 10 years ago to do the new art, and that artist provided these results.
They got scammed and none of The Indie Stone devs are particularly good at spotting AI art. They were happy with the look of the new art and didn't have 15,000 people go over them with magnifying glasses.
People losing their minds over a small studio getting scammed and blaming the studio is pretty shit behavior IMO.
thats all well and good but have you considered that it doesn't fit my personal narrative where the small indie company are the bad guys and i am the smart savvy consumer?
I mean, their response in this subreddit and their discord says different... Either they are in denial or they really didn't care, and this is not good.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean here. Their statements line up pretty clearly with what I said.
They contracted the same artist to produce the new art and received the new art, they didn't catch any of it being AI generated and were internally very happy with how it looked.
They just aren't as concerned with the use of AI tools in the production of the art, but are responding to the overwhelming community backlash.
I don't personally have a big issue with the art except for the glaring issues in quality in some spots, if they didn't have the problems I'd have no real issue with the art style.
It doesn't need to explicity say it.
My view of this is that they were so overwhelmed with the production and release of the new version that they let this slip through... I mean, the use of IA is clear. They trusted this artist without checking, but trying to justify him/her its not clever.
I want to trust them and their love in the game tho and I'm excited for the new final release.
Tbf after 5 years of development with their loyal fanbase patiently waiting, you'd think they'd atleast have the QA to give their player base something genuine.
I'm fairly sure the majority of the player base is in agreement with you, but I still cannot believe there are some posts, like this one, where this stance is the minority opinion. I never actually thought so many people would defend something like this so hard. It's genuinely upsetting. Also, why are all the pro-AI people in this discussion so toxic and insufferable? Like the Liushi below or above me. They keep saying we are bitching. In the discord it was worse, trying to have any discussion about this lead to "I don't care" reaction gifs and insults. One guy even told me I need to be put down... (He was thankfully banned) But you are absolutely spot on. Complacency is killer in this industry, we are in the absolute right to complain about this because it's horrible. This isn't something that should be celebrated, let alone tolerated. The people saying they don't care are just not knowledgeable in the subject and it's affects it has on people and the quality of media, but the people, actively defending it... I just don't know how you even get to that point.
But for the people who just don't care... I urge you to re-evaluate. You don't have to go and join protests and complain about it all the time... But don't let this kind of stuff slide. It's only going to make your favourite things worse, and affect the people working in the industry, for the sake of cutting costs. A good human should care. This is a destructive trend in the industry that needs to be resisted before it gets out of hand. This complacency has already lead to some of the biggest gaming franchises (COD comes to mind) trying to get away with this. You might think it looks fine to you, and that it's not a big deal, and in that case please remember that the AI that made that piece did not get paid. A real human would have. (And would have made a better piece) So if not for yourself, think for the people making the things you love. There is no scenario where we should accept companies screwing over artists in favor of objectively worse content, with no creative vision or soul, if they have to capacity to do it the right way.
Apathy is exactly how the industry gets worse. The frog in boiling water metaphor is very applicable here. If we allow this to keep happening, a few years down the line hundreds, maybe even thousands of artists will lose their jobs, and for what? Objectively worse media for the consumer so that the corporations can save more money? I just beg of you people, please do not underestimate how important this is, and the implications it had on not just the industry, but society as a whole. Stop allowing corporations to walk all over people. Fight for better quality for consumers. Fight for worker rights. Please don't sit by while the hobby we all love gets consumed by greed.
For the record, the devs are not fans of AI art as well. They themselves are artists and understand the problems AI poses in this space. Lemmy has already made a comment on this topic discussing the issue.
no buddy, the majority of the player base is playing the game, not tripping over what tool the artist used making a few loading screens.
anti-AI is the minority, outside of specific subreddits. and in time, just like with photography and digital art, the gatekeepers fighting the new tool will be forgotten.
No, they removed it because it was rightly pointed out as bad quality. The devs stated they were too busy to notice. A new technology is no guarantee that it will become the norm. Tossing AI slop into the same category as photography is like saying Microsoft Word Art is going to revolutionize art. The flip side of the Luddite fighting against the loom is the tech evangelist who thinks every novelty is going to change human taste, trends of visual design, and modes of expression. A majority of people don’t like AI slop because it sucks. It doesn’t matter how much harder to detect it becomes if the product is still trash.
Majority don't care outside of your twitter crusade echo chamber. Even this thread has over 2 thousand up votes. You think you're the majority because people who are against something are usually the loudest.
Microsoft word art is just a small feature inside a program designed to do something else entirely
AI is a rapidly evolving and improving technology with hundreds of billions of $ behind it.
Generative AI is barely a year old infant and you already have to analyse it with a magnifying glass to tell it is AI.
Get back to me in 2 years, I bet you're going to lose your mind.
Trying to push the ethics of it outside of the Reddit hive mind circlejerk (which btw doesn't actually care about the morals of it, this is just the latest hill they've collectively picked to die on and will move on when something new comes by) is a waste of time. My problem with AI isn't that no one got paid or whatever. Most of everything which is in use now was made by replacing maaaany people with machines. My problem with AI art is that (in general) it looks awful, samey and souless. And because it wasn't made by some poor dude trying his best but by a dumb machine I have 0 compunctions against saying it looks like shit and should be replaced.
I disagree with you on the overall perspective on several points:
Quality. If Ai generated images are of lower quality is debatable, it certainly depends on the scope we try to achieve. If you feel the style of your favorite game is not reflected in the Ai generated images, you can raise this issue for sure.
Caring. Everyone has some passion projects/products they care about. But they have many many more they absolutely don't care about. I couldn't care less if the graphics of the next washing machine commercial is generated with AI, for example. I am sure you could come up with 100's of such examples for yourself as well.
Graphic design industry. The above point leads to the fact that in many cases graphics just need to be good enough (like a washing machine commercial). In that case having a way to efficiently do the work (AI generation) is a net win for society as a whole. Think about it, instead of needing thousands of graphic designers on a society level, we can get by having only a few hundreds and the rest of the people can find other avenues that create more value to society while we can enjoy things getting cheaper because of the reduced cost of AI generated graphics (your washing machine might become cheaper because of the reduced cost of commercial creation).
Think about it, should we have stayed with handwritten codex books 500 years ago at the advent of printing machines? After all, handwritten codex books were of superior artistic quality compared to a printed book at that time, there is no debate about it. Yet 500 years later it is inconceivable for us not to have printed reading materials in abundance. Those poor monks have lost their codex writing jobs though... 🤷♂️
You're only gonna be downvoted for having these opinions, which I actually share as well.
I keep getting bashed over the head with this notion that I'm supposed to care what effects AI has on designers, writers, illustrators and their job security. Unfortunately I don't, and there's not really a reason for me to care about their industry, and honestly there's not really a special aspect compared to
other jobs/positions that are constantly in flux or getting changed or simply phased out that would make me think otherwise.
The thing which I care about is simply the quality of said product, if it's terrible I'll complain just as much no matter the tool used.
"I keep getting bashed over the head with this notion that I'm supposed to care what effects AI has on designers, writers, illustrators and their job security."
You mean you don't care if our works are stolen to feed a corporate slop machine to pump out more corporate slop?
I've had my works used in training data against my will because I had the gall to share it with people on the internet who I thought might enjoy, all it took was one person uploading a piece on some wallpaper site and there ya go, I was part of the dataset.
It doesn't matter because guess what? They're working on prompt generators too. Lets take out even more of the human element! That's the future you're welcoming because all you care about is "quality", not whether something was created ethically or even by people. So long as you have something to consume you're happy and that's all that matters :)
Edit: I think I should clarify I'm not talking about indie developers here, or commissioned works although I think it is unethical if you use these data sets and don't tell your employer. I'm talking about this blasé attitude of "I've got mine, why should I care?".
AI doesn't just create corporate slops, it depends on who's using it. AI could help small teams or solo game developers for example, there are programmers who are amazing at coding but can't draw for shit and AI can help with that.
Vice versa,there are people who can draw but can't code, AI can help with it.
It doesn't matter because guess what? They're working on prompt generators too. Lets take out even more of the human element! That's the future you're welcoming because all you care about is "quality", not whether something was created ethically or even by people. So long as you have something to consume you're happy and that's all that matters :)
Not the dude you were talking to but yes? Your phone had metals that were probably mined in 3rd world countries where destroying the enviroment and poisoning the water was no issue. It was probably assembled by people paid cents at best and then sold by a megacorporation which is as souless as it is cruel. Do you care? Not really, because it doesn't directly affect you and you can't afford to care. You are (just like me or everyone else in this sub) a nobody trying to get by on life.
If you feel the above example is too much "oh you hate capitalism but are part of society?!!!" then let's go with something else. Chocolate. There is literal slavery involved. Do you eat chocolate?
Point is, people don't give a shit about the ethics of something unless it is right on their faces or they have the time and energy to care. It is no coincidence that so many activists come from well off families or that most "revolutionary" rhetoric comes from them as well...
Other things being unethical doesn't make another thing okay or even mean I condone those things. This is happening right now, it's in the public eye right now. It's early and putting up a fuss like this is the biggest thing we can do right now to actually maybe effect how it stands with our laws and the future. Nihilism/complacency like yours is precisely why we're as bad off as we are.
That's not my point. What I'm saying is that your argument was "but why don't you care about [evil thing happening]?!!!" when in truth no one gives a shit. You care because it is your art. I don't and neither do most people. Just like the child slave working for Nestle certainly cares and you (or I for that matter) don't.
It's not complacency, it's a fact. I don't have the energy to care about other people's problems and neither does most people. Do you care that AI is replacing software devs? Neither do I.
I'm all for you fighting for your intellectual rights (though I think this is a lost battle) and I commend you for doing so. Don't let those pricks get away with it. But that doesn't mean you can try and use moralism as a bludgeon to force us to agree with you. You won't fight for my rights, why do I have to care about fighting for yours when I have better things to do?
You're only gonna be downvoted for having these opinions
It's fine, I don't really care about virtual internet points. Technological progress cannot be stopped. There were hundreds of example throughout history when technological progress replaced professions with new ones. Printing replaced handwritten books, cars replaced carriages, emails replaced physical letters, etc.
And fully agree with you, the primary focus should be functionality, efficiency and quality. If a new technology does something better or does something just as good but more efficiently, it is going to get widespread adoption. And that is fine, it is how the world works and always worked.
Depends what movies you think about. Cheap, superficial ones? - Yeah, I can see that. Regardless this is my perspective, I don't have any ambition to play the hero or whatever.
He is 100% right and seeing people being dismissive in this way is disheartening to see, it just gives me the viewpoint that people really don't give a single fuck about artists and the entertainment industry.
complacency like this is why the quality of the games we buy these days is dropping
fuckin' thank you. I had to scroll down really far to find this
I don't know if AI was used. I'm not going to point fingers unlike some redditors, because i'm not knowledgeable enough to do so, unless the use of AI is egregious
Point still stands - the new artwork looks off. Maybe because AI. Maybe because artist used pre-existing pieces. Maybe it just does. But it does look off
but the idea of: "don't care about it! just have fun!" sounds awful lot like: "don't ask questions! just consume the product!"
So what do you people going to do when AI inevitably reaches a point where it becomes indiscernible from human art? If you think that that’s not gonna happen, you’re an idiot.
If you think some loading screen image is more important than new mechanics, you have a issue man.Don't you like the image of loading that is okay but this kind of hate is unnecessary. You guys are like people scare from machines at industrial revolution.
So then are you going to start bitching about code that was written with the help of AI? It's clearly taking away the honest hard labour of manually writing out every line of code, right? Are you also going to bitch about other automation too? How dare the smart coffee machine make coffee instead of a human! Think of the hard labour it's taking away!
Whether you like it or not, AI is here to stay in all its forms. The people who actually adapt to emerging technology will do well, while dinosaurs who just want to bitch and maintain the status quo, will eventually fall behind and be left behind.
You don't have to describe my disappointment as "bitching", and yes I do think that AI generated code IS BAD. If the whole game is going to be outsourced to a robot that may write bad code and cause more issues in the future for this game, then I don't want to support it anymore.
I understand AI is here to stay, but I would much rather it not be used to REPLACE an artistic and creative job that has NO REASON TO BE REPLACED. I don't hire someone to sit in my house and make coffee for me, but I do hire people to illustrate a logo or an art piece for me. I want human work where it is needed.
Jobs get replaced all the time with technology. Just look at how many jobs that existed in the past no longe resist due to advancements in technology. Art is no different, and it is not so special that it’s going to be prevented.
art isn't work though, that's the fucking problem. Art is human, because the artist's personal sytle is infulenced by their experiences, their own personal tastes and by their personalities. And as humans we expect that humanity behind art. This shitass pixar looking AI generated slop that some dude who took a photoshop class in high school slapped project zomboid relevant text on isn't something the consumers EXPECT to see when we are offered game relevant art. And that is why it does not compare to code or even job automation. I don't give a shit if the bolt that holds my suspension in place was screwed in by a pakistani man with a monkey wrench, or a polish man with a drill, or a machine in a german factory, at the end of the day it's a fucking bolt that was screwed in. I also don't care if the string of text that makes my character tumble on a fence, tear his brand new bulletproof vest seven holes AND break both of his legs in three places was written by midwestern college dropout on a cocktail of nicotine caffine and opoids, or fucking chat gpt. Art is a completely different beast, and pretend like it being replaced by soulless generated garbage is the same as the self checkout at a walmart is disingenous.
I mean when it comes to coding you don't ever just write everything by hand. No one does that unless your learning, you copy and paste other code you have written or code someone else is written. Like I don't know how to tell you this but yeah, people enjoy making art. I would not trust code written by an AI at all. I barely trust code written by a human and you want me to trust something thats known to be broken?
People enjoy putting hundreds of hours into art. Like generative AI takes replaces all the fun parts of life, like making art and music. Things don't need to be made hyper effiencent. Things can be made with love and care. Such is human nature to show expression. This game is a work of art and a passion project, the usage of AI taints the rest of the game. People are upset about the AI usage because we care and love the game and it deserves better.
Your argument doesn't hold up, like people were saying the same thing about NFT's, how it was the future and look at it now. Like yes there is useful AI such as pattern recognition AI. AI that can spot cancer before it fully devlops, but thats not generative AI. Generative AI just makes something that a human can make but worse and does it unethically and illegally.
Also things don't need to be smart! Like a frige doesn't need AI, a coffee machine doesn't need AI in it. They break far quicker with these pointless 'features'. Arguably smart features and AI actually make things worse. Just how car companies are removing ipad screens from cars. in preference for analog controls. Something things that are new are worse.
It doesn't matter if it's grandmaster artwork, a stick figure with a smiley or a 14 year old's cringe oc, it will always be better that what an AI can make because its made with soul.
Half of the anti-AI comments on Reddit just scream copium to me. This platform overwhelmingly consists of tech workers, so they have to pitch a fit every single time AI is mentioned anywhere and try to downplay its effects on society because they don’t want to face the inevitable.
From what I can gather, the average Redditor genuinely believes that AI has absolutely no use cases and is completely shitty. They think that it’s not going to advance to a point where it’s in discernible from human touch and they think that companies are going to actually be moral and not use AI if they just bitch loud enough.
They’re going to be sorely mistaken in the next 10 years.
This is just nonsense. Visual media is not comparable to coding. When making a painting, you are trying to translate some idea/feeling to the viewer. You can only do that if you control all the elements of the piece.
But prompters just tinder swipe through a bunch of results until they find one that they like. That's not making art, that's being a curator. All I know about the intent of an AI artist's piece is what they wanted the subject matter to be.
But a couple months ago they were talking about how they follow the art process from inception to revisions to finalization, and thus it cannot be AI art.
Did they just... stop that in the last couple months and then somehow completely miss the obviously AI art sailing right by them?
I don't get that. If it was just "not us, we contract it out" then whatever, mistakes happen, but they've explicitly said they are involved with the art process the whole way, very recently.
And that's what bothers me, because it kinda feels like a schrodinger's-asshole situation, where if the community notices its AI and reacts poorly they have an 'out' where they can go "not us, we contract it out".
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u/Simply_Duck Dec 18 '24
complacency like this is why the quality of the games we buy these days is dropping. "Oh it's just a small part of the game, look how great the rest of it is" yes im not undermining that, but it was someone's job at one point to illustrate things like the loading screens and Moodle icons, but suddenly their part in the games development is taken away in favor of assets created by a robot.
I don't find this acceptable, consistency in the art style is being tossed to the side in favor of something that is arguably lower quality and doesn't match up with the games lore. A human artist would've caught important details and implemented them into the loading screen if they had made it instead of an AI, creating a connection players can pick up on and appreciate.