Developer of New Postal Game Shuts Down Studio After Game Was Announced, Then Canceled Over Gen AI Allegations : pcgaming

[–] Ganbat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 82 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

I read through the article. Apparently the studio shared work-in-progress content to prove it wasn't made using AI.

I don't know if they used AI or not, but this type of thing has been happening since the inception of gen AI. Shortly after the release of Stable Diffusion 1.5, moderators of r/Art were banning people who had been around for years because their art suddenly "looked like A.I." and told they should "Get a better art style."

In the intervening time, this type of thinking has spread. Just yesterday, I was watching a YouTube video, and they used a certain background in it which they had used before to no note. This time, however, one user claimed that background was A.I. That was all it took to send the comments into a deluge of hatred and accusations.

Here, though... I ask, if work-in-progress PSDs showing the in-progress art don't meet the burden of proof to sate these accusations, what does? How long will it be until the only safe form of art to avoid these accusations is a photo of a pencil sketch with a hand-written date nearby?

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 50 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I hate how I personally have gotten suspicious of certain aesthetics after the flood of AI tools.

[–] Agent_Karyo@piefed.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Agreed, this is pretty annoying for me personally.

I don't even mind ML generated art in certain contexts if there is disclosure.

I honestly couldn't tell that from the video that the art is ML gen based and I feel like I have a relatively well developed sense for both LLM output and ML gen'd images.

[+] _cryptagion@anarchist.nexus -6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

the cool thing here is you can, you know, do something about your own biases

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I think you're missing the point here a little. This bias towards being critical of where something is from is entirely justified. The reality is, there's more gen AI content out there than ever before, and if you're not questioning things constantly, things will slip past.

I'm viewing this kind of like a "phobia" vs a "fear". If you're genuinely in danger of being mislead by AI slop, then having a paranoia about it is perfectly rational.

[–] _cryptagion@anarchist.nexus -3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This bias towards being critical of where something is from is entirely justified.

it's funny how that argument is exactly the same one people use to justify racism. seeing as how the dev provided proof it wasn't AI generated, the argument is just as fucking stupid in this context as it it with racists.

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 6 points 1 day ago

AI has had very measureable negative effects on society in the last several years. Someone's race doesn't have any relation to if they're good or bad, which is why being racist is irrational and stupid. It's not the same argument.

In terms of art, it's the difference between being critical of all art because AI slop is common in general (what I've been talking about as rational paranoia) vs only being critical of one specific style because you don't like it and label all of it as bad AI (maybe the analogy for racism you're talking about).

[–] noobdoomguy8658@feddit.org 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The "work-in-progress" video proof in question basically showed some interface similar to a video editing program with assets popping in like layers, i.e. no actual drawing or concepts or anything.

Your point is very valid, but it also reads like you haven't seen the proof -- which, if anything, was even more of a nail to the coffin.

[–] Ganbat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 day ago

I haven't seen the proof myself. I searched and couldn't find it. The article above mentioned that they shared PSDs, so I assumed that was confirmation enough that they actually released PSD files of the work in progress.

[–] ozymandias@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

clearly you just wrote this comment with ai… only ai would hyphenate “work-in-progress”.
disgusting….
~/s~

[–] Ganbat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 hours ago

Ever seen that horror movie where the hand gets possessed? It's like that but my hand is AI.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

We don't have General AI yet and the current course doesn't seem to be the right one to get it. So unless there is a time machine.

[–] Ganbat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 day ago

Generative A.I.

[–] rozodru@pie.andmc.ca 26 points 1 day ago

"Goonswarm games"

/me an EVE Online Player feeling kinda suspicious and not that surprised by the allegations.

[–] Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

I don't see anything to suggest AI was used in the making of the game, but I also don't see anything that suggests it was going to be a good game. So it may not have taken much pressure to get them to fold.

[–] ideonek@piefed.social 6 points 1 day ago

Fuck this site and their forced redirections.

[–] allo@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago (3 children)

type 1: EXTREME SUSPICION THINK EVERYTHING IS AI GENERATED. Thrash wildly when presented all images, audio, text, and movies in a desparate attempt to prove whether it's ai and should thus be shunned and hated.

type 2: not really care

[–] dan1101@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

I don't mind AI as long as it's filtered through humans. Like don't just generate something and ship it directly to the consumer. Use AI generated content as a stepping off point for what you want to create.

[–] FishFace@piefed.social -3 points 1 day ago

Most visual art I consume I'm not getting anything out of it that is diminished if it were not created by human hand.

It's mostly comics and "cool shit" and AI images are just as capable of being the illustration of a cool story. And the same rules apply - if a real artist draws wonky proportions or an extra finger, it might look a bit off but probably doesn't bother the viewer much as long as it's not all the time.

There are other situations where AI or any kind of simulation of humanity doesn't work. An ai generated story won't have the same kind of emotional connection, for example.

[+] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca -8 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Vapid anti-AI hate can cause quite a lot of damage. And what for? To feel like you're superior to everyone that you can spot all the AI errors?

Sure, shame a company for AI use if it's obviously bad or you have actual proof. But just guessing because you think it's AI is pretty shitty.

[–] belated_frog_pants@beehaw.org 2 points 3 hours ago

The strong feedback from them is that elements of the game are very likely AI-generated and thus has caused extreme damage to our brand and our company reputation.

These are not the words of a company who didnt know about the ai use. They hired them because they were gonna use ai so it would be cheap to produce, fans were rightfully upset to be fed slop, publisher backpedals so hard they close the studio.

You think if they didnt use ai here they'd do all that? Or would they instead say "we are sorry the quality doesn't appeal and we will work on it" not this

[+] Lembot_0005@lemy.lol -45 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Why should we care about the tools they use? Results are important.

[–] Larry@lemmy.zip 65 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Because that tool was built by committing the largest IP theft in history. Not to mention the loss of jobs, the waste of water, waste of energy, spiking hardware prices, potential to dumb down all future generations.

But yeah, just a tool, same as wrench...

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

“But if we don’t do it, they will. And then they will win.”

[+] Lembot_0005@lemy.lol -52 points 1 day ago (3 children)

IP theft

People learn in the same way

the waste of water, waste of energy,

People consume that too. Even while not working.

dumb down all future generations

Human specialists also let other people stop being specialists. When did specialisation become the norm? In the early paleolith? Earlier?

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 23 points 1 day ago (3 children)

People consume that too. Even while not working.

That is correct, but you completely miss the scales, not to mention the lack of learning when the AI makes a mistake.

When a human makes a mistake, they can learn from it, understand what went wrong and improve, when an AI makes a mistake it is just being told "bad", it is really difficult to define why you rejected a specific response.

So not only does AI use more energy, far more is wasted

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago

Getting off topic but these comments have me wondering, how much fresh water do we actually use to survive? Obviously we consume water to drink. And use it in our kitchens and bathrooms. But we know that’s just a small percentage of water use. The largest use is agriculture. I’ll count that as our consumption as well, because we eat the food produced. But I wonder what percentage of overall use goes to things that do not directly contribute to our survival. Like landscaping e.g. watering lawns. Especially in desert areas. Golf courses, that sort of thing.

[+] Valmond@lemmy.world -15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

On the other hand, the human will grow old and the hard learned information will die with him.

Computers? The software will be there forever.

Now, that IP should be FOSS of course.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Humm, have you ever heard of the concept of teaching or books?

Both are methods of knowledge transfer.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You still have to teach and learn.

When you die, that knowledge has to be re-learned by someone else, taking maybe tens of years.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What are you talking about?

Knowledge can and is in fact far easier to transfer when you are alive.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yes. I didn't say you should learn while dead 😋.

My postulate was that an AI will not die, and eventually just learn more and more (or get better tuned). It can just function forever in theory.

We mere humans first spend many years learning to read and write, and so on, from 6 to 26 or more. Then we get a job and learn all the time, the welder gets better at welding, the doctor better at diagnosing and so on.

But then we humans grow old gets dementia and dies and society loses all that usefulness. If the society needs a new welder, we have to train someone to read, write, and eventually weld. They will get better at it until they die too. And so on.

An "AI welder" (or doctor or whatever) that is bad but "learns" over the years and softwate updates doesn't go away suddenly, and can learn indefinitely, becoming extremely good at what it does, because it's not resetted every 70 years or so.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The main issue with AI regarding learning is that while AI may be very logical, AI is not resonable, it can't detect if something is resonable, leading to stupid conclusions and bad learnings

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world -1 points 22 hours ago

Sure, but that will evolve. We'll have better AI five ten years from now.

[+] Lembot_0005@lemy.lol -30 points 1 day ago (1 children)

but you completely miss the scales,

I don't. I see no reason to believe that machines use more energy than humans while achieving comparable results.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

We are talking about to vastly different entities, to even consider that they would be equal in terms of energy use for a similar task is dumb. That would be like expecting the energy use for transporting box by truck or by ship to be equal. That just doesn't work.
The results are not even comparable.

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip -2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Just to play devils advocate, how much energy goes into growing our food, processing our food, transporting our food. Our education, and entertainment. All of which go into the output we produce. I wondering if at that point the numbers get closer.

When talking about these data centers, they often use the term enough to power a “small city.” So how much output could a “small city” of people produce? You’d have to break the result down into required man hours, and spread that across the population, as obviously the AI will do things faster than individual humans.

[–] GammaGames@beehaw.org 1 points 14 hours ago

That is missing the forest for the trees, there’s zero need to play devils advocate

https://youtu.be/ERiXDhLHxmo

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day ago

People consume that too. Even while not working.

That's not a waste, though. I'd want them around even they weren't working.

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What a bunch of Bullshit no we don't learn the same way as we don't have perfect recall. And we do not consume the amount of energy AI data centers do. They consume a cities worth or more of energy to make a select few rich. Whatever we are done as a species it was a good run. All this fucking consumerism and must have infinite growth on a finite planet. We are to stupid to realize we are dead.

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 1 points 1 day ago

Ironically AI doesn't have perfectly recall either, and that's kind of one of the main problems with it and hallucinations. It can easily get poisoned by a handful of data points in it's training set. But even then, it can only really blend 2 data points together, it's got no ability to extrapolate and think outside the box.

[–] ech@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Along with the other comment, it's also soulless. Not that the postal series had much in the way of artistry to begin with, even that series is still more artistic than anything generated by a program.

[–] rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

Oh go away

[–] november@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago

I do not believe that you think results are the only thing that matter, methods be damned. I think you do have a line you would draw somewhere. The rest of us simply draw ours in a different place than you do.

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