Oh dear. Goonswarm Games are shutting down after Running With Scissors cancelled POSTAL: Bullet Paradise due to the use of generative AI. It’s a bit of a saga this one.
I covered the initial announcement, along with a follow-up update in there where Running With Scissors attempted to defend the developer. The backlash only continued, and eventually RWS cancelled it as per the statement GamingOnLinux was sent on December 5th via Vince Desi, founder of Running With Scissors
Yeah this is getting ridiculous. People are going to have to accept the existence of genAI sooner or later. To be honest I never understood what the problem people had with it was in the first place. Surely AI is something we were all looking forward to before it actually came out.
If you don’t personally have a problem with GenAI, that’s fine. Nobody else has to accept it or like it for themselves though.
A game studio has been shut down over this. So yes it’s a problem when others can’t at least tolerate it. It’s especially funny when people attack people for using GenAI when they actually didn’t use it.
It isn’t a problem for consumers to make decisions about what they want to support. Those decisions might not line up with your beliefs, but people can still make choices about what they do or don’t support.
Again though they did not intentionally use it, one of their contractors did without their knowledge which they then apologised for. There is no reliable way of telling what is or is not AI generated and that’s only getting worse as models improve. This means that ultimately witch hunts like this are only going to get more dangerous and more outrageous.
I feel we’re moving away from what I understood your point to be: the public has to get comfortable with Generative AI being used in media and products.
I don’t agree with that point.
If the public can’t tell the difference then how can they be comfortable or uncomfortable if they don’t even know?
You will increasingly find as well that more and more things will be made using AI to the point you can’t really avoid it unless you only consume older media. This is especially true for anything involving programming such as video games as almost all future programming projects will involve AI as it’s simply much faster and more effective to code with AI than without it. Since you don’t have access to the source code of most games there really isn’t any way to tell. So even if you try to avoid video games with AI generated assets you won’t be able to avoid games with AI generated code.
Basically I am trying to say that trying to boycott AI entirely is futile and hating it changes nothing. It’s the modern equivalent to being a luddite.
I can’t taste the difference between eggs from battery farmed hens and free range ones. I still try to avoid battery farmed eggs.
You can call me a luddite, and you’re totally welcome to your opinions about the ethics of Generative AI usage in media, art, and products that you buy or enjoy. You don’t need me to tell you that.
I am also welcome to my opinions about the ethics of Generative AI usage.
I, personally, do not like it. I, personally, will not knowingly purchase art, media, or products that use it. It’s that simple.
I have to take the word of the company or creator I’m buying a product from if they say they haven’t used AI, but I can take that word in context. Do I feel like this company has a bad reputation of lying to customers? Do I feel like I can see signs of Generative AI? Do I, ultimately, trust that word?
I don’t have to buy big mainstream video games if I want to avoid Generative AI. As it happens, I’ve not long since sold my PS5 and all my games. I have a PS2 and a small collection of older games. I rarely use it.
I stand by my beliefs. ✌️
Okay now you are the ones loosing track of the point. Moral arguments didn’t work on the war on drugs, and there was much more agreement there than there is here. I never actually made an argument about morals, I am saying that whatever you believe is basically irrelevant as you won’t stop this from happening, and can’t even stop consuming AI generated things yourself all of the time. I am not saying you are morally incorrect, I am saying your actions and arguments are futile. Probably the luddites were correct on some level; that did not change the outcome of their movement.
That being said I am interested in what moral objections you have. I am not a big believer in morality myself, but it’s nonetheless interesting to hear what the objections specifically are. I understand some of the ones surrounding climate issues or job losses; I would still be interested in learning if there are other reasons people are unhappy.
Yeah, I never noticed any particular negative reaction when someone walked into the Holodeck on Star Trek and said “Computer, create a mystery in the style of Sherlock Holmes” or whatever. Ask most people and they’d probably count that as one of the fictional technologies they were most looking forward to.
Sure but we don’t have that. And AI is costing people jobs, stealing content not actually doing anything well “spending” billions.
Don’t forget the ecological impact