Exploring the challenges of AI-generated art in game development
Speaking at Devcom today, Red Meat Games creative content strategist Judy Ehrentraut discussed the importance of ethically training generative AI models, and how certain tools can be utilised during game development.
"AI is the biggest buzzword and it's either hyped as the new way to solve every productivity problem, or it's received with a groan," Ehrentraut acknowledged.
"I think both of these takes are really valuable, because disruptive technologies are not necessarily good or bad. It depends on how they are used, and it really depends on the approach that we take and whether it's ethical or not."
But as Ehrentraut highlighted, AI can only learn what it's being trained.
"AI is not intelligent in the way that we keep thinking that it is, or that people are hyping it up to be. It's just a tool that can learn from instructions that we give it, whether it's a large language model or algorithms collecting a bunch of data, sweeping it from the internet and creating something called art when really it's just a mashup of many artists' work – there's no real human intent behind it."
She noted that, because of this, gen AI tools are giving people a certain perception of the art that it creates.
"A lot of artists are debating the effects of this disruptive technology, and many will say they enjoy the process of creation," Ehrentraut said.
"They enjoy the time it takes, it's all part of learning and production. They don't tend to enjoy that something can be produced in one second by a machine, because that takes away the intent behind it. It takes away the work, the practice, the collective intelligence that people have shared with others."
She continued: "We know at this point that removing artists from the creative process is not the best idea. It's not fair to use the art one time then produce, produce, produce, until you've reached something that's almost nothing – and that's what we're seeing now.
"The internet is becoming littered with AI images at a very rapid rate, and AI is
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