Myst creator's latest game used 'AI assisted content,' and funders are pissed

pcgamer.com:

In the credits for Firmament, the latest puzzle game from Myst developer Cyan Worlds, a briefly-seen paragraph of text reveals that many aspects of the game, including written lore and voice acting, were created with the help of AI. Some noticed the «AI assisted content» message just after Firmament released in May, while others (like me, via Kotaku) are just now learning about it. For some players, it explains a lot.

The complete list of stuff generative AI was involved in is, deep breath: «Journals, logs, checklists, newspapers, stories, songs, poems, letters, loosely scattered papers; all backer portraits; all founders portraits; the „sunset“ paintings; the art-nouveau wallpaper in the Swan dormitory hallways; propaganda banners; coastal spill decal kit; all voiced mentor, announcer, founder, and other speeches; backer-exclusive content.»

Cyan Worlds told Kotaku that these aspects of Firmament were «assisted, not wholly created» by AI tools used by Cyan staff. As an example, the developer said that «all voice acting content was performed by an actual human being 100% of the time,» but that the «timbre, pitch, and tone» were modified with an AI tool with the consent of the performer (who strangely isn't credited). The voice acting was something we praised in our review.

Cyan did not go on to explain how elements like journals were «assisted» by AI. My interpretation would be that a large language model like ChatGPT was used to generate rough copy, which was then modified by human writers (which I'd personally call «human assisted» writing), but it's possible that AI was used in another way. It also isn't clear how the artworks mentioned were made: Whether they were generated by services like OpenAI's Dall-E and then