Valve quietly not publishing games that contain AI generated content if the submitters can’t prove they own the rights to the assets the AI was trained on
It just seems Valve wants to avoid the legal minefield that is AI art, so the stance they take is just not allowing such things until there is legal precedent and with the advancing field I imagine something will occur within the next 5-10 years (if not in the next year or so). We can question the ethics of AI art and the commercialization of it but things do get a bit murky when we try to shove AI art/AI generative tools into a singular box. It would be like I insinuate that a selfie portrait is in any way comparable to a higher forms of photography like the “Saigon Execution”, it would be downright insulting to have a photo that embodied many people’s feelings of the Vietnam war in such a macabre photo to someone doing fucking duck lips at a black mirror for updoots or what the fuck ever people do selfies for. It seems rather unrealistic to say the process of using generative AI poisons the well (even though some argue it should) but where do we draw the line, doing touch up or drawing over it in a photo manipulation software does that make its own original work now? Like said don’t know until there is legal precedent.
Yeah, given the shit that they allow on their platforms that is barely or not at all working asset flips, the only reason they’re doing this is the legal risk.
The ignorance here about how AIs work is staggeringly high, almost as high as the confidence with which some users lecture based on their own beliefs.
Some of the AI generated upscaling has been fantastic, especially some of the generative images that I’ve seen for game assets (such as dynamically creating rusty metal or overgrown bushes).
It’s a bit of a minefield right now but that type of improvement definitely has a place in game dev, especially when the demand on indie devs gets higher each year.
Not that AI should be treated with the same rights and dignity a person, but is this not a sort of double standard? I mean, do they publish games with art made by humans who learned from works the human artists did not own?
Based on the language from Valve, it sounds more like legal protection for themselves than a judgment from an ethical perspective.
Your question isn’t a bad one, but the battleground over copyright ownership probably isn’t one they’re weighing in on here.
I think I’m starting to understand… If I go to an art gallery that allows photos, take some photos, and share them with a friend who is learning to be an artist, that seems to be generally ok and does not feel unethical. But if I take those photos to an underground sweatshop and use it to train a thousand people who are mass producing art for corporate use, that seems wrong.
If I think of the AI as a human analog, then I have trouble seeing the problem with it learning from the same resources as humans, but if I see it as a factory then I see the problem.
If a human artist learned by copying paintings, they still create original work. An AI simply copies.
If an AI simply copies, it should be easy as pie to tell me what artist they copied here.
If someone told me a human drew this, I would believe them. Looks original as anything else people have made.
It doesn’t copy from a single artist. It’s an amalgamation of a bunch of different artists’ work. That’s literally the entire concept of a model.
Isn’t that literally the entire concept of a person?
That is what people do. I like to write stories and my ideas are a mashup of books that I read.
I mean, do they publish games with art made by humans who learned from works the human artists did not own?
You know plagiarism is a word right? Artists/Writers still strive to have a style unique to themselves…
Good. Until a studio can point to a known-dataset that isn’t just ripping art illegally from sources they don’t have the rights to use then it’s just not worth the risk.
It’s not 100% unrealistic that large studios like Blizzard and Riot (who have very clear styles that “work well” with AI generation weirdness) will eventually have huge in-house datasets that they own since it’s all created under the umbrella of their employees and contractors who already sign away all the rights when they make content for the games they’re working on. But until that happens, it’s so obviously a red flag / great area that Valve’s move is just a no-brainer.
When I learned to play Piano, I did so by playing music I did not have the rights to and that was fine. I could take my learned skills and even use it commercially. If an AI does the same, its suddenly a bad thing.
If you can’t tell the difference between learning as a human being, and selling content that you don’t own the rights to, then I don’t know what to tell you.
But you do know, and you’re just being disingenuous intentionally.
He wasn’t conflating those two. He was conflating the process of learning for humans and modern AI. You’re just being a dick about a really subjective subject.
Please be civil
A human can “learn” to play an instrument in a vacuum with no access to anything other than the tool itself.
An AI is literally only able to “learn” when fed pre-made works by someone else.Acting like there anything close to the same process is absurd.
AI is perfectly capable of mastering something by itself. Whether it’s chess, or playing an instrument.
AI just has no inherent notion of what is “good art”, because that is a human concept that has no set in stone meaning. The reason AI is trained against our tastes is so that it can produce content that appeals to us.Here is how I learned to play Piano: I watched videos people posted online and then paid money for someone to guide me.
Here is how an AI learns: It analyzes videos people post online and then has someone who has been paid money guide it.
The similarities are obvious. I don’t know about other people, but if you threw a tabula rasa me (someone with no idea of what a piano even is) in the wild with a baby grand, I would never have learned to play it never mind play it well. I am willing to bet that goes for just about everyone here.
Its a scary thought seeing us approach the singularity. Like I said 5 days ago, The AI Revolution is going to be on the scale of the Agrarian and Industrial Revolutions in terms of change. We all like to think we are special, unique, and the pinnacle of life. If a computer can not only do what we do, but faster and better, than what does that make us?
The fact is that Humans are moist computers wrapped in a fleshy case and we have managed to design something that will inevitability be superior to us in most ways. It will learn faster than us, it will think faster than us, it will create faster than us. I am seeing it before my very eyes. I remember about 10 years ago when Nvidia published their Canvas AI that would take a basic drawing and make art from that. Now I am watching it upscale my old DVD collection into 4k quality. Ten years, twenty years from now I expect it to be able to be able to create whole shows from scratch. Imagine watching Babylon 5 and saying “Computer: Change it so Sinclair stays the commander of the station” and it rewrites the show, revoices it, and reshoots it for you. We so often complain about how bankrupt Hollywood is. AI will make each of us our own Hollywood. A creative renaissance!
the submitters can’t prove they own the rights to the assets the AI was trained on
this is VERY good to hear, honestly
a lot of AI’s are training on seemingly random info that belongs to various people.
not just images, but books, movies etc.
Every day my love for valve grows stronger
Why are people so much against AI?
It takes jobs away? As every progress humankind has made in history.
It copies artists styles? As artist already do. Artists always copy other artists, it’s how art work since forever.
It copies other people’s code? As coders already do. People copy blobs of code without understanding it all the time.
It produces less quality products? It depends on the people using it as with every other tool. People can produce shitty art and incredibly good art with the same tool, ex: ma paint.
I just don’t get it. It reminds me so much to the beginning of digital art and people complaining about it, saying physically made art was the only real art.
As for myself I can’t wait for AI to get even better. I have so many ideas about what me, or others could made with it. It’s a tool with so much potential to throw it away out of fear.
It copies artists styles? As artist already do. Artists always copy other artists, it’s how art work since forever.
What AI does is take artists’ hard work and directly uses it to generate something using their style(s), without their permission.
Artist do that too. Haven’t you notice that most popular songs sound very familiar to each other? And I assure you they do not ask for each other permission either. AI may do things faster, automatically and lower the skill requirements for the user but doesn’t do anything artists weren’t already doing.
won’t last, before long all games will have some elements of ai generated content
Until the first commercial title gets sued and then publishers won’t touch any game with AI generated content
Not likely.
Studios could and probably will train their own AI models to avoid legal trouble and achieve custom results.
Beyond AI generated textures, I think it’s just a matter of time before AI generated maps, NPCs, game mechanics, etc. become commonplace.
Let the market decide. If Valve doesn’t provide them a sales avenue, another party will. Many don’t comprehend yet is that AI generation is entirely user-driven. Without hundreds of refinements, you would only receive the most generic output. As for copyright infringement, what exactly is being violated here? When we use material X or Y to generate an original output Z, how does that infringe upon any rights? It doesn’t. Rather, it highlights that people need to adapt and evolve. The sooner this realization sets in, the better. The calligraphers and and book artisans went through this ordeal so will they.
unfettered capitalism has not, and will not work except for those already at the top.
Who is the “unfettered capitalist” in this case? The artist whose artwork was used as training data without permission? Valve? It’s a nice soundbite, but I’m not sure how you are applying it in this case.
The artist whose artwork was used as training data without permission?
Are you suggesting that an artist retains the right to prevent their art from being used to train someone on art? No artist has ever created anything in a vacuum. This whole line of reasoning is ridiculous, imo.
No, that’s fine - just as we understand it.
Your stance against unfettered capitalism is that - if I make some art and aomeone puts it online, some multibillion dollar games house should be able to grab it and use it in their game for free.
I can feel the capitalists quaking in their boots already. I’m sure the Reddit admins agree with you.
if I make some art and aomeone puts it online, some multibillion dollar games house should be able to grab it and use it in their game for free
Is that what you think we’re talking about, directly copying artwork? There’s already laws for that, regardless of who or what creates the art. What is concerning people is that AI can be trained on other people’s art and then told to create new art. It’s not a copy, it’s a new thing, but it used old stuff to come up with the new stuff. (humans do this too)
I’m sure the Reddit admins agree with you.
I don’t even know what this means.
Edit: I don’t know if this needs to be said but I am not the original person you replied to.
Not someone, AI. It takes years to train a person, it takes years to train a person, much less to train AI, and if that content is sold it’s more akin to something selling tracings of someone else’s work.
This isn’t “being influenced” by someone else’s work here, it’s directly used to generate new content.
Not someone, AI.
I am old enough to remember when “X, but on the internet” was considered a new and novel thing-- turns out that it isn’t. X, but with AI is no different than X. Training a person and training an AI do not need different laws.
It takes years to train a person, it takes years to train a person, much less to train AI
Most people, and so what? You think an artist gets different rights depending on how fast someone can learn their style?
if that content is sold it’s more akin to something selling tracings of someone else’s work.
Only if it’s an exact copy, which would already be covered by current laws. This would be more like when people create art in the style of other art. Like, for a made up example, if someone drew the stranger things characters in the style of the Simpsons.
it’s directly used to generate new content.
What does this even mean?
Edit: Sorry about all those typos!
it’s directly used to generate new content.
What does this even mean?
Sounds like you might not know enough about how AI generation actually works to have this conversation, especially if your response to the nuances around the difference between human generated and AI generated content is just “so what?”
I can’t help but notice you didn’t answer the question. My question was more like “How is this different than when a human learns to make art”? It’s to directly generate new content, is it not?
As for copyright infringement, what exactly is being violated here?
Intellectual property of the original art creators? OP says “unlicensed”, if you take any piece of art someone else created, and you use it to make your own stuff without their authorization, you’re committing a crime.
Rather, it highlights that people need to adapt and evolve.
And risk being sued? Valve is right in being wary of this, especially since there’s no real regulation about it.
Let’s have regulations first, then we can tell people to adapt.
if you take any piece of art someone else created, and you use it to make your own stuff without their authorization, you’re committing a crime.
This is not accurate. No art is made in a vacuum; all artists are influenced by other art. That’s even before we bring in fair use, which may or may not apply depending on specifics.
Copyright does not restrict who/what can be trained on copyrighted works. That’s just not a real thing. It’s becoming an issue because AI is rapidly becoming “good enough” that human artists are worried they will be replaced, so they’re scrambling to find a way to hold back technology. This happens every time a new technology is used in reference to media. Every. Single. Time. It never works.
Exactly, that’s the problem.
human artists are worried they will be replaced
The problem is plagiarism, easy to control when humans do it, not so much when AIs are involved, that’s why we need regulations.
What do you think counts as plagiarism, in this context? If I draw a picture of the stranger things characters in the style of the simpsons, have I plagiarized anything?
