murky water
Refugee
i am glad a member of the dev team saw the post and are looking into it.
The use of AI assets needs to be disclosed on the Steam page for the game
- Thread starter ayprofessor
- Start date
InfiniteWarrior
Scavenger
AI can be a useful tool, saving (especially indie) developers time and money automating repetitive tasks, for example, but Frostclaw and Desert Spitter are perfect examples of why AI usage in game (or any other software) development is controversial. Concept artists would have done an incredible job of imagining and drawing concept art for new zombie models, but it was left to AI to do that, which is among the many reasons I get the impression TFP doesn't have any digital artists or sound designers on staff. Heck, I've seen the regular zombie brigade in another game, complete with leaper, for heaven's sake.
Favorite article on the subject thus far: 'Lucasfilm declares creative bankruptcy with an AI-generated Star Wars Film that's just 2 minutes of mostly normal animals jumbled together.' (What an embarrassment!)
AI supposed art is anything but. Global society itself is going to have to sort that out at this point, though, and the tech giants are going to fight regulation of it at any cost. You can't tell them anything about the cost to human imagination, ingenuity and integrity. I'm not sure they even know what that is, much less care about it.
I'd go for the heads up to TFP before Steam. Steam is more likely to shut them out automagically than give them a chance to correct the oversight. Pretty sure Steam's reporting (and clamping down) system is just as automated.
theFlu
Hunter
They must have an automation there, but they're one of the very few companies that actually have customer service even for the plebs. From outside it looks like Gabe is managing to keep platform somewhat sane.. long live Gabe, or some such.
InfiniteWarrior
Scavenger
I'll give you that. Only ever felt the need to refund one game in my entire time on the platform. Automatically denied; approved on review. (Still disturbed by the licensing/subscribing way everything has gone, but that's a different story.)
Glad it was brought to TFP's attention. Last thing they need is an automatic boot and a (likely) long automated decision review process.
BFT2020
Hunter
Nah, I am fine being proven wrong. It is the only way to either validate or disapprove one's opinions / notions on things in life. Otherwise you live in an echo chamber and we see how much worse that makes things in real life.
Not sure if it would be an automatic boot as this policy was just enacted last year - as developers are learning to deal with it. If a developer has a history of compliance violations, I could see them booting the game; but most of the time they would point out the requirements and request that they update their content survey to account for it. They want developers to make games and release it on their platform, so giving them the opportunity to correct an oversight is the ideal solution.
shakespearegirl5
Refugee
I'm extremely disappointed that TFP are using generative AI, especially as an indie game developer. It feels like a huge betrayal to the creative community. Aside from that, not disclosing it on the Steam store page is in direct violation of Steam's terms, which could get the game removed. Can TFP please do better?
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InfiniteWarrior
Scavenger
There's already a thread providing TFP with a heads up about the oversight of disclosure on Steam and TFP are already on it. As for the AI generated, supposed "art" (read: slop) controversy: it rages on.
theFlu
Hunter
I'd say the "indieness" is, well, a poor indication either way. AI is either acceptable or it isn't, morally. But if anything, it feels more acceptable for the guy who is trying to complete a decent project with a small budget, than the corporation that is trying to milk their existing IP.
I get that "the spirit is more similar between indies and starving 3D -artists", but two starving people can't just feed one another.
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is stupid.
Steam requires developers to disclose the use of generative AI on the games being sold there. I've looked at the steam store page for 7dtd and couldn't find that disclosure there.
Regardless of whether you think using AI assets is a problem or not, not disclosing it infringes Steam's policy.
The picture in this post is an example of asset created by AI present in the current build of the game.
Regardless of whether you think using AI assets is a problem or not, not disclosing it infringes Steam's policy.
The picture in this post is an example of asset created by AI present in the current build of the game.
pApA^LeGBa
Hunter
I really don´t see the difference between using assets, which 7 days does, and using AI for some random picture on a nightstand. It´s not like anything important is done with AI.
Seeing how people often react i wouldn´t use AI as a dev though, not even for this. A few stock photos can´t be that expensive and no one will cry about AI.
I am ok with the AI pictures and as already said in the other topic, this will most likely not lead to steam demanding to clarify.
Seeing how people often react i wouldn´t use AI as a dev though, not even for this. A few stock photos can´t be that expensive and no one will cry about AI.
I am ok with the AI pictures and as already said in the other topic, this will most likely not lead to steam demanding to clarify.
InfiniteWarrior
Scavenger
It may feel more acceptable to the guy if he knows programming but hasn't produced a work of digital art in his life and can't afford to contract any. Same for artists who can't afford to hire programmers. (Thinking individual artists and developers here, including veterans like Jonah Lobe and Nate Purkeypile who've struck out on their own.) And isn't that what Kickstarters are for? With over 18 million copies sold, though, you'd think TFP could have hired some digital artists (and sound designers) along the way, especially considering game engine store assets are considered placeholders, if that. I don't get the impression they have, but could be mistaken.
@shakespearegirl5: Same problem exists in web development. Most companies are too cheap to hire both programmer(s) and designer(s). It's more important to them for the back end to function than the front end to be aesthetically pleasing. Ergo, back end web developers are expected to do both. That's why there are so many horrific looking sites on the Web and why designers have had to become front end developers and still have a hard time finding work or landing contracts. Not every company either will or can afford to hire professional artists. Overhyped AI has worsened the problem, but is not the cause.
LittleNightma
Scavenger
Given how much effort TFP has put into creating awesome textures and optimizing the game for 2.0, using AI on a picture on a nightstand that they probably assumed people weren't going to even look at is not the biggest deal for me. I do agree they need to disclose it though. But at the end of the day...this is what bothers people?
theFlu
Hunter
That's a different claim to mine. I'm not describing the internal morals of a pirate, I'm pointing out that the "indie" in this case refers to basically to the idea of "they're the same type of people, indie devs and artist; so they shouldn't screw each other over". Well, perhaps they shouldn't, but it isn't any Better when a Ubisoft does it. Indieness doesn't really change things.
As for AI, my opinion is still "information wants to be free". It's a fact of nature that information is trivially copiable, and as such a society should embrace that. Anything else is fighting against the nature of things. That would eliminate copyright, yes. And patents. Not trademarks, as those are basically just a handle for "I know who made this", an address to mail your complaints to as a customer.
That also leads to the inevitability of everything being trivially copied by a machine at some point. I'm outright scared of the incoming tremors in Everything as AI gathers up speed; it'll be a wild ride, we'll probably live, but it ain't going to be pretty for a while. In comparison, losing some commissions of "create me a terrible representation of a picture of a family" doesn't really get me that exited.
InfiniteWarrior
Scavenger
It's way bigger than 7DTD and TFP. Protection for artists was behind the SAG-AFTRA strike of 2024 and I very much doubt the "tentative agreement" reached between the union and the industry was actually sufficient to accomplish that. The tech giants scrape on with no consideration of or compensation to artists, much less the rest of us, whatsoever.
LittleNightma
Scavenger
I agree. I am very much against the use of AI as a whole, but I don't think TFP intentionally meant to do any harm and should be open to whatever they need to do in order to set things right.
pApA^LeGBa
Hunter
Yeah that´s not happening. There is always somebody looking at every detail. Devs should be used to that nowadays.
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Double G
Survivor
They do hire digital artists. They're called "independent contractors". As far as I can tell, I don't think they have any staff artists. They hire people as needed.
And soon this conversation about the morality of AI will fade away. Once AI gets good enough (and it's getting very close) no one is gonna be able to spot it in most cases. Companies are not going to want to spend the money and the time to have people do what a computer will be able to do astronomically faster. This isn't something new. The entire city of Detroit was thrown into the dark ages many decades ago when they automated much of car manufacturing. AI is the new version of that.
LittleNightma
Scavenger
Fair.
InfiniteWarrior
Scavenger
Hardly. It's not just that artists aren't being hired or that there's some danger they'll essentially be put out of a job. I don't even think that last likely. Who knows? Perhaps everyone will wake up one day and realize there's nothing creative about AI whereas creativity is humanity's divine inheritence. Machines will never be able to imagine and dream the way humans do. All they can do is what they're programmed to do.
The real issue is that multibillion dollar tech giants are essentially stealing artists' work, their likenesses, their voices, etc. supposedly to "train" their AI. Big difference there. People who use AI for anything other than automating repetitive tasks aren't breaking any laws because no laws have been written to regulate the tech giants doing this. In fact, xAI now has all the information -- personal, business, governmental and otherwise -- formerly stored in secure, US government databases. Gee. Wonder what they plan to do with it...?
warmer
Survivor
people keep thinking about this in the context of the consumer. you have to think of this in the context of running a business. if something take 1min and is 80% of what you want at a next to $0.00 cost they will take that every single time when it would take a human hours and hundreds of $