During a recent Q&A session, SEGA executives have admitted that they will use AI to assist game development but only in ‘appropriate use cases’.
SEGA execs have said, “rather than fully following the trend toward the large-scale development, we will also pursue efficiency improvements, such as leveraging AI. However, as AI adoption can face strong resistance in creative areas such as character creation, we will proceed by carefully assessing appropriate use cases, such as streamlining development processes.”
This is incredibly disappointing news as the use of generative AI is essentially admitting to art theft. Generative AI models are trained on existing artwork created by human beings and as a result it is an extremely abusive method of repurposing the work of others. AI is also harmful to the environment as it requires enormous amounts of electricity and water to cool the systems.
SEGADriven supports all human craft that goes into creative endeavours and firmly objects to the use of AI in creative spaces. Steam currently makes developers declare whether their games have made use of AI in its development which allows consumers to make informed purchasing decisions. Epic Games’s CEO Tim Sweeney has argued that developers should not need to disclose their use of AI as Steam’s system encourages “cancel campaigns” and “review bombing”. This is true, but it also disregards the fact that generative AI models are built on the theft of artwork from human artists. Real people make games; not machines. It is insulting that CEOs continue to lay off development staff in favour of using environmentally destructive methods that put talented people out of work and destroy their livelihoods. This all happens while generative AI models filter all human creative endeavours through an ugly, soulless meat-grinder that will inevitably make all games look and sound the same. Generative AI has no use in creative spaces other than to make human art redundant, which is a gross misunderstanding of what art is.
SEGADriven will continue to highlight any use of generative AI that SEGA use in their games to allow our readers to make informed decisions about the software they purchase. This will continue until SEGA reverse their decision to use generative AI in assisting game development.
[Source: VGC]
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Tags: epic games store, generative ai, steam
I think it’s important to mention which generative AI SEGA will use. If it’s a system trained entirely on work their own artists created and NOT that of outside artists, then I think that’s fine. Someone has already made checkerboard hills for Green Hill Zone at SEGA, so their AI can use that to fill in backgrounds, etc.
It’s when they actually steal art from artists WITHOUT permission, as you say, that is the issue.
Basically, if SEGA created their own model to use with only in-house assets, that’s cool IMO (unless there is something I don’t know so please enlighten me). It’s if/when they use pre-existing ones that DO steal “regular” artists work that it becomes a real issue.