Divinity Dev's Boss Backpedals on Generative AI, But Not All the Way

They use computer? Why no just hands?

Honestly, using it with your own data sets is fine, I mean its still unnecessary and even trained using specific images it'll still mess up constantly, but it is better than using the external data sets loaded with stolen work.

But genAI has no place in concept art creation, ever, it undermines the actual purpose of concept art. How can you possibly think you're making something original if your concepts are just amalgamations of other peoples work? I'm glad they're pulling away from that.

Using it based on your own assets is how it should be, that’s a perfect use of it. The issue using it at concept stage when it’s using stolen assets is you end up with recycled, soulless ideas, and Larian isn’t short on either.

This stuff has uses in development certainly. Tiny refinements to models, removing excess vertices, quicker repeat bug testing (run into this corner 5000 times to see how/If it breaks), using it to iterate texture placements to quickly narrow down ideals.

Really it needs to be used less for creative and more for menial and repetitive.

Most gamers are blowhards.

They will buy the game anyway if it's any good.

My advice to any developer is to use whatever tools are necessary to make a good game. Don't even worry about AI generative art assets. Don't worry about mass redundancies either.

Other firms spit in gamers faces, insult their mothers, spill their pints, put boogers in their Big Mac's, shove them games that stutter and barely run, cut out half the content and sell it back to them as DLC, and yet thirsty gamers still rip out their wallets and make it rain money for them.

Do we really think gamers will boycott a game because a bit of AI was used in its development, that no one can spot?

Give over.

I've witnessed dozens of boycott campaigns over the years, and not one of them ever had a measurable impact on a half decent game.

It’s a far more ethical use of genAI to train it on your own data sets but at that point, just hire concept artists. You’re not going to save any money.

Sometimes it's just best to shut up and don't incite this kind of conversation. At the moment people trash everything which even slightly endorses AI. And it's having real financial impact on these companies (which I still think is good btw...)

@Dogbreath "I've witnessed dozens of boycott campaigns over the years, and not one of them ever had a measurable impact on a half decent game."

I would argue that some helped the game, giving it more publicity than it would have managed on its own or creating a backlash against the boycott.

Said it in last article, sometimes you got to know when to just STFU. Did he fire his communication director? This seems just unnecessarily dumb. Just. Stop. Talking.

@tselliot Larian was always quite transparent on how they develop their games, and it's actually quite refreshing, I wish a lot more studios were like them.
The probably is that the people that have gaming as a hobby are generally not the most well adjusted kind of people, and then you get situations like this.

@Dogbreath Concord was a half decent game and negative reaction had it taken down weeks after release.

If they have to make a machine create for them then they deserve to go under. I have no sympathy for all these studios shutting down due to bad decisions. Swen is an arrogant idiot and always has been.

It's time to get over it. The virtue signaling and pearl clutching is EXHAUSTING. There is no moral panic here just people looking to get upset.

@DestructionAllstars That's an extremely cynical and ignorant way to view the outcry over AI. You can't just say AI is a nothing problem if you can't reckon with its environmental impact, potential job annihilation, unregulated abuse of privacy and intellectual property, and even that it simply is a s***ty means of creative expression.

The only reckoning Larian has offered is that it was an efficient way to explore concept art. Anyone who applies any amount of scrutiny to that methodology really fails to see how that was either a justified use of the tech in light of aforementioned problems or a necessary practice given the reasonable expectation that professional concept artists already have countless references and knowledge that should sufficiently inform said exploration. This is like if a music director used AI to figure a good song to augment a scene — being an authority on that is LITERALLY the job.

This new supposed use actually sounds efficient. But, then again, it's so vague that it couldn't really be questioned as anything else. And still, until all those problems I mentioned are addressed by the AI industry at large, any use of their tech needs to justify itself to forego mass condemnation. If it can't do that much — or even notably improve the end result of the project it's used for — I think any outrage is entirely valid. And definitely wouldn't dismiss it as performative; I don't know what an individual would even gain from feigning disapproval of AI.