Liam Triforce

I ain’t givin’ an inch… I hope.

As disclosed on the game’s Steam page and further clarified by Sega, the team developing Crazy Taxi: World Tour used generative AI to create background assets for the game.

Naturally, the backlash was swift and overwhelming. I should not need to tell you how antithetical generating any art assets is to the Dreamcast era of Sega; their contemporary art (Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure) had an immediate cultural impact and continues to influence games today, especially for their loud, punk themes and aesthetics. As such, utilizing something that is trained on usurping and plagiarising actual artists is perhaps the most tragic way to betray the spirit of those games, and my interest in the game has since evaporated.

Personally speaking, I refuse to give an inch in this regard. While many studios have adopted the use of AI to create schedules or expedite the administrative processes that would otherwise interfere with the creative side of game development, many have also used it to outsource the creative elements as well, and as soon as you use it for that purpose – you’ve lost me. No matter how “small” they claim this use of generative AI to be, I find any use of it to be an active betrayal of what it means, intrinsically, to be an artist, and that’s not even mentioning the high power and environmental costs of the models they use.

Now that I’ve made my stance clear… Let me tell you a story.

I loved Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. I felt it was one of the most refreshing, poignant and memorable turn-based RPGs I had ever played, and a landmark moment for the industry not just in its rejuvenation of the genre, but an inspirational tale for anyone wanting to band together and make something of their own – just as the team behind this game did. Verso is one of my all-time favourite game characters.

The industry took notice of its quality, too, and it became the most awarded game in The Game Awards history. Everything was looking great.

Then… People found assets in the game that were made with generative AI. Five days later, these assets were removed and replaced, and Sandfall clarified their stance on generative AI in an interview – allowing fans of the game (like myself) to breathe a sigh of relief.

According to game director Guillaume Broche, they had experimented with generative AI when it was still in its (relative) infancy in 2022, and “didn’t like it at all.” The remaining assets that were found were never meant to remain in the game, and were removed as quickly as they were discovered.

“We took it out as soon as we found it,” Broche said. “But yeah, the concept art, voice actors, everything is human made.”

That being said, Expedition 33’s awards at the Indie Game Awards were still rescinded in light of this revelation, and even though I loved the game – I can’t fault them for this decision.

As I’ve said, I don’t want to give an inch, but the situation with Expedition 33 ended up being more nuanced, and the team were quick to clarify that everything in the game was made by humans, and that they disliked the experiments early on in generative AI’s life. Even so, games will continue to use AI, avoid disclosing it, and get away with it. Therefore… have I “given an inch” after all…? Perhaps not, but there very well might come a time where I do, and I will feel awful about it.

A friend of mine mentioned that if a prospective Persona 6 were to use generative AI in its creation, it would only mean that the game was not going to be any good to begin with, and I agreed with the sentiment because I’d feel their core principles as artists did not mean enough to them if they were willing to use it. Then, another person mentioned Expedition 33, and although that situation was different – it wasn’t the only instance of a well-received or wildly popular game using generative AI. See Arc Raiders, Fortnite, Call of Duty, and even more using this list. Frankly, the number of games opting to use it is only growing.

So then… As an artist myself and an appreciator of art as a means of expressing emotion… I find myself speeding toward an eventuality where generative AI becomes endemic; a future where it is used in all projects, and used for a wide array of creative tasks, regardless of their “impact” on the final game, at which point – the possibility of me “ethically” enjoying the games I’ve purchased will narrow significantly. Somehow, the responsibility falls on me to make the right decisions so as not to betray my own values, because if I retroactively discover that a game used generative AI – I would feel like I had given my money to people that I do not respect, and I had, unfortunately, “given an inch.”

Frankly, this is an utterely ridiculous notion. I shouldn’t have to be thinking about this. No one should. We shouldn’t have to fear the things that should be giving us comfort; our world is already so difficult to navigate as it is.

So then… Why is this where we have chosen to proceed as a society that loves art? Why are we using artificial intelligence to expedite the process that makes art a labour of love in the first place, rather than using it to do the things we hate doing, and that have no impact on the process that makes art beautiful?

The answer to that… is unfortunately, as always – money. Companies love to save both time and money, which is why Epic Games laid off many of its employees, only to completely embrace generative AI.

As pictured above, Tom Scott once said that we are on a sigmoid curve when it comes to artificial intelligence. Much like the internet, there was slow, early adoption, then a lightning-fast period of growth, and eventually – an endemic flatline. In the video, he described asking ChatGPT to write code to fix Gmail’s awful “labels” system, and to his horror – the code was actually written, and at an unprecedented speed. He asked it to fix certain aspects of that code, and it did just that. This led him to the conclusion that, as of that video, he had no idea where we were on that sigmoid curve, and to this day – I find that largely horrifying for artists, programmers, writers – anyone that yearns to create anything.

But… As with all sigmoid curves, things will eventually taper off. Just as no one is camping out for a new iPhone anymore, I’d like to hope that eventually generative AI’s costs and (justified) controversy will outweigh its benefits, as the oft mentioned “AI bubble” pops. “There is always hope,” as Aragorn once said. That, or it truly ends up being used in the development of a lot of games, and we just “have to accept it,” so to speak.

I have more to say about how invasive and awful AI is when it comes to using the internet, but I wanted to focus specifically on how it is poisoning the games industry today. I can’t tell you how to navigate this, nor will I tell you how to spend your time and money. I wrote all of this purely because I feel massively conflicted and anxious as the industry continues to move forward.

That being said… If you are an artist, and you find yourself hopeless in the face of what you’re seeing day by day… Please continue to create, in spite of everything. The world needs your voice, your skills, your passion, your interests, your idea – now more than ever.

I mean, hey… If a directorial debut from a 20-year-old self-taught filmmaker can dominate the box office, in addition to two other independent productions, then I want you to believe that your idea is worth seeing through, too.

Don’t ever give up.