AI generated assets and disclosure

[zardozspeakz]

I see a lot of mods are now using AI art, sometimes just for thumbnails in the mod portal sometimes for in-game asset. I think if a mod is using AI generated assets, it should require that it says so, and we as users have the ability to filter the mod portal with this flag.

I would hope this isn't too controversial, if you are against AI generated assets, you can filter out. If you like them and are proud of them, then you should have no trouble disclosing what they are. So i'm not trying to start up a debate on the merits of these things, but rather that a good compromise is letting users know and make the decision themself.

[juliawtapp]

I agree, but I'm not sure if it will happen. Making such a change is in one way or another having a "take" on AI and I'm not sure if wube wants to open that can of worms (I could be wrong)

[zardozspeakz]

well, even if it isn't a searchable flag. I'd encourage all mod makers to be open about it and mention it in the mod description if they use ai art.

[eugenekay]

Previous discussion

I appreciate when the Author of a Mod is honest enough to disclose that they have used "AI" tools for the code or graphical assets of their Mod - so that I can ignore it completely.

[mmmPI]

this shows a lack of understanding of AI imo previous discussion As it appears to me that people aren't able to distinguish what's AI or not in most cases, it's only a personnal taste. Many people will criticize something when they "think" it is AI even if it isn't AI, for made up reasons not masking that it's really for the sake of it being AI which further undermine this kind of argument.

If AI is used for removing background of stock image to make a thumbnail, you won't see AI were used , should the mod be still hidden from your view to protect your feelings ? How are you going to verify someone didn't use an AI to code some part of their mods ? What if you use AI to correct typos ? or come up with names for some of your receipes ? What if you use an AI to combine 3 of your own drawing in a scene for the thumbnail ? You will have to rely on modders voluntarily diclosing anyway.

Sure people make ugly stuff with AI, and it's obvious AI were used in some cases, but how does that deserve a separate category compared to when there's just nothing ? or like a 2 second paint placeholder ? what's the purpose if not creating an arbitrary rules for the sake of it ? Why not create a category for "mods that weren't made with open source software" ? what's so special about AI that it would justify a category for it ?

From the previous discussion linked i believe nothing in particular justify to ostracize AI things, not the alledge lack of effort because low effort placeholder are ok , and not the alledge "theft" of intellectual property, because there's countless mods where people just slap their name on a fork despite license prohibiting it, or just import asset from other game. You can use technically use AI to have a poor behavior, but you could have similar poor behavior already, and using AI in itself isn't necessarily an incriminating action in itself.

I do use AI and disclose it, try to explain how and when, but it takes a lot of time and most people don't care, don't read the detailed description in the modpage ; My personnal belief is that it doesn't matter in the end, if you like the mod when you play it, will you uninstall it if you read some asset were AI generated and you didn't realize ? To me that's a similar behavior than when you don't like one food, and you eat a meal with some of it in it, but it's cooked and spiced and you don't taste it, you only learn aferward that there was some of that thing you don't like when it's alone. It's not really AI the problem, it's AI used to make ugly stuff, but it's very subjective what is "ugly".

[juliawtapp]

Sure people make ugly stuff with AI, and it's obvious AI were used in some cases, but how does that deserve a separate category compared to when there's just nothing ? or like a 2 second paint placeholder ? what's the purpose if not creating an arbitrary rules for the sake of it ? Why not create a category for "mods that weren't made with open source software" ? what's so special about AI that it would justify a category for it ?

I have a philosophical objection to it and will take a child's crayon drawing over an image used with any form of generative AI as the point of artistic expression to me is to see the work done by another person, to connect with someone via their creations. To me AI is counter productive and a "turn off" because it shows that the creator is willing to outsource their work.

I am not fully against the usage of neural networks and I believe they have their place; I just don't have any desire to add generative AI content to my factorio.

Furthermore, yes, a developer could use AI and not disclose it, and yes I would be disappointed if I learned of it, and no, there is no method to ensure people do disclose it beyond asking nicely.

[mmmPI]

I have a philosophical objection to it and will take a child's crayon drawing over an image used with any form of generative AI as the point of artistic expression to me is to see the work done by another person, to connect with someone via their creations. To me AI is counter productive and a "turn off" because it shows that the creator is willing to outsource their work.

That makes no sense to me, there's plenty of mods where the assets are public stuff whose author ignore they are used there, you're not connecting to anyone.

Besides, if you take a child's crayon drawing, you are taking something that was outsourced too

[pioruns]

Previous discussion

I appreciate when the Author of a Mod is honest enough to disclose that they have used "AI" tools for the code or graphical assets of their Mod - so that I can ignore it completely.

Why does it matter to you so much, if author coded for 1000 hours making a super funny and useful mod, and then used AI for 2 hours to generate some images?
Would you still ignore it completely?

[juliawtapp]

I have a philosophical objection to it and will take a child's crayon drawing over an image used with any form of generative AI as the point of artistic expression to me is to see the work done by another person, to connect with someone via their creations. To me AI is counter productive and a "turn off" because it shows that the creator is willing to outsource their work.

That makes no sense to me, there's plenty of mods where the assets are public stuff whose author ignore they are used there, you're not connecting to anyone.

Besides, if you take a child's crayon drawing, you are taking something that was outsourced too

I'm still connecting (indirectly) to the people who made the public assets in the first place.

If someone used random children's drawings for all their assets, I'd see that as lazy too. I meant that I'd rather someone draw at the level of a five year old and use that as their assets (like your sarcastic linked post) than AI generated content because I enjoy seeing the human on the other side through their works.

I understand where you're coming from - however I feel you are probably not going to understand where I'm coming from, though I will still try to explain my take as politely as possible.

[juliawtapp]

Previous discussion

I appreciate when the Author of a Mod is honest enough to disclose that they have used "AI" tools for the code or graphical assets of their Mod - so that I can ignore it completely.

Why does it matter to you so much, if author coded for 1000 hours making a super funny and useful mod, and then used AI for 2 hours to generate some images?
Would you still ignore it completely?

Probably.

[mmmPI]

I understand where you're coming from - however I feel you are probably not going to understand where I'm coming from, though I will still try to explain my take as politely as possible.

Last time i watched a movie, and afterward i learned they used AI for some CGI, i had to unwatch it, another time i learned they used AI to translate part of it in my langage, same, had to unwatch the whole thing, you don't need to explain much more i understand what is a philosophical objection, i know it can feel irrationnal sometimes but it's important to stick to some principles, whatever those may be.

I understand that for some people "ai is bad" is one principle that suffers no kind of argumentation, and they have a very encompassing definition of what is AI, that needs no further explanation. I understand for you it is the case that this tendency is at very high degree, and in a way it's pleasant to hear because i write in details descriptions in my mods so that people that could have similar reaction to the exposure of AI as you would not use them and expose themselves too much, so it's not all done for nothing

I don't understand how you can connect to the author of the art when there is no thumbnail at all, or how it's not lazier than taking couple minutes to try and make a thing but i understand how it's a secondary concern when you have a philosophical objection already well rooted in mind, and how other reasons to justify that initial philosophical objection can flourish along the way of a discussion that doesn't seem necessary.

[zardozspeakz]

I was hoping to avoid the AI debate itself. My suggestion is a compromise, to encourage mod makers to disclose when they use it and let players make their own decisions. There is no denying there is a controversy, that much is obvious. So my compromise is transparency so people know what they're downloading and playing. Again, if you like AI, you should have no trouble saying you use it or having that label.

[mmmPI]

I was hoping to avoid the AI debate itself.

It seemed to me that it was the only goal when a thread with such title was created.

Again, if you like AI, you should have no trouble saying you use it or having that label.

I'm not sure why you repeat that, the repetition is accrediting to me the idea that you do want to create a controversy around something that doesn't need one. Was it not clear enough when i explained that i disclose it already ? To me in addition to the repetition, the nature of such "philosophical" arguments also seems tailored for a pointless controversy.

It appears to me that in pratice it makes little to no sense to classify a whole mod as "AI" because one was used to correct typo, or upscale a public image before using it for a thumbnail or translation. The suggestion for a label doesn't appear realistic in the context of mods that contains various piece of either code, images, sound , translations and what nots that can have potentially been altered at any point of their making by an AI, knowingly or not, obviously no-one is against transparency, but this has little to do with a philophical debate, in practice, if someone doesn't use the tag, are you going to report it to the AI police ?

So my compromise is transparency so people know what they're downloading and playing.

A label that is auto granted isn't transparency. You have to trust the mod authors already, a label woudn't change that, imo, it's pointless in practice, "it’s more about appearances than substance" as chatgpt would say, i couldn't find such a polite way to say by myself sorry.

[computeraddict]

I have a philosophical objection to it and will take a child's crayon drawing over an image used with any form of generative AI as the point of artistic expression to me is to see the work done by another person, to connect with someone via their creations. To me AI is counter productive and a "turn off" because it shows that the creator is willing to outsource their work.

I mean, this is just another iteration of every backlash against advances in the state of art. It's been leveled against photography, motion pictures, CGI, digital composition... The big stinker here is people who don't own up to using AI composition tools and try to pass it off as a by-hand digital composition.

[pioruns]

Previous discussion

I appreciate when the Author of a Mod is honest enough to disclose that they have used "AI" tools for the code or graphical assets of their Mod - so that I can ignore it completely.

Why does it matter to you so much, if author coded for 1000 hours making a super funny and useful mod, and then used AI for 2 hours to generate some images?
Would you still ignore it completely?

Probably.

That’s your loss, then. Choosing to hurt yourself like that is basically masochism, you know?

[juliawtapp]

Previous discussion

I appreciate when the Author of a Mod is honest enough to disclose that they have used "AI" tools for the code or graphical assets of their Mod - so that I can ignore it completely. :lol:

Why does it matter to you so much, if author coded for 1000 hours making a super funny and useful mod, and then used AI for 2 hours to generate some images?
Would you still ignore it completely?

Probably.

That’s your loss, then. Choosing to hurt yourself like that is basically masochism, you know? :lol:

your judgement of my character is much appreciated but probably not terribly relevant to the original topic :)

[Tertius]

I feel this request as psychological or political, but not technical. This reminds me of long gone discussions when some people didn't want to use apps developed with Turbo Pascal or compiled by some given compiler.

Given this and other topics that are against AI usage but never really told why they are against AI usage except that it's "controversial", I decided to never disclose anything about the tools I use during development again. Be it programming, be it some text I write, be it some images I produce. I know what work I did, I know what part of that work is mine, I know that what I publish doesn't violate the terms and conditions on which my work is based. I use publicly available state of the art tools to be efficient in what I do. Tools develop and change over time and make you more productive. Be it coding, translating or drawing. Back then it was Turbo Pascal, today it's modern IDE's with code completion that write half of the code for you - and AI.

[juliawtapp]

I feel this request as psychological or political, but not technical. This reminds me of long gone discussions when some people didn't want to use apps developed with Turbo Pascal or compiled by some given compiler.

I agree - it's a politically / ideologically based thing. Hence my original response to the topic, which was that while I may find myself on one side ideologically, I do not think it makes sense for wube to implement a tag for it on the mod portal.

I don't think wube stands to gain anything besides the ire of one side or the other by making a statement, and I think giving "AI" content its own category has a certain negative connotation that would very much count as making a statement.

I think the volatility and sudden debate in this very thread are probably evidence enough that this is a touchy subject.

[mmmPI]

I feel this request as psychological or political, but not technical. This reminds me of long gone discussions when some people didn't want to use apps developed with Turbo Pascal or compiled by some given compiler.

I agree - it's a politically / ideologically based thing. Hence my original response to the topic, which was that while I may find myself on one side ideologically, I do not think it makes sense for wube to implement a tag for it on the mod portal.
I think the volatility and sudden debate in this very thread are probably evidence enough that this is a touchy subject.

Transparency is always a good thing Your motivations being political/ideological, i fear , may leads you to mistake other people's position for a similar thing, or at least that's what the phrasing and my natural susceptibility to criticsm leads me to believe when reading what i quoted; but i'd like to distance myself from this. I think any subject can become touchy when people approach it repeating themselves it is controversial or touchy. I said earlier i wanted to avoid a discussion, and that was one where you would feel compelled to explain in details the reasons you have this political / ideological approach. I can assure you that i apply the same level of touchy to the people that you seem to consider "on the other side", the "AI bros". previously

Sorry for the condescending tone, i blame profesionnal habit, but i'd say it's often easy to miss valid criticism and reduce it to somethig "from the other side", such focus doesn't help a serene atmosphere for debate. I believe this was a valid point that doesn't deserve to be treated as only from the domain of the personnal polarized opinion :

I mean, this is just another iteration of every backlash against advances in the state of art. It's been leveled against photography, motion pictures, CGI, digital composition... The big stinker here is people who don't own up to using AI composition tools and try to pass it off as a by-hand digital composition.

I certainly appreciate the step up in the debate, i believe my own personnal analogy would be with the fridge an microwave, where i am aware it didn't solve world hunger, i'm also aware the microwave isn't going to fry my brain, i think it's fairly possible to be guided by other preoccupations than "for or against", rather more pragmatic approach, i know there is a world wide agreement on how to make fridge to avoid ruining the ozone layer, i know microwave are in fact much less dangerous unless you are very close, like inside of it if they are properly made.

I believe the idea of label that is applied on pictures or music individually on certain website ( to sell the non-ai to train some ) is already less making sense for piece of code, or for collections of assets , like a thumbnail, we all know what we say about judging a book by its cover, the label is not rejected for any political or ideological consideration from me, but rather because it seem to be (only) a sign of a political or ideological request, more than something that could be used in practice ( i believe) to achieve a net positive result.