When you upload your game it says that it must be marked with "AI generated" tag literally "even if you hand edited it".
So even if you used a piece of code it must have the tag. Or if you used an image as reference even if you worked on it, too. Or a chord in a music.
Because of that, there's a long discussion in the forum whether it should be an option to set "AI assisted" and not "ai generated". Ai generated sounds like all is made by ai only.
So even if you used a piece of code it must have the tag.
By that logic, most things would need to have that "tag". You will not find much premade libraries, engines, operation system calls and so forth where you can certify that it does not contain a "made by AI, but modified by a human" line of code. By the same logic most pieces of software are not even (fully) created by the developer, since they are bound to have copied some piece for it out of a tutorial and modified it.
An image is not a game. You ask the AI for an image and hand edit it. That is still an AI generated image. If you put the image in a game, it therefore has AI generated assets.
If you ask the AI for a game and then hand edit it, that would be the same. The game is AI made.
But images are not the same clusterdump of individual parts as code. You do not use a body of stock super hero, put a custom drawn head on it and ask the internet how hair curls look and adapt the tutorial pics on your custom head and call it "your" image. But simpliefied that is what coding is. If you use an engine like Godot or Unity, 99+% of the code are not by the developer. And the chances are high that those 99% already have some AI in it or will have in a future version. AI tools and assistance are becoming a tool of the trade. Just like digital artists use a filler function to not color in the pixels by hand and apply a shading gradiant. Or how 3d render artists do not even draw at all but use a model and texture and let the software render the image. I wonder when or if those filler functions of Photoshop will be seen as such.
Ai generated sounds like all is made by ai only
Yup. The disclosure is quite unhelpful in the way it is now. If I look at Steam, the disclosure (that the user sees) is wordy. It describes what is actually done, so potential customers can make an informed decision, usually how they value the displayed art/story/whatever was described as being gen AI. And I do not even know if they ask or disclose code "assistance". Depending where you look, there are claims about how like a third of all lines of code is allegedly written by AI currently. Whatever that means, as most code is repetition with variation. There are bound to be games among those, and I have yet to see a Steam game with code disclosure.
yes, sadly, as AI disclosure is here now, everything becomes "AI generated" if you just used a bit. That's exactly what is asked when you upload.
On Stem they let you explain exactly how AI is used. That works for people that are rational, modern, and live in 2025. But for the "vegan mindset" as you said, it's exactly the same: "AI generated". We could talk about "Photoshop generated" or "filter generated", or "intellisense generated",or a lot more, if we applied the same criteria.
On the other side, many who use AI, specially on art, are not honest, and tend to say "I draw it" or "I painted", when they actually didn't at all, nor even partially.
One can notice very easily: AI tends to produce standardized outputs, and when people don't create their own styles or concepts, or just put the raw output you find:
- On images, they all look the same author (this happens without AI too, actually), as if they all were made by the same person. No personal style at all
- On code, it does very conventional apps and games.
- On sound and music, does strange stops and incoherence.
And so on. Actually people can notice when something is fruit from a personal style and intervention and when it's not. Those who can't, will be able to notice in a few years.
But the amount of people that don't want any AI at all, will never accept it. And the tag is for those people, so they can keep their activity isolated from the games made with AI, specially on art.
I use AI at my art, with a lot of customization and intervention in manual way, but I marked the tag anyway, as I honestly also don't want that kind of public anyway. For an extended explanation they can go to my site, and read the About, or just play the game, watch it, etc.
I recommend any person that uses AI to use the tag. They will save a lot of headaches. Those people will live in their world isolated from the major tendency for the years to come. Also, if you don't make manga it's easier, because that is the only style that most of them like. Some like more things, but the majority doesn't. Probably this is this way because the first generators focused on manga (Waifu Diffusion).
When in one or two years all is made using AI as we use Photoshop, or Blender, everyone will be ok with it.
The best vaccine to not be against AI and stop fearing it is to use it. You quickly will see the limitations. The crap it produces is massive. Then you start to see the good results it can make if you put intervention in it, or mix it with more things. Mix also coding with your brain, generative art with drawing and painting, composing with small parts of music (I suppose). Then you see that a human is always needed, and the fear stops, unless you want to produce massive amounts of crap (as sadly many do, but I think it's because it's something new).
I see it pragmatically. Most of the "AI" games on Itch would not even exist, if not for AI. Similar to game engines. Single developers usually cannot program a game from scratch. Or have the budget to commission art. Being able to do art and code is rare. Engines helped for the coding. Stock images, things like Blender and other tools for the art. And lately AI generated images. Someone familiar with generating code has an easier time figuring out how to operate an AI system. It is not that easy as some people think. I like to compare it to photography. A photographer can't draw and only clicks a button - to the lay person. Suddenly everyone has a digital camera in their pockets and everyone's a photographer.
Attacking AI for the origin of the training data is short sighted. The outcome will not go away. It will be improved, and probably legally and morally cleansed. Or there will be a procedural gen AI. Anyhow, there still we be a method for lay persons to create images "by click on a button".
For games and bigger studios, they do have a budget. They better use a professional to create their content. There I have little tolerance for AI usage. They are not lay persons. They are not hobby devs that try to make pocket money or become a professional.
And I think that many people think so, if I judge by the popularity of games. Exactly because AI is so recogniseable when a lay person does it, you spot images and text right away.
But if I were to see a disclosure that says, we did some boring sub routines with AI helpers in the code, meh, who cares. If they say, they wrote the plot with AI ... that is a different beast. If it is not an experimental game or some such, I would rather not read that.
But currently there is no distinction between AI assisted or generated, so all this is moot. And people would probably try to stretch any definition to their advantage.
Honestly, for my "tutorial project" its more educational than anything. Once I've done something a few times like set up a new npc.tscn I can do that on my own, I only needed ChatGPT to handhold me for first one or two times. I'm declaring signals, linking them, and rationalizing my way through node interactions more or less on my own.
But like a textbook, each and every time I turn the metaphorical page and see something new I may need to be walked through the process once or twice.
And funny thing, I've noticed ChatGPT can actually catch several of its mistakes if prompted differently.
AI: So, you wanna do $this, var this, and _that().
Me: That function call looks suspicious. Are you sure that's the right one for doing [psuedo-code step here]
AI: Oh yeah, good catch. It's documented that it isn't. Try using _this() instead of _that()
And then that one super specific thing works first try in test play.
