Last year, I made the original Harold's AI Odyssey, almost entirely using AI. You liked it a lot, gave it really good scores, and had a great time and some great laughs. This year, I make an entirely custom game with entirely custom art and zero AI, and you hate it and likely rated it 1's across the board because ... AI sucks?
You're being weird. Did you get into the bourbon cabinet last night?
Two things: The first game was done at a time when AI was (arguably) more accepted in general, and your game was kinda interesting and entertaining. This game, however, is an outright, tone-deaf attack on game jam organizers thinly veiled as a 'game'...you're acting butthurt about the decision to NOT include AI in final games, your commentary is outlandish and hilarious wrong, and you're missing the point. You apparently lost something between that one and this. Maybe you let AI write the story too much for this one? Or if this is an original story, maybe have AI help you next time. Who knows? But the quality is severely lacking. If this is satire, maybe go back and look up what satire actually is.
There's a stark difference between gaining inspiration from what came before you, and using a computer to slop everything it stole together and claiming it's "art". Your first game never claimed it was art. This one is acting like AI is some next stage of creativity.
Secondly: This is just badly written "comedy." The custom art was the only decent thing about it.
Who are you, and what have you done with Hawkzombie? I mean, you can’t possibly be him, can you? The Hawkzombie I remember was always a really chill dude with the patience to review and stream some of the worst games ever made without hurling daggers at the games’ creators. (I can say this because he’s streamed/reviewed a few of my god-awful creations.)
People don't lack talent, they lack drive and discipline. No one is just born being able to create perfect art. Some are more apt certainly, but the only thing keeping anyone from being an artist (or writer or any other creative endeavors) is time, practice, and patience.
AI is a tool, not a replacement. And this is ignoring that gen AI is made from thousands of stolen works. RPG Maker is a tool as well, yes, but it's not made on the backs of thousands of programmers whose works were stolen. There's no such thing as programming talent. You either choose to learn it or don't. Time and dedication. It always comes back down to time and dedication. Gen AI is a cancer on the creative world and as an artist yourself I really find your acceptance of it to be disappointing. You're honestly ok with your works being stolen so someone else can make "art" because they were too lazy to try or too cheap to pay?
See that’s the thing. I don’t see it as “stealing.” When I tried to teach myself to draw, I picked some styles I liked and tried to copy those artists’ styles. I looked at their stuff, practiced, and in the end, produced similar (but inferior) content mimicking those styles. Generative AI is the same concept, but on a much larger scale. AI isn’t going to create an outright copy of someone’s art. It creates something based on the prompt its given with a similar style.
And you’re right, it is a tool rather than a replacement. I can use it to whip up a concept for a character quite easily, but human artists still have several edges that they had better take advantage of while they can:
I think at the very core of all this, artists are simply just afraid of being replaced by AI. The truly good ones will continue to find ways to stand out instead of relying on a style that’s “generic anime.”
Ultimately, AI is inevitable, so why don’t people work with it rather than against it?
