Post by CloMy in Are AI Assets Controversial on Itch io?

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I am incredibly disheartened by the acceptence of AI use within art. I believe art to be the expression of people and not something to just be generated by a computer.
I am even more disheartened that a person using a computer like that can flood the page with their crap and earn thousands.
For example: https://mutterpixel-studio.itch.io/

I am 100% sure a majority has not been made or even assisted by the person publishing it. You would otherwise be so good already that you don't need to rely on AI.
Yet Itch allows them to earn thousands with art that was most likely created by an AI that was trained on scraped art.
Why would you do that as a website?
The quality is bad. It isn't copyrightable and it fills the website with garbage. It make creators lazy.
Learning how to draw takes 1 year practicing 10-60 minutes a day.

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Working Class Games24 days ago(+1)

Itch should have banned ai slop long ago because allowing this is shooting indie devs in the foot, but... they haven't.

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Irog4 days ago

I do all I can to avoid AI. I only use art from trusted sources and I always credit the artists. But looking at the link in your post, I must admit that I can no longer identify gen AI output. The sad situation is that potential customers of art are non-artists who are easier to fool than artists.

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KuroGamedev3 days ago

Perhaps you can figure out how to do your own art, some day? Yes, it would up the amount of time it takes to complete the project, but at least you will have what you want and you won't have to worry about the content being generated by a collection of (reportedly) stolen data.

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redonihunter4 days ago

by the acceptence of AI use within art

I have doubts about that acceptance. Coders will use it as a tool, yet will call non coders that use ai "vibe coders" as a slur and see them with contempt.

I am less sure about professional artists, but I am gonna assume that acceptance there is less than it is among coders. In a professional setting, it might be completely different than with an actual art setting. "art" can be a regular job for some people. Using ai to them might not be much different from a painter using a spray pistol, instead of a brush. They do not do the craft to express themselves, but to earn a living.

So it boils down to what the customer wants. And if the customer wants a wall painted white, that's not the same as a customer wanting a piece of art on the wall in their living room.

Playing video games is pure recreational activity. So acceptance for "ai art" is very subjective and will be highly influenced by non practical reasons. There is a vast pool of video games to chose that do not use ai, so why bother with the ai ones - they have nothing to offer as a plus. With the exception of some novelty experimental games. But exchanging graphics with ai graphics is no benefit. One cannot even argue that the game is cheaper this way. Not if there are more than enough free games to play.

For small devs I kinda accept it, as they can use it as an enabler to create a game at all - unless they just spam slop. Those "devs" exist too. But for more professional and paid games, I have little tolerance for ai.

So it kinda baffles me, that there are people willing to pay for ai assets. And in no small numbers if we have a look at those sale numbers you linked. If devs are on the struggling side of arts and buy assets, ok. Obviously they have a budget for their hobby. But why do they think it is a good idea to spend the money on ai assets? I dare say, if you use ai for your game, you should at least use it yourself and not pay others to operate an ai.

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