In my opinion, the fact that GenAI uses obscene amounts of already scarce natural resources for something that humans can do much better is a big no, and makes the discussion of its artistic value or legal validity less relevant to me.
That said:
- Art is 5% skill / 95% self-doubt, emotional baggage, and all the human crap that makes us miserable, so machines will never be very good at that.
- Some people keeps referring to GenAI as a "tool", when in fact it's an independent entity that carries out orders. Art books would never say "Pope Julius II painted the Sistine Chapel's ceiling using his favorite tool: Michelangelo."

I get what you’re saying, especially about the environmental cost. I wrote about my process a few posts back, so I won’t repeat it, but I’d like to explain why I think of it like a tool:

I use a combination of my own pencil sketches, photos and images for a “style reference sheet,” prompts to Photoshop’s AI, my own hand painting corrections, and more prompts for tweaks, to create a final image that is as close as possible to how I originally imagined it. The final result is always how I saw the image in my head.

So to me AI really is a tool, because I used it in conjuncture with my own ideas and hands to help me create something I alone couldn’t, just like I’d use any other tool to help me make something my hands alone can’t. I don’t see it as the Pope using Michelangelo as his tool, so much as me using a toolbox of “smart-ish” brushes, but one that I’m ultimately directing and guiding and altering as much as I can.

A lot of users on here have pointed out how AI gathers its references, looking at their work without consent, for example, which I really wasn’t aware of, and I agree with them that this is wrong. I completely and totally agree with you on the environmental cost, too. I wasn’t aware until recently of how many resources it consumes. That to me is heartbreaking, because I care deeply about the environment. I was totally naive about that.

I guess at the end of the day this is a weird time to be creating in. It’s hopefully a transitional stage into something more fair and balanced, and eco-friendly. Will it be? I hope so. I don’t think it’s the end of human driven art, though. People will always create art, because like you point out, it’s made up of the angst and beauty and emotion inside us. I think even some of the graphics in my game (while not exactly fine art) do convey what I felt in my heart and wanted to express. These discussions have definitely opened my eyes and challenged my assumptions, so I’m grateful to everyone on here.

Thanks for the explanation Estória. I can see that you made a calculated use of GenAI to create specific parts of your game, and that's ok.
In any case, my criticism is never directed at solo devs or micro-studios trying to make legitimate games. In the end, we have no choice but to balance our ethical principles with what we need to do to move our projects forward. I, for example, despise Unity as a company. They go against my principles in many ways, and I know they'll get even worse in the future, but I keep using their engine because the alternative would be to halt production for two or three months to learn Godot, and I just can't afford to do that. Oh well.

Thanks for the reply Octavi. That's a good, nuanced way to put it, and I appreciate it.
I didn't know that about Unity. One more thing I have to rethink! 

This is a nice discussion.

I’ll also nuance my stance a bit, because I do use ChatGPT sometimes, not for generating content, but more like organising my own thoughts and playing with ideas, or get the feedback needed to trigger new ideas on my own. And it is absolutely useful for troubleshooting technical stuff. I just have to be a bit careful because not all the answers it gives are trustworthy. It is VERY good at lying, to make me feel good. Which is more than a little creepy.

But I am not totally anti-AI, as long as it is used with caution and not replacing any roles regarding creativity and art (for both moral, environmental, creative and copyright reasons).

What I absolutely oppose, is this view of «adapt or be left behind». I’m going to use music as an example because that is the field I know.

In every discussion I’ve witnessed about AI’s place in composing music, there’s always this one dude who will die on the hill of «everyone will be doing it, and the composers who refuse, will be left behind, and soon be out of a job»! But this is what makes me climb even higher up on my stubborn hill: Left behind from what? Art is not a competition! What my music sounds like, can be defined only by me. GenAI does not know me, or cannot teach me to sound more like me.

Let’s pretend for a second that I was willing to create a piece of music by entering a prompt. How would I ever be able to call it *my* music? I never could, and I never would. When the process of actually creating something, giving a small piece of your soul – when that is wholly skipped and you are simply given a «result», you have sucked the life and the joy and the entire purpose out of creating. What’s the point then?

I don’t know any composer that would be able to live with creating music like this. So it is not the composers that will do it - it is rather producers of commercial films and reality TV, who wants to save money by skipping the composer entirely, and rather enter some prompts and get something that they feel is «good enough» (sigh). Which means that this kind of music will end up sounding even more generic than it already is. Kind of sad in itself, but OK.

Suno’s advertisements are claiming that their tools makes «everyone a songwriter». I get that it’s supposed to be a snappy tagline to sell their software, but entering prompts is not composing music. When a film director gives me a description, telling me what they want the music for a certain scene to be like, you might say that they are giving me a «prompt». When I give them the result, would it then be correct to say that the director is the composer of that music, because they described a feeling or what they wanted it to sound like? Of course not. Yet that is what Suno is saying.

Only time will tell what will happen in the next 5, 10 or 20 years… I have a hunch that human creativity and actual original ideas might be more valued as a result of all this, which makes the whole «adapt or be left behind» statement even more erratic, because maybe it’s the exact opposite.

I just have to be a bit careful because not all the answers it gives are trustworthy. It is VERY good at lying, to make me feel good. Which is more than a little creepy.

This is what keeps people going back to it - the positive affirmation; the friendly encouragement. It's very easy to turn this sycophantic language off though, so its opinion of you becomes neutral.

This is a nice discussion.

I’ll also nuance my stance a bit, because I do use ChatGPT sometimes, not for generating content, but more like organising my own thoughts and playing with ideas, or get the feedback needed to trigger new ideas on my own. And it is absolutely useful for troubleshooting technical stuff. I just have to be a bit careful because not all the answers it gives are trustworthy. It is VERY good at lying, to make me feel good. Which is more than a little creepy.

But I am not totally anti-AI, as long as it is used with caution and not replacing any roles regarding creativity and art (for both moral, environmental, creative and copyright reasons).

What I absolutely oppose, is this view of «adapt or be left behind». I’m going to use music as an example because that is the field I know.

In every discussion I’ve witnessed about AI’s place in composing music, there’s always this one dude who will die on the hill of «everyone will be doing it, and the composers who refuse, will be left behind, and soon be out of a job»! But this is what makes me climb even higher up on my stubborn hill: Left behind from what? Art is not a competition! What my music sounds like, can be defined only by me. GenAI does not know me, or cannot teach me to sound more like me.

Let’s pretend for a second that I was willing to create a piece of music by entering a prompt. How would I ever be able to call it *my* music? I never could, and I never would. When the process of actually creating something, giving a small piece of your soul – when that is wholly skipped and you are simply given a «result», you have sucked the life and the joy and the entire purpose out of creating. What’s the point then?

I don’t know any composer that would be able to live with creating music like this. So it is not the composers that will do it - it is rather producers of commercial films and reality TV, who wants to save money by skipping the composer entirely, and rather enter some prompts and get something that they feel is «good enough» (sigh). Which means that this kind of music will end up sounding even more generic than it already is. Kind of sad in itself, but OK.

Suno’s advertisements are claiming that their tools makes «everyone a songwriter». I get that it’s supposed to be a snappy tagline to sell their software, but entering prompts is not composing music. When a film director gives me a description, telling me what they want the music for a certain scene to be like, you might say that they are giving me a «prompt». When I give them the result, would it then be correct to say that the director is the composer of that music, because they described a feeling or what they wanted it to sound like? Of course not. Yet that is what Suno is saying.

Only time will tell what will happen in the next 5, 10 or 20 years… I have a hunch that human creativity and actual original ideas might be more valued as a result of all this, which makes the whole «adapt or be left behind» statement even more erratic, because maybe it’s the exact opposite.

I totally agree with you. I also hate the "use it or get left behind" attitude. My stance on it is that it can be used in measures to supplement or support work, but I don't think it should be used for outright creation. The backgrounds in my game aren't pieces of art, for example, and I would never display them as original works. The thought of that creeps me out. They're graphics to support my game. I like how they look, but they're not stand alone creations.

I truly hope, like you said, human creativity might be more valued in the future. Creative people always find ways to express themselves, either with new technology like this, or through old tried and true methods that tend get valued even more for their craftsmanship. One thing I worry about is young people losing the ability to figure things out for themselves, or learning to hone a craft over years and years. That part of AI truly frightens me. Anyway, like you said, this is a nice discussion!

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I just have to be a bit careful because not all the answers it gives are trustworthy. It is VERY good at lying, to make me feel good. Which is more than a little creepy.

This is what keeps people going back to it - the positive affirmation; the friendly encouragement. It's very easy to turn this sycophantic language off though, so its opinion of you becomes neutral.

Yes! I'm only active on 2 sites, this one just recently, and a Star Wars one. Both are so positive. People can express differing opinions and have a real discussion without the usual internet nastiness and vitriol.

Edit - Oh sorry, I read your comment the wrong way. I thought you were saying this was a nice discussion as opposed to a lot of other internet sites shouting matches. You were talking about AI's creepy insistence on giving positive feedback. Anyway, both are true ;-)

Edit - Oh sorry, I read your comment the wrong way. I thought you were saying this was a nice discussion as opposed to a lot of other internet sites shouting matches. You were talking about AI's creepy insistence on giving positive feedback. Anyway, both are true  ;-)

 No problem. Yes, positive encouragement from people is great; it's the artificial kind that is, well, artificial and therefore maybe not so important.

I've created three presentations with Gemini over the last few days. The ideas were still mine, but the execution was better than I could ever have achieved myself. (Not to mention that anyone else would have thrown in the towel with all the change requests I had.)

Let's make sure we're all talking about the same thing here. What you are describing doesn't sound like generative AI to me. If I'm understanding you correctly, you wrote the presentations and then just asked Gemini to make them look nice? That kind of thing doesn't bother me too much, because you've done the work and the ideas are yours.

Generative AI would be if you just asked it to make a presentation based on a prompt and it did it all for you. That is much more problematic in my view, because then what are you even being paid for?

And let's be honest: what people deliver is mostly standard fare. I don't want to deny any developer, including those present here, their creativity and pride in their product.

But which game really stands out from the crowd? Mundaun comes to mind, and even Prim is only different in terms of its graphic style, not its design. It's always the same thing in different packaging. Why not try something new for a change?

This statement has taken me aback, and I can't disagree more.

We are currently blessed with a multitude of creative and powerful gaming experiences that stand out from the crowd and come from the passion of real people. Return of the Obra Dinn, Immortality, Outer Wilds, Chants of Senaar, The Drifter, UFO 50, Blue Prince, The Séance of Blake Manor, The Crimson Diamond to name just a few. These are games that stick with you and have soul.

They are experiences that are more than the sum of their parts, even if they don't all reinvent the wheel. I would not want to give up any of these to let a machine cobble stolen ideas together into something empty. AI can't produce something "new".

"Generative AI would be if you just asked it to make a presentation based on a prompt and it did it all for you. That is much more problematic in my view, because then what are you even being paid for?"

Yes, I asked the AI  to make a presentation based on a prompt and it did it all for me. I don`t get money für it but even if I was: What is the problem? It was my idea and my critisim. Why should the lecture would be worth money, if it is not as good as the AI one? f I were paid for it, I would have more time to do other things. It would be more productive.

I would never allow an AI to write my short story, but an short presentation, why not?

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Addendum: A presentation about Rosslyn Chapel also took three hours because I kept adding things like vocabulary lists, other images, and different designs. (Anyone else would have thrown the stuff at my feet.) It's not like you just type in a few words and the AI conjures up a presentation.

The lectures on Scottish clans and Haunted Scotland took maybe an hour.

I only did this for my English class. But I would do the same for other lectures.