529
Epic Games CEO says it’s ‘really irresponsible’ of Steam to make studios disclose AI use | VGC - 25th Jun 2026 (www.videogameschronicle.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
101 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Tim Sweeney claims it’s a “Scarlet Letter” which makes players “try to kill the game”

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has criticised rival Valve for forcing studios to disclose when they use AI in game development.

Epic recently showed how it was integrating AI into Unreal Engine 6.

Time Sweeney said:

“If you want to launch a game, and get it as widely publicized as possible, you’ve got to put it on Steam so people can wish list it, and if you want to play it on Steam, then you have to get this Scarlet Letter of AI attached to your product, and now there is a hater community trying to kill the game.

“I think it’s really irresponsible of Valve. They shouldn’t do it, because it makes it much, much, much harder for a game developer to have a chance of success. You have to choose from either not using tools that can make you way more productive, and probably failing due to competition that does.”

Which is totally ignoring the factor that the user should know about the purchase it makes and be able to decide for themselves. Transparency for the player is not a bad thing.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] -2 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Copying isn't stealing, and learning or training on public information certainly isn't. Your argument based on a vast expansion of what is "intellectual property" is disgusting and moronic and dangerous.

If generative AI can generate useful work, who gets to profit from it? That is the only question since AI is inevitable. But you're arguing that only capitalists and large companies that can afford to "license" this new form of intellectual property may profit. I'm saying AI should be open source, and the ability to make use of this cheaper generative work should be able to be used by all for free.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

    Or, these shitty ai companies could pay creators a small amount to use their content for training. What is the problem with that?

    There is no incentive for anyone to create original content anymore if AI will just steal it. Id argue that is dangerous

    Good luck with your Nvidia shares ..

    Don't even bring open source into this. Open source isn't about stealing work mate. It's about sharing it. And very few people consent to ai using their data. I know it copied a huge amount of data from our own website, despite the copyrights on it.

    The people who generally want this are generally people who don't contribute much of value that AI will steal

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] -1 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Or, these shitty ai companies could pay creators a small amount to use their content for training. What is the problem with that?

    It's logistically impossible, and economically non viable. The AI companies are a bubble that will soon burst. And then consolidate and monopolize.

    But you want to ban all open source / weight AI models that ever possibly trained or learned from public information. You want to monopolize and give the AI companies ultimate power and control over AI, by creating the legal framework to make models never free.

    Copyright covers reproduction, not learning. Books, articles, comments are all public information.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 child)

    Lets thought experiment..

    If I create a local AI, and train in all the music, images and assets from GTA5 and then prompt it to create a game, with the GTA5 storyline with screenshots of videos of each storyline point and outcome.. Should that be legal? Should it suddenly make it legal if I add 1 extra image that is public domain and got blended into it a bit?

    Whether it is legal now, and whether it SHOULD be legal are two different things.

    The laws simply haven't caught up yet.. Just because AI blends up a bunch of images it was never given permission to use and you can't trace where they were from, doesn't mean it SHOULD be legal to do so. Thats the problem.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    That would be the one in a billion case where it could clash, unless it's "transformative artwork" and except from copyright, like you turn it into some kind of satire or social critique.

    The larger problem with this discussion is that you'll just deny facts. AI models don't just "blend images", that is disinformation. The models are too small and the input way too large. They are learning like an artist would, and if you would ask an artist to recreate the mona lisa or some iconic GTA5 scene he studied from memory, you'd get not dissimilar results.

    What will happen is simply that AI models with be monopolized, free use will be impossible and only corporations and capitalists will have access to using AI models to make some kind of money. Imagine an army of robots that you can just tell to do some job. But you'll not be allowed to build your own or operate one without paying license fees. The laws you look forward to will seal the permanent economic enslavement of humanity. And that will be that.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent