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AI slop memes and the plot to make AI legit (piefed.social)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/fuck_ai@lemmy.world
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I watched a deep dive video into the weird and wonderful world of AI slop memes which revealed a plot/campaign to legitimize AI "art"

Video source but I am going to summarize to the best of my ability:
"The Bizarre Rise of Tung Tung Tung Sahur (And the Lawsuit Nobody Expected)" https://youtu.be/6BdRjuaGlJ0 (~22 minutes). Side note: I think Frankie Fey does an amazing job with researching and presenting these bizarre insight into what the "kids" are up to these days.

tl;dw
Gen Alpha and Gen Z use AI to make what they thought are public domain memes.

A RoBlox game called "Steal a brainrot" created by "SpyderSammy" used these memes in a Roblox game that prints money for the developer (Millions of USD per Month).

September 2025, SpyderSammy removed a very popular AI slop meme character called TTT (initials, name is much bigger) because of "Mementum Lab" demanding compensation. Mementum lab is trying to seize control of public domain memes - https://www.mementumlab.com/

Lots of drama ensues along with an escalating legal battle.

April 2026 the the AI slop meme character TTT shows up in Fortnite as an skin (think of it like an aesthetic costume for you player character) with a one time approximate purchase cost of 10~12 USD.

https://fortnite.gg/cosmetics?id=22470

Fortnite is a game created by Epic Games which is a massive money printing machine masquerading as a game. To be fair it has an almost cult like following and is supposedly a lot of fun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortnite

Epic Games is owned by Tim Sweeney - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Sweeney

In my opinion, Tim Sweeney is a greedy and disingenuous asshole billionaire.

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/epic-boss-tim-sweeney-blasts-steam-for-putting-ai-tags-on-games-says-move-is-irresponsible-of-valve

Tim Sweeney also owns the Unreal Engine (a massively popular and ubiquitous tool for making games that is also a money printer).

Put it all together. MemetumLabs is trying to turn AI slop into property with a monetary value. They failed to extract money from the Roblox meme game made by SypderSammy LLC. Tim Sweeney via his game Fortnite has swooped in to help try and make MemetumLab's more legitimate.

Additionally there are substantial rumors that the next version of Unreal Engine (version 6) is going to be packed with AI slop generating "features".

Not relevant to this post, Fortnite is why Wall Street has murdered a big chunk of the games industry as they try to make their own perpetual money printing machine.

Thank you for attending my Ted Talk, please exit through the Gift shop.

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[–] 12 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Isn't procedurally generated some kind of advanced algorithms, and programmers invest months of time to make it (hopefully) great? Like the biomes and endless landscape in Luanti/Minecraft? Or some space game with almost infinite solar systems... That always looks like a lot of work to me. And it kinda pays off, if done right. Whereas the difference to AI is, they don't invest a lot if time and they also don't program any complicated algorithms and don't spend time tweaking it until it's balanced? I'd say that's roughly the difference between procedurally generated and AI.

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  • [–] [S] 7 points 4 months ago

    Reminded me. Human creators of procedurally generated content often "cheat". Best example is Valheim which most people believe is 100% procedurally generated landscapes/geography. Reality is Valheim has a hidden super or master map with the gaming copying a small circle of it and then uses the procedural generator to decorate that.

    If not for all the modders its unlikely anyone would know.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

    Ooo, wait! What is Luanti?? [Edit: Cooool! What games do you play on it?]

    What I'm saying is that AI is low-effort crap that CAN be improved on, just like proc-gen CAN be low effort crap that can be improved on, just like stock assets are low effort crap that can be improved on.

    I think maybe the argument against AI in UE is that it's a blackbox that people can't manipulate or improve on, which is really increasingly the argument against UE (or how its used) in general.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    Luanti is the Free Software Minecraft rip-off. Formerly known as Minetest. I spent way too much time creating a world during Covid-19 times 😅

    Yeah, I guess the main issue with AI is, how it's mostly used to cut corners. That's what it's especially good for. So we tend to end up with low effort crap more often than not. At least as of today.

    I can imagine AI being used to breathe in life into NPCs and you end up with a better world. Or a sci-fi game with an intelligent space ship computer like in Star Trek. Heck, maybe even the holodeck and you fight against some AI Moriarty. That'd be interesting stuff. But 99% of what AI is being used for (instead) is to cut out the graphics designer because cheaper textures will do.

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