The problem is that it's unenforcable. I bet that's one of the reasons valve is rephrasing.

https://www.reuters.com/business/nearly-90-videogame-developers-use-ai-agents-google-study-shows-2025-08-18/

Good luck finding a dev that doesn't want to use/ isn't forced to use / doesn't lie about using AI tools.

Ar this point if we're to shun all AI tools we might just give up the hobby.

You'll need to opt out of pretty much anything digital than because almost every business is has employees using AI is some form or fashion since it's shoved down everyone's throats so hard.

Just uninstall all games made after 2022 then, because I can assure you llm' have been used for code in some capacity in every game. But I would argue there is a big difference in using AI for assert generation. And using it to help read docs or getting ideas for refactoring some code etc

Yes, and while we're at it let'd refuse to read books not written by scribes. And refuse clothes not woven by hand.

I understand the frustration with the industry, but at the end of the day it is a tool, and it has its uses. Just because it is being misused doesn't mean it's universally bad. This just seems petty and misdirected.

Are you opposed to, for example, AI being used to bug fix?

Personally my opposition is mostly in the form of drawing art, writing plotlines, recording voicelines, etc. I am not opposed to AI being used in certain aspects of game development.

I found the concept of stolen code to be a bit weird. Code isn't poetry, there is a correct way of doing things and then there is incorrect ways of doing things.

If everybody does things the correct way then the code will be the same for any given problem. So is it stolen?

It's rather like how it's almost impossible to play any set of chords and them not be from some prior work. It doesn't mean that the music was stolen it just means that there is a limited number of ways you can combine notes and if you further limit it to combinations that sound good the set is even smaller.

Because it'll be half-baked and one-off.

It's to cover things like code completions built into the development tooling, or asking Claude/ChatGPT questions.

It covered everything before, and unless you're a solo dev, not using anything at this point within the entire game studio, is pretty much impossible.

And even as a solo dev truly trying to not use any AI even googling anything and reading the AI summary at the top would qualify you as having used AI and required disclosure. It was unenforceable and everyone would lie or were lying to themselves.

This is a much better policy and more enforceable.

That is, in fact, not the problem in its entirety.

The move to CGI didn't require stealing the artwork of the matte painters. The move to mocap didn't require raping the land of all its water. The move to either didn't require all of the world supply of computing power, leaving it only affordable for the world's richest. The move to either didn't create a corporate circle jerk that the damn near whole world economy was propped up by.

Speaking as someone who dabbles with all kinds of art.

What are you talking about? I can’t even begin to make the art i make digitally on paper and i am using a drawing tablet. I heavily use blended layers and may zoom in to the pixel level to meticulously get something perfect.

My used to be art teacher (pencil drawing, digital drawing and tattoos) started lesson 1 with affirming that digital painting is not drawing and you can not use a drawing tablet to draw. They affirmed its its own thing and much closer to painting.

You could raise one point for eye hand coordination holding a pen like item to draw lines there are transferable skills there but for all my digital work, my paper drawings suck, and i don’t even want to think about that guy i know that was actually good on paper, but disliked using a drawing tablet so much he used a mouse to “scratch” drawings on pc instead.

If we are considering experience broader creative techniques there is also the very common (and very fun) art of making collages.

People used to do this with magazines and you needed to be good with scissors. Doing it online eliminated that skill yet public internet images and photoshop actually turned that hobby in an actual career. (I know many magazines where every cover is a photoshopped collage of pictures)

I like to to point this one because in my Own dabbling with ai generated (diy comfyui -not an llm prompt) the creative energy i put in feels much close to making collages, and a little bit like coding. You start with something basic and then you gradually change and mold stuff into intention.

My actual critique of ai generation is actually something much more basic.. its just not as fun, its carving a rock that can change shape and sometimes it just sucks.

that language model doesn't regurgitate the media it was trained on. it just makes sure you don't misspell your thats