Manor Lords and Terra Invicta publishers Hooded Horse are imposing a strict ban on generative AI assets in their games, with company co-founder Tim Bender describing it as an “ethics issue” and “a very frustrating thing to have to worry about”.

“I fucking hate gen AI art and it has made my life more difficult in many ways… suddenly it infests shit in a way it shouldn’t,” Bender told Kotaku in a recent interview. “It is now written into our contracts if we’re publishing the game, ‘no fucking AI assets.'”

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Bender acknowledged the trickiness of policing generative AI when working with external partners, while reiterating the need for a blunt ban. “The reality is, there’s so much of it going on that the commitment just has to be that you won’t allow it in the game, and if it’s ever discovered, because this artist that was hired by this outside person slipped something in, you get it out and you replace it. That has to be the commitment. It’s a shame that it’s even necessary and it’s a very frustrating thing to have to worry about.”

Great editorial by Edwin Evans-Thirlwell at the bottom as well:

The minutiae of different genAI applications aside, the broad cultural or political case against generative AI has, IMO, remained pretty consistent (yes, this is the point in the 'news post' where I deliver the customary lecture, please skip to the comments if you are weary of such things). The biggest bots operate by parasitically appropriating and undermining the work of theoretically any and all human workers, whether or not you define this as actual theft or copyright infringement. Their actual utility beyond the grand promises is broadly unproven, and in some cases, obviously non-existent.

Being companies, the companies pushing them aren’t following the public interest: they are helping to drive up energy usage and emissions, and saturating daily life with “companion” technologies that may distort online discourse and in some cases, contribute to mental illness. Within the games industry, the tech is viewed by many executives and shareholders as a quick fix for unsatisfactory profit margins, and a tacit excuse for cutting staff.

That doesn’t make every usage of generative AI abominable. I can understand the appeal for smaller devs with minimal resources, and I am myself interested in art that makes genuinely imaginative and substantial use of generators of all kinds, rather than just calling on them to “enhance productivity” - providing those technologies are responsibly operated.

But generative AI needs to be understood as a form of class war that will principally benefit the already-filthy-rich, and which is fundamentally anti-social in encouraging greater reliance on profit-driven corporate tools rather than solidarity with coworkers and peers.

All quotes from: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/hooded-horse-ban-ai-generated-art-in-their-games-all-this-thing-has-done-is-made-our-lives-more-difficult