I’m Getting Real Tired Of Not Being Able To Trust That A Video Game Doesn’t Have AI Crap In It

Some video games have been trying to use generative AI for years now, and for the most part people simply have not been having it. Why would we? It's lazy, it's ugly, it's an ethical black hole and it's being driven by an executive class desperate to lay off even more workers. While earlier and more brazen attempts at employing the tech were obvious, lately it's becoming more common for studios to slide a little AI-generated content in without drawing attention to it. 

Jurassic World Evolution 3 launched with some AI-generated character portraits, then got bullied into removing them. Clair Obscur, which will be a lot of people's game of the year, appeared to quietly launch with some AI-generated art then just as quietly patch it out. I was going to review the city-building grand strategy game Kaiserpunk until I saw they were using AI-generated images for their dialogue sections, after which I promptly uninstalled it.

The latest culprit is The Alters, which has found to have shipped not only with AI-generated placeholder text in-game, but also employed AI-generated translations in some of its side content as well. None of this was disclosed prior to the game's release; it was all discovered later, by players, and has prompted an explanation of sorts from the developers which tries to calm everyone down, but which has just made things worse, because if it took people discovering these specific instances to find that 11 Bit had used AI-generated content in the game's development, how do we know there's not more of it?

This is a HUGE BUMMER. I really liked this game! And obviously didn't notice any of that on my playthrough, because I never stopped to read those screens and I played the game in English. To which I guess you could say, well, does it really matter if they slipped some AI stuff in there if I didn't notice it? Especially when, as developers 11 Bit say, it only constitutes "0.3%" of the overall text in the game?

Yes, it fucking does. I am not just against the employment of this tech for obvious, superficial reasons. All generative AI content is built on theft; surely writing some gibberish, or pasting some lorem ipsum, would have been preferable here? And saying there were "time constraints" involved in rushing AI-generated translations into the game is no excuse, either. Translators are highly skilled workers; using reputable ones costs a studio money, and takes time, but it avoids situations like all this, not to mention it’s just the right and professional thing to do.

Any studio making use of generative AI is sending a very clear message: they don't care about the cataclysmic effects AI is having on their own industry, they don't care that so much of AI content is slop, they don't care that millions of people out there who are their prospective fans and customers are wholly opposed to its use. I don't want to write about a game with AI in it, I don't want to support studios that use it and I don't want to spend a second of my time on it.

What's particularly grating about the situation with The Alters, aside from the fact it's absolutely coloured my enjoyment of what's an otherwise smart and interesting video game, is that the practice is becoming more common and harder to spot, and it’s increasingly just wearing us down. Much like the nascent fascism that it has quickly grown to be the representative aesthetic of, it feels like the hope with generative AI is that no matter how much you may hate it, the goal is to bombard you with its horrors and its excesses so frequently that you become numb to it. The more you see of it, the more you'll accept it as normal and the more you'll grow to if not enjoy then at least tolerate it, no matter how reluctantly.

Where you used to be able to spot generative AI a mile off, we're now needing days and even weeks after release for its use to become known. In some cases you can't even rely on Steam's AI disclaimers, because neither Clair Obscur or The Alters used them. It's getting to the stage where I just can't trust video games, and it means I'm starting to approach every game I play dubiously, every piece of key art and character portrait guilty until proven innocent, clouds hanging over every image and line of dialogue.

This isn't wearing down my opposition to AI-generated content, but it is wearing me down when it comes to approaching and enjoying video games. It is deeply unhealthy to bring so much scepticism into every new game I play, but if I'm going to take a principled stand here, what choice do I have? I do not want this shit in my games, you don't want it either, and I don't want to play or talk about games that contain it as a result. Yet I just did, and after really liking the game too, and so here I am writing this. This is getting exhausting.

I'd like every individual and team responsible for sneaking AI content in their games to know that whatever time or money you think you're saving, and however harmless and peripheral you think it's being implemented, you're doing immeasurable damage, because not only are people going to ultimately turn on your game, but you're playing your part in them wearing out on all games.