"It's just a tool..." "It's like using photoshop..." "Artists complained about cameras in the same way...": When it comes to art there's a huge difference between a tool that assists you while you retain full control over your output and a tool that does work for you. Generative AI does not 'assist' in the process. It does a portion of that process for you -- a very important part of the process when it comes to art. Looking up photographic references or using other art as inspiration is absolutely not comparable to telling generative AI to show you something. One requires you to still participate in the thought process of putting the pieces together using your own interpretation, the other feeds you a result that is simply the average of everything it found relatable to your prompt. You are watering down creativity/vision and letting the AI have input over the very foundation of your process -- which poisons the whole process forward.
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"None of it will be in the final product...": This is so incredibly far from the point. Art is not just about the final product. Sure, as the consumer you don't need to care about anything but the final product. People will voice their opinions and express their morals with their wallets when the time comes. But Larian doesn't just get immunity to criticism from other creatives and artists, and that general sentiment is AI has absolutely zero place in the creative process. Full stop. No exceptions.
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AI makes a lot of sense for business (even though currently it's not actually saving time or money -- Larian admits themselves), but it has no place in art. So I guess it's a matter of whether they want to make games as a business or as art. There is no wrong answer to that one. It's not wrong to want to make money making games.
HOWEVER... "art" is only half of the discussion with generative AI. There are serious world-wide impacts on it's use, and these aren't opinion. Generative AI is a technology based on theft. Generative AI is also having serious environmental impacts that need to be addressed.
Larian can use this technology if they want, but they've lost face in any claim to be a company that stands for artists or cares about the environment. They have no leg to stand on criticizing other's use of AI anymore. They've planted the seed of doubt in their audience: every written line, every concept, every asset...it's now "is this AI? Did they use AI to make this? Did they forget to replace an AI asset?"
