from Hacker News

Valve is not willing to publish games with AI generated content anymore?

by Wouter33 on 6/29/23, 4:27 PM with 395 comments

by jasonjmcghee on 6/29/23, 4:41 PM
Why editorialize?
"Valve is not willing to publish games with AI generated content anymore"
Your title changes the meaning- they didn't ban games afaict.
It's also a misleading post, as it's specifically GenAI where authors can't prove or don't have rights to content.
If you use ProcGen etc or have full rights to the data used, I can't imagine there would be any issues.
by kemayo on 6/29/23, 4:38 PM
> After reviewing, we have identified intellectual property in [Game Name Here] which appears to belongs to one or more third parties. In particular, [Game Name Here] contains art assets generated by artificial intelligence that appears to be relying on copyrighted material owned by third parties. As the legal ownership of such AI-generated art is unclear, we cannot ship your game while it contains these AI-generated assets, unless you can affirmatively confirm that you own the rights to all of the IP used in the data set that trained the AI to create the assets in your game.
Valve's worried that AI-generated art is in a murky copyright state, and don't want to open themselves up to being sued.
by minimaxir on 6/29/23, 4:36 PM
This just creates a moral hazard to not disclose the use of any AI-generated assets, which is something other creative industries have already learnt the hard way.
Recent text-to-image models have improved enough such that it's possible to get realistic, not-Midjourney-dreaminess in the generations with a modicium of effort, so banning obviously-AI-generated images is shortsighted and unsustainable.
by euix on 6/29/23, 5:35 PM
Midjourney has been really helpful to me as a one man dev. I can mockup art much faster then what I can do in photoshop. I still intend to at some point do a complete pass using a professional artist (or learn to draw myself) - because generative art is not consistent thematically from asset to asset. But if I just want to see what my tile assets look like if they were all done in 30's art deco style, I can do it in 20 minutes.
As placeholders or to create little bits and doodles (like a mouse cursor in the style of an armored fist), there are lots of little graphical icons in a game that would other have to be created by a graphical artist. Generative art is really useful in my experience.
It's reduced the work to the point where I can toy with it in my off time and spend most of my effort in the actual programming and development.
The other idea I have toyed with, coming from professional ML experience - was to build my own generative model and use it to create my own art assets. Here I wonder how the copyright rules would work - would the assets I train on be subjected to copyright? This is a much bigger conversation at that point and I wont be the only one affected.
by add-sub-mul-div on 6/29/23, 4:42 PM
We're on the cusp of a profound content shovelware crisis. It will happen regardless, but any oasis of real content will become important.
Automation will be a force multiplier for laziness and predation more so than for creativity.
by kevinh on 6/29/23, 4:36 PM
I'd wait for more information before making any assumptions about what Valve is doing here. So often these stories here are lacking context due to only one side trying to paint the situation in a very one-sided light.
by rngname22 on 6/29/23, 4:38 PM
This is just legal cover until such time as its possible to enforce no child exploitation imagery, no copyright stuff, etc.
It doesn't matter if they are able to enforce it, Valve can use this policy as cover if they ever get sued.
Don't overthink the motivation. They will not even have a bulletproof way to detect AI imagery as it evolves every single day as an arm's race and detection is a full-time job. Even a FAANG or a state actor would need to dedicate team(s) to detection technology and still have false negatives.
The same sorts of things already happen for example on YouTube and Twitch, where types of content are against TOS or copyright but enforcement is sporadic and selective, smaller operations often fly under the radar of enforcement, bigger creators who are netting the org sufficient revenue will likely be able to get away with more, etc, the automated tools for detection are flawed.
by MagicMoonlight on 6/29/23, 4:46 PM
That seems pretty sensible. There have been lawsuits from artists before. Do you want to risk a game selling 10m copies and then it turns out that all the art was just copied and pasted by the "AI" and Valve is now on the hook.
Also from a store perspective, any game where shortcuts like this are used tend to be shit games. They don't want spam games to be pumped. There's already enough indie trash platformers that nobody wants.
by fyrn_ on 6/29/23, 7:25 PM
Title is very misleading for something that the only the only evidence of is a anecdote from reddit. Was expecting a statement from Valve based on the title
by wincy on 6/29/23, 4:38 PM
Interesting. So products that use AI generation as pet of an API, say using a diffusion model to generate different stylings for the walls and textures for a level creator, would fall under this?
Guess it’s time to ask for forgiveness rather than ask for permission and not let Valve know where my art assets are coming from in my web-based API.
If I were making a game I’d just lie and lie at this point.
by GreedClarifies on 6/29/23, 5:07 PM
I guess we need clarity on whether using copyrighted material is covered under fair use.
GenAI clearly meets the "transformative" standard.
OTOH it seems likely that it will have difficulty with the "Amount and substantiality" as it considers the whole art work, OTOH this is not necessarily a hard barrier given the "transformative" nature.
My guess is that the "Effect upon work's value" standard vs. the "transformative" standard will be the area where there is most action. Clearly, in aggregate, GenAI will have great impact upon works value. However, this is not the usual standard (it is about individual works), and I would argue that this would be creating new law by the courts.
Hopefully we will get a case to the supreme court to resolve this, quickly. I think that this is a boon for humanity and I would like to see the cuffs taken off as quickly as possible.
by jasonlotito on 6/29/23, 4:47 PM
Of note: they aren't banning AI generated graphics. Rather:
> we are declining to distribute your game since it’s unclear if the underlying AI tech used to create the assets has sufficient rights to the training data.
It's not AI generate graphics. Instead, it's AI-generated graphics where the rights to the training data cannot be established. I think that's an important distinction.
by whywhywhywhy on 6/29/23, 5:21 PM
This will change within 6 months I promise you, EA/Ubisoft/etc will ALL be shipping AI generated textures in games before the end of the year.
by smoldesu on 6/29/23, 4:35 PM
> At this time, we are declining to distribute your game since it’s unclear if the underlying AI tech used to create the assets has sufficient rights to the training data.
This seems like a completely fair response from Valve. On top of that, they gave them notice and an opportunity to remove the offending content (with that content explicitly called out) and offered to refund if that was not a viable option.
If this was an iOS/Android app, they would have just been told to pound sand and swallow the dev fee. Good on Valve for not lapsing communication here.
by floomk on 6/29/23, 4:42 PM
So using Adobe Firefly is fine, since they only trained on data they had the rights to?
by scohesc on 6/29/23, 4:40 PM
How would you be able to know if something is AI generated if it's not outright stated in the product description?
"Yes, I intentionally designed the static image of this man to have 5 and a half fingers on one hand with a distorted logo on their t-shirt, please allow this game, Valve."
How can you prove that something is AI generated? Would creating graphics in Adobe's photoshop AI filler tool count as AI-generated content to Valve, or is Adobe's AI data-set using copyright-free graphics?
I wonder if this is Valve trying to also somewhat cater/attract artists on the platform, as I'm sure artists are against using AI under the guise it'd "steal their jobs/hamper creativity".
by lyu07282 on 6/29/23, 8:15 PM
This is obviously nonsense because games and artists have been using AI and procedural generated content for decades, everything from textures, models, maps, animation, music and sound. Generative models are now even integrated in the NVIDIA drivers for upscaling and every photo you take with a recent samsung phone uses generative AI.
Just because now generative AI has made a significant leap doesn't mean its anything new. And copyright is irrelevant because models are clearly derivative works the same way artists remix existing works of art, if that were to change, copyright law would destroy the majority of all creative endeavors.
by paulmd on 6/29/23, 5:57 PM
https://i.imgur.com/JWjLFlO.png
now that's how you know when a comments section is gonna be amazing
by LinuxBender on 6/29/23, 4:43 PM
I do not believe this will be limited to Valve. I expect more companies to start covering their backside by implementing similar rules to avoid copyright lawsuits. I can't say I would blame them either. I am not a lawyer but I think one of the risks is that LLM's do not show their work so proving where something came from is likely to end up in court after a lot of expensive discovery is performed.
by guy98238710 on 6/29/23, 5:12 PM
Engineers have created it and lawyers have ruined it. It's interesting how whole professions can be inherently constructive or inherently destructive.
by lobo_tuerto on 6/29/23, 5:06 PM
Actual title is:
"Valve is not willing to publish games with AI generated content anymore"
by shadowgovt on 6/29/23, 4:45 PM
Does that mean High on Life is now banned? If I recall correctly, they used AI on purpose to give ads and billboards a nonsense alien feel.
by justinclift on 6/29/23, 6:07 PM
Wonder if using (Japanese) anime based AI assets would be workable instead, as the licensing situation there sounds a bit clearer?
aka "copyright doesn't apply":
https://cacm.acm.org/news/273479-japan-goes-all-in-copyright...
by raincole on 6/29/23, 5:13 PM
Random reddit anecdote.
And from 23 days ago.
AND misleading clickbait title.
by ccheney on 6/29/23, 4:53 PM
Seems shortsighted and overly limiting to me. Perhaps in this specific case it makes sense?
What's the difference?
A) Human creates artwork in the style of [insert artist here]
B) Computer creates artwork in the style of [insert artist here]
Both "trained" against existing copyrighted works except one is human. Is this to "save jobs"?
by dleslie on 6/29/23, 4:49 PM
The models which can prove the progeny, and valid licensing, of their source assets will become increasingly valuable with time.
This gives social networks an edge, which often have EULAs that allow the business to use uploaded content _at least_ internally, if not commercially.
_And_, in the short term, there's an opportunity for someone to pay armies of artists to create _decent renditions_ of existing styles and known works. It's not a copyright violation if a human being mimics another human being in creating a new, original work.
by alexdeloy on 6/29/23, 5:31 PM
After seeing that Unity Muse[0] AI presentation yesterday and the following backlash regarding the source material[1], this seems to be a huge legal minefield to be solved first.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR4IuN2tF78
[1]: https://nitter.net/unitygames/status/1673650585860489217
by Zetobal on 6/29/23, 5:50 PM
Without seeing the art there is nothing to judge. I bet it's a visual story and they are using characters from established ips.
by Havoc on 6/29/23, 7:50 PM
>I improved those pieces by hand, so there were no longer any obvious signs of AI
Steam's objection is other copyright even indirectly in the AI training dataset and to remove it, not to conceal the issue better.
Tricky copyright questions aside, inability to follow basic instructions is definitely a disadvantage when going through approval processes
by charles_f on 6/29/23, 6:01 PM
What sounds very weird to me, is that I doubt Valve is verifying the copyright for all the graphics and text you submit. Why would they reject something because "it looks AI generated"? The potential for legal hazard is probably less on these re-mashed works than on purely copy-pasted content.
by Zuiii on 6/30/23, 2:37 AM
A moronic policy if true:
1. Copyright Office made it clear that AI generated output is generally not copyrightable irrespective of training data: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/16/2023-05...
2. In fact, there is credible legal theory that goes as far as to conclude that training dataset license cannot effect the resulting weights under US law (EU's take on copyright make it less clear)
3. DMCA already provides Valve with legal cover in the unlikely event that training dataset license is somehow found to effect the IP rights of generated content.
4. By adopting this policy, they are acting more as a traditional publisher rather than a platform, thus exposing themselves to even more liabilities not less.
This policy makes no sense to me no matter how I look at it.
The harsh reality that Valve and everyone else needs to accept is that AI-generated content from "unclear" datasets is here to stay. People need to accept this fact^1 and move on. I already have.
1: Copyright is an incredibly limited, obsolete, broken invention that was never meant to handle concepts like this. It's very much like a poor analogy that we stubbornly insist on applying to situations were it simply does not fit. We will continue to find ourselves arriving to bizarre and nonsensical conclusions like this as long as we continue holding onto this broken invention. Reward authors in another way. Placing arbitrary limitations on information was never the right way to do it.
by Der_Einzige on 6/29/23, 4:39 PM
Good luck enforcing this. You can generate textures all day with no evidence that they were AI generated.
by bilalq on 6/29/23, 4:38 PM
Where do they draw the line? What about DLSS? Doesn't any game using that have "AI generated graphics"? I guess their email wording focused specifically on assets. Does that mean if you don't pre-bake assets in as artifacts, you're fine?
by TheCaptain4815 on 6/29/23, 4:56 PM
I wonder if they'll do the same for Ai generated text? Why shouldn't they honestly. I could easily finetune an LLM on the writings of a certain author or maybe the content of Mass Effect 1-3 and have the outputs be similar.
by deskamess on 6/29/23, 5:18 PM
Interesting... what would an AI trained only on the Commons/public domain be like? Would it be a clean source for new images? And would new images need to inherit a public/Commons license (GPL style)?
by pessimizer on 6/29/23, 5:49 PM
Not only does this keep them safe from copyright fallout, I think its real goal is to hold back a flood of shit games until the tech matures.
by justrealist on 6/29/23, 4:37 PM
This seems utterly impossible to enforce. You really going to guarantee that your design firm didn't use AI to generate the assets?
by al_be_back on 6/29/23, 5:35 PM
copyright issues aside, a platform has to consider 'spam', AI generated content could quickly and easily overwhelm a platform.
by Madmallard on 6/29/23, 4:38 PM
Strong disapprove. Artificially attempting to slow progress just creates a massive power disparity for those who do not care.
by snowman647 on 6/29/23, 5:40 PM
That's the wrong path, soon Internet for 90%++ will be mixed with AI. Btw - What if I write my game using Chat-GPT?
by tuckerpo on 6/29/23, 4:58 PM
I imagine this is a stopgap measure until there's more concrete legislature in place for AI generated IP.
by jncfhnb on 6/29/23, 5:46 PM
Outlast Trials appears to be a fairly large title that utilized AI art. I sincerely doubt it’ll get ax’ed
by seydor on 6/29/23, 4:53 PM
good news for their competitors
by slongfield on 6/29/23, 4:41 PM
This doesn't seem to have anything really related to the AI-generation of the graphics--it's 100% about copyright. The statement from Valve even says that explicitly: if this user had owned the copyright to the training data, they would have been fine using the AI generated graphics and text.
by samstave on 6/29/23, 8:33 PM
We need an "AI generated web game tower defense" FULL FN STOP.
by brucethemoose2 on 6/29/23, 5:22 PM
Well what if someone ships a model exclusively trained on legal content?
by cinntaile on 6/29/23, 4:57 PM
This opens up one hell of an opportunity for Epic or a startup.
by newobj on 6/29/23, 5:36 PM
Fake story, guaranteed
by bugglebeetle on 6/29/23, 4:40 PM
Seems entirely reasonable. Just because Stability (who seems to be crashing and burning) decided to try and do a Napster for image generation doesn’t mean everyone else should run into the lawsuit abyss alongside them.
by lost_tourist on 6/29/23, 6:54 PM
Sounds like a market opportunity.
by hospitalJail on 6/29/23, 6:13 PM
Beginning of the end for Valve. This is a warning shot. Might want to stop buying games on steam sales.
by stainablesteel on 6/29/23, 6:44 PM
i really hope the US copies Japan's ruling on this kind of thing.
by stuckinhell on 6/29/23, 5:23 PM
This just shows me the future is people using AI tools to make their own games custom for them.
by zzzzzzzza on 6/29/23, 6:09 PM
misleading title, hn should ban reddit links
by moogly on 6/29/23, 4:36 PM
How about Firmament?
by pierat on 6/29/23, 6:41 PM
By that definition, any roguelike should be banned. And, well, we're not seeing that.
I'll watch, but I disbelieve the reddit poster. Probably a CEO bot drumming up obvious bait comments over current computer events.
by FloatArtifact on 6/29/23, 4:42 PM
Basically valve is saying no AI generated content. The premise is that all AI generated content violates copyright which isn't necessarily true. To me, it sounds like their side stepping a potential issue rather than an actual issue with a copyright holder complaining of infringement with a particular IP.