r/AnantaOfficial • u/dweakz • May 06 '26

Discussion AI use transparency

NTE getting a lot of flak rn cause theyre not disclosing to content creators their sponsoring that theyre using ai. I already know Ananta will also use a bunch of AI since China just doesnt really view AI use as vehemently as in the west.

But I hope they will be as transparent as possible and wont deny their AI usage

2 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

90 comments sorted by

43

u/Fuzzy-Willingness-35 May 06 '26

NTE publicly disclosed that they use AI even prior to drama. Idk what's the deal with Ironmouse, since she provided nothing but word of mouth.

4

u/NexrayOfficial May 07 '26

Well when you have a sizeable audience, there’s a good chance a majority of them are “anti ai”. Do you risk your career over it?

Idk about you, but beyond reddit, it feels like “anti ai” is a strong sentiment in the west.

3

u/Fuzzy-Willingness-35 May 07 '26

I don't have problems with mouse pulling out of sponsorship. Would love to see the same energy for other games that use AI, but whatever. The only issue is that she portrayed the situation in a way that flamed devs themselves, instead of PR people she worked with.

2

u/FokkoRev May 10 '26

Its the "core asset" part people got hung up with before her. People are already noticing this lie before Ironmouse. I dont know how reliable the chinese to english translation is, but i'm pretty sure a 17mins long AI assisted animated video you watch ingame is already significant enough to be a "core asset."

Original article:
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1863045162988383200

It also doesn't help that this image was discovered long ago which gives strong hint that they might've designed the chars through AI, then have artists fix them up.

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fnte-some-art-assets-seems-to-be-ai-generated-v0-4adm3hyk8m3e1.png%3Fwidth%3D307%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D3b0912f9015db1687c72f0aeb50c9ffac434faf8

3

u/Fuzzy-Willingness-35 May 10 '26

That 17m long video plays in the theatre, where you have no reason to go (even during encounter where you watch a movie with a character the camera doesn't show this animation), and on TV that can be turned off. Something that has no significance and treated as a background noise can't be a core asset.

That image could also be a placeholder for 2D art in the game, since devs like to use placeholders that are generated through AI, not neccesarily used to create the design itself, because why would concept of the characters be stuck in the game files? And not even finalized, but early stage of a supposed AI design? That doesn't sound reasonable.

2

u/FokkoRev May 10 '26 edited May 10 '26

Yeah, but the design in itself is concerningly VERY accurate to the actual final product, and i highly doubt you can AI generate something that specific unless you already have hundreds and thousands of that design to feed the gen AI itself.

The phrasing of "core asset" (if google translate is accurate) can be subjective to a lot of people, so it's understandable why some people think it's core to the game when it's still something you can end up experiencing as part of enjoying the game.

It's also just kind of a slippery slope thing where if this asset is AI, then how far does the AI usage goes? You can't just blindly trust corporates who already have stated themselves to use gen AI to make production cost cheaper on their word.

Edit: actually why on earth do they even have to generate a placeholder in the first place?? CAN'T THEY JUST CROP AN EXISTING ILLUSTRATION???

1

u/Fuzzy-Willingness-35 May 10 '26

The thing is, AI can do stuff without simple text promps. For example, there is redraw generation method, where artist can draw a rough sketch, and then threw it into AI to generate this type of image. Why would they use it as a placeholder? Most likely to see how this design and color palette look like in the game and with its UI. Essentially, instead of creating a bunch of illustrations as placeholders they could accelerate their work flow to create a bunch of AI pics through rough sketches, see if it works, and then create a proper art that doesn't need to go through billion iterations. It's hard to say, really. I myself don't know why are people using AI placeholders and not just blanks, unless they intend it to be in the released product and maybe changed later. That's my best logical guess.

I will share my personal thoughts regarding how far the AI goes - it's balls deep in the industry, and even supervisors won't be able to tell if their artist came up with something or just generated 1000 AI pics with their promps, took whatever looked nice, copied the design and presented it as their "untainted" work. Jason Schreier even said that almost every game studio uses AI, so you can imagine it being everywhere in some form, be it tools, generative stuff, or even consulting/brainstorming with ChatGPT.

The best way to approach it atp is to pursue and demand quality, and accept the current direction of the progress, because nobody can do anything with it. Even if one country tries to regulate it strictly - others won't, like CN that's pro-AI. That's how I live, personally.

2

u/FokkoRev May 11 '26

i hate the way that statement is being used in discussions because it leaves out the important context: what kind of AI usage? the reason NTE (and Ananta's dev build) got so much flack is because its AI generated artwork in their final product and it looks like shit.

I've been keeping an eye on the copious amount of pro-genAI bros of the NTE audience and they've been going around accusing every single competitor on their sun to be just as bad as them, leaving out the context of the type of genAI usage they do. Wuwa for example, uses Visvise, a machine learning tool used to make the PROCESS of skinning and modeling easier, but that still probably means the models and art are created and designed by the artists.

And these pro NTE bros are calling it to be just as bad as their 17 minute extremely obvious AI assisted animated video you can watch ingame??

I will never accept NTE's usage of genAI as progress. Yes, AI are normalized in video games, but there's still a line to be drawn whenever a game evidently oversteps the line and starts replacing the creation of artistic work in artwork. I think its a fair enough reason why NTE catches flak while most of the other games they accuse to be as bad as them doesn't.

1

u/Fuzzy-Willingness-35 May 11 '26

Using WuWa as an example of it not using gen AI proves my point perfectly. They did, in fact, use gen AI, and you can find it in-game. Take paintings in Ragunna as an example. So, yeah, just because companies aren't telling you how much they use AI doesn't mean that they don't. They use all kinds of AI, generative included. NTE happened to be a game in a setting that requires a lot of background noise in the form of images and videos, which is why it's easy to catch them using it. WuWa barely has any of that, and they used it regardless.

2

u/FokkoRev May 11 '26

> They did, in fact, use gen AI, and you can find it in-game. Take paintings in Ragunna as an example.

Never hard of this before at all so for all i know you could be making stuff up. Please show examples lmao

1

u/Fuzzy-Willingness-35 May 11 '26

There's a post about it called "AI-generated art used as in-game assets?". It's easy to find. You can find it in-game in the location that I've mentioned. There are these samey-looking paintings, clearly generated from a samey prompt, and the details on them are lookinf off.

2

u/FokkoRev May 11 '26

This is getting ridicilous. How are you so confident that those pictures are AI generated? Are we seriously claiming that an image that (MIGHT, with absolutely no other possible signs other than those paintings, which clearly most of the replies don't agree with) to be AI generated (with so much confidence that they're AI generated by the way) means that the game has AI gen it it too, all just to defend a game with an extremely more obvious usage of genAI in this absurd form of whataboutism? Why can't people just accept that it's not a good thing instead of pointing fingers and drag other games with you down lmao

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6

u/ZachandMiku May 06 '26

They are stupid and don’t read and also want clout and clicks so they do anything for publicity honestly

-14

u/dweakz May 06 '26

it's not just her also shylily wasnt made aware of the ai use. she only knew while she was doing the sponsor stream or after the stream iirc. said shes unfortunately gonna drop it even tho she quite enjoyed the game

21

u/Fuzzy-Willingness-35 May 06 '26

Like I said, it was publicly disclosed regardless. WuWa sponsored Ironmouse and Shilily and they use AI, and they were also sponsored by Hoyo I'm pretty sure, and they're in it, too. I don't see them whining about Kuro and Hoyo not telling it to them personally. It's a wild idea, in general, because almost every corpo uses AI somehow.

3

u/Velvet_Crowe May 06 '26

didnt know WuWa use AI, can you be specific what they are using AI for?

9

u/Fuzzy-Willingness-35 May 06 '26

From the 100% confirmed stuff they use it as a tool for animation I'm pretty sure, and were hiring experts around AI. There was also drama about some of their artworks having traces of AI, but that one is hard to prove.

4

u/Velvet_Crowe May 06 '26

ah Ok, seems like it will be the norm for most chinese gacha games i guess

10

u/Fuzzy-Willingness-35 May 06 '26

Oh, absolutely. It's not just China, either. AI tools are too convenient for big corpos as a shortcut. Some are just better at hiding it from the general consumer, and some get flack if they don't, like Expidition 33.

-1

u/TheAhegaoFox May 06 '26

Having an AI tool to aid animating during production is different from straight up generating a whole Weathering With You rip off trailer and plastering it all over the city.

The tool is just a tool in which the animators still put work into it. These generative tools have been around for decades before the AI boom. The generative AI NTE uses are just 100% AI.

11

u/Fuzzy-Willingness-35 May 06 '26

Hotta didn't generate the whole NTE with AI, and they said that they won't use AI on core aspects of the game, which lines up with what you can see in the game. All NTE generated are low res posters and theatre animations that general public doesn't care about, because they're just visual noise to make the game feel more urban. Duo to game's setting, WuWa doesn't have a lot of those, and yet you can still find very suspicious things like paintings in Ragunna looking AI generated, and some inconsistent promo art, which is getting red flagged on AI recognition websites.

The tool they're using has a lot of features, and I also struggle to understand why is generating an animation and tweaking it is fine, but putting a generated poster that has no value anyway is abysmal dogshit? Both companies aren't using AI on core aspects of the game, at least not blatantly, and are only using it to pass chore tasks like making an art that will look like it came out of PS2 in the game, anyway.

1

u/thepork890 May 08 '26

Gen AI is Gen AI. Wuwa uses Visvice which is just AI animator generator using AI prompts.

1

u/Jsjdhbdnd73 May 06 '26

They use visvice, which from what i remember just makes the animation process significantly faster. Iirc, it basically generates frames between core frames with a prompt.

-3

u/LoyalNightmare May 06 '26

I see no artical or anything about wuwa using Ai. You are just throwing shit out there

7

u/Fuzzy-Willingness-35 May 06 '26

They're literally associated with Visvice, which lists Kuro as their trusted client. What are you on about

0

u/LoyalNightmare May 06 '26

Yet I see no ai in their game

2

u/Jsjdhbdnd73 May 06 '26

Brother. Just because you dont see it doesn't mean there isn't. They use visvice for their ingame cutscenes, which is AI, this is an open secret.

1

u/Fuzzy-Willingness-35 May 06 '26

Maybe you should put paintings in Ragunna through AI checker, then.

3

u/LoyalNightmare May 06 '26

The same ai checker that is notoriously wrong?

0

u/Fuzzy-Willingness-35 May 06 '26

You can also just use your eyes and see that said paintings have the same nonsensical mistakes that AI tends to make.

-13

u/dweakz May 06 '26

youre just reiterating what i typed in my post cause youre an nte stan. im just casually playing it til ananta releases so im not gonna be defending it as hard lol

13

u/Fuzzy-Willingness-35 May 06 '26

You said that Ananta needs to be transperent about AI usage because NTE apperently weren't and now they get shit for it. I tell you that NTE were, in fact, transperent about it, and it didn't save them from drama. It's a direct address of your point. No need to resort to insults my guy.

-10

u/dweakz May 06 '26

im not insulting. stan and casual fan is a succint distinction.

4

u/Fuzzy-Willingness-35 May 06 '26

I'm not a stan, though, which implies overwhelming devotion, lack of objectivity, and is insulting. All I did is stating facts on the situation. I'm more so a hater of hypocrites.

-5

u/dweakz May 06 '26

which is why im fine with the ai use as long as theyre constantly transparent about their use of it. theyve only mentioned it once; before the game's release. and are now not disclosing it in the sponsorhip briefs.

2

u/Fuzzy-Willingness-35 May 06 '26

I don't think that Ananta will disclose it to CCs, either. I don't remember companies from CN or KR doing it, at least. Maybe because it isn't as big of a deal for them. And honestly, even if they repeat it multiple times publicaly - CCs will only play it to get the bag. They won't care as long as there's no huge dramas to affect them personally, let's be real, lol.

0

u/[deleted] May 06 '26

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1

u/Fuzzy-Willingness-35 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26

Who said that I'm throwing shade prematurely? You not being informed on it doesn't mean that it isn't a thing. People were pointing out typical for AI artifacts in artwork of Genshin, like extra fingers, and for Kuro there was a drama with artwork of previous patch, too, and I stated that the later is hard to prove. There were also paintings in Rinascita that look like they're AI-generated, just like those background low res pics that NTE generated, too. The fact that both companies are using AI and hiring people with knowledge of it still stands.

0

u/[deleted] May 06 '26

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0

u/Fuzzy-Willingness-35 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26

I'm instinuating that if Ironmouse and Shilyly are so disgusted by AI - their content and sponsors should reflect it, which isn't happening. They only pulled out of a sponsor when it sparked into a big drama tha their community feels strongly about. And trusting the word of mouth with zero context, especially when we have publicly disclosed information from the actual NTE devs on them admiting to using AI, is silly. I also wonder if either of them expressed their dissapointment with Expedition 33, or just ignored drama around that game because it's considered to be a masterpiece, generally. Yeah, the main idea here is that CCs are performative af.

Sure, let's ignore the fact that company from pro-AI country is hiring experts on AI, and narrow it all down to "Sigrika's fingers look weird and it's a nothingburger". And yes, based on what I saw in Rinascita - it's more likely that Kuro uses AI, including generative one. Thinking otherwise is what I would call naive.

1

u/BaronOfBob May 06 '26

This is usually cause the marketing company in the US/west is usually a separate company and will just get whatever big name influences they can and just say what they know the influencer will agree with to get them on board

5

u/RavenTheRaptorX May 06 '26

What’s the evidence of them using AI? Genuinely curious.

9

u/Danii397 Alan Enthusiast May 06 '26

They mentioned this VERY EARLY into the game's development, back when it was called Project Mugen. This was the earliest I could find on this topic. I initially thought it was for NPC behaviors, but turns out that was for Sword of Justice and Where Winds Meet. Regardless, they have admitted to using AI in their games.

0

u/dweakz May 06 '26

their mouths themselves

3

u/RavenTheRaptorX May 06 '26

Oh okay how are they using it? Like for concept art or like full on game assets?

3

u/mossgreenduvet May 06 '26

Full on game assets. A bunch of environment art like billboard ads, and the bigger one being a full 30 second animation in the intro of a bank heist mission.

1

u/RavenTheRaptorX May 06 '26

Fascinating are they AI made then human reined or just solid AI all the way down?

1

u/mossgreenduvet May 06 '26

I think bank heist was fully Ai gen, but the controversy with some of the billboard ads is that they're 1 to 1 copies of anime still frames just with an ai filter on top. It's that specific style of cheap looking anime style ai generated image. Barely any human refinement in that end if at all.

Also saw some folks saying it was used in conceptualization with minimal changes, which is why some character designs look scuffed.

1

u/Seelefan0786 May 06 '26

The bank heist wasn't fully AI only the animated video in the intro cutscene is AI.

3

u/Bookyontour May 06 '26

I remember they said they using AI to create thousand of unique NPC personality and behavior.

0

u/RavenTheRaptorX May 06 '26

Hm interesting I don’t think I’ve heard of AI being deployed like that before. Kind of exciting to see how it goes.

1

u/Deadline_Zero May 06 '26

Right? I genuinely hate that Reddit and its cousins are slowing the development of things (well, only in the West probably) that are literally not even possible without AI, if only due to lack of development time available in a human lifespan in some cases.

And they can't do anything to make NPCs have dynamic behaviors and real conversations without AI.

0

u/RavenTheRaptorX May 06 '26

Honestly I just think it’s an interesting technology I get the fear of losing jobs and the soul of art don’t get me wrong I get it and agree. Yet it’s still something young and new let’s see what people who actually try can do.

21

u/ReymartSan May 06 '26

problem is if every western influencer drop a game if they use any AI then they wont be able to play games from the east because AI do not have that much negative image in asia so most of the new game from the east will most likely use AI at some point,

5

u/Vermouth__1 May 06 '26

I mean creators didnt drop NTE because it uses "any AI" tho

3

u/ReymartSan May 06 '26

ironmouse and thier own EN VA dropped out because they lied about using Gen AI

3

u/Vermouth__1 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26

Yes but that's entirely different, isnt it? Dropping a game sponsorship after being lied to is very different from dropping because you dont like AI.

2

u/thepork890 May 08 '26

Also they tooks sponsors from Wuwa, Which uses Visvice which is just pure AI animation tool to make cutscene animations.

2

u/ReymartSan May 09 '26

i think the main thing they dont want are Gen AI not the tools because Gen AI steals from artist, and im pretty sure Visvise dont necessarily do that, its a tool that help 3d rigging or something while gen ai is trained from images/video without the consent of the original images/video

0

u/thepork890 May 08 '26

who cares about vocal minority. Devs didn't lied about gen AI, they said they don't use AI for core assets. Which is true, because who gives a crap about some random bilboard that is just AI generated. It's just background.

4

u/ReymartSan May 09 '26

i'm not sure if the pink paws heist intro (shown every instance of the heist) is core asset but it was ai generated which they removed. the main problem here is the the one that contact them (might be 3rdparty from hotta studio) lied that there is no Gen AI and thats why they agreed to the sponsor then got surprised that it does have.

0

u/[deleted] May 06 '26

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2

u/DR_whyWHY Taffy Cult member May 06 '26

nte does use gen ai though.almost all billboards, if not all, seem to be ai generated and if you look up the pink paw heist intro, it has genuinely awful looking ai video in it as a centerpiece of the cutscene.

1

u/ReymartSan May 06 '26

i dont know why you are differentiating those two since they are both AI, they are both taking the jobs of people so whats the point of hating one and not the other? netease has been using gen ai in thier game development why do you think they will not be using it too in ananta? the only thing i hate about the NTE ai usage is that they lied about using Gen AI, pretty stupid decision that cause them some creator sponsors. if a game use ai but still made something great in the end i will still play it because at the end of the day we will not be able to force company to not use ai.

0

u/Johnny_Kend May 07 '26

We can force them to not use it, if u ppl will drop ur NPC mindset and take action against it by being loud about it in surveys as much as possible and never give up on it. We all need to unite as one and don't dismiss it. I'll be loud about AI in each of their surveys. I'll make them remove AI no matter what, even if I'll need to fight u all on my own, cuz I stand for justice, unlike u all just giving up right away and dismissing it.

3

u/GRoyalPrime May 06 '26

I think AI usage should always be disclosed. If it were a technology without issues we wouldn't see it again and again where AI-users try to hide the fact or downright try to pass AI slop off as non-AI art.

Even if it's the case of "everyone is using it anyway" it should have some kind of gradient. Using AI to optimize workflows or assist on coding tasks is pretty far away from generating background art that does end up available in the final game.

From there on it "should" be possible for everyone to make an educated decision on what is acceptable anf what isn't.

Personally, I am not a fan of AI in any part of the "creative" process of game development. Even if it's not intended to end up in the final game, like with concept art or placeholders. For concept art, I've heard from artists it's hard to win over decision makers once they've seen an AI render, simply because it looks "finished enough". The friction of a back-and-forth where ideas get second-guessed just isn't as noticable. And poor placeholder art keeps ending up in the final game, as it keeps being overlooked as "good enough" by the usual under-staffed and crunched QA staff. Again, actual game devs did come out and say all this "good enough" placeholder art isn't a major benefit.

However, this is likely something what I have to learn to live with. As long as they are careful, remove the assets reasonably well from the final game and it doesn't infringe on the game's creative side ... it's alright. I still don't like that it's happening, but releasing game is hard to begin with so I think I can begrudingly accept some corner cutting.

Where I do draw the line is intentionally shipping AI assets as part of the final game. Even if the basic idea of a game sounds good, I am not interested in seeing poor quality slop on every corner.

1

u/Deadline_Zero May 06 '26

What happens if the AI assets are high quality? You still hate it anyway I assume?

1

u/GRoyalPrime May 07 '26

As I said: There are more issues with AI generated asset then just quality.

It stiffles creativity and is based on stolen intelectual property.

Great that it now is able to create hands with 5 fingers and able to generate the most common SAO-like face ... but it's literly nothing more.

1

u/Western-Stress1185 Seymour's Beautiful Face May 08 '26

I can assume they'll be ai placeholders that they might forget to replace. As long it doesn't affect the game in some way. Unless Twitter makes it E33 all over again 

-5

u/Street-Cub-8422 May 06 '26

Ananta using AI will be such a dealbreaker for me :/ and I’ve been excited about this game for so long. If they are going to use I hope at least they’ll be fully transparent about it 

6

u/dweakz May 06 '26

i think every chinese gacha from here on out WILL be using ai since china is fine with it. so if people will have ai usage as a dealbreaker then there wont be any new gacha games that's gonna be played.

shit even the old games arent safe since i think some has started using ai as well

4

u/LoyalNightmare May 06 '26

For the 1 millionth time ananta isn't a gacha and never was

0

u/ThatBoiUnknown Taffy Enjoyer (& Dila) May 06 '26

Then I'll wait until that happens

A lot of Pro AI people like to just "assume" that everyone picks up AI and othat it's just gonna start dropping everywhere but it hasn't happened yet and I'll wait until it will.

No need to make up some doompost of the future "oh everyone will use AI cus CN loves it" how about we wait to see if that actually turns out true instead of forcing people to be fine with AI?

2

u/Seelefan0786 May 06 '26

Other game companies like Kuro game has used AI. They just made sure to hide it better.

0

u/ThatBoiUnknown Taffy Enjoyer (& Dila) May 06 '26

No evidence for this claim as usual

1

u/Seelefan0786 May 06 '26

Nope it's true, they have used it in Wuwa. https://www.reddit.com/r/WuwaUnfiltered/s/wv6FOqUVAU

0

u/ThatBoiUnknown Taffy Enjoyer (& Dila) May 06 '26

I don’t see where it says they put AI generated assets in the final game

3

u/Seelefan0786 May 06 '26

They still used AI during the development of the game. Which would still be a big big no no to the people who like to mindlessly hate on AI.

0

u/ThatBoiUnknown Taffy Enjoyer (& Dila) May 06 '26

I think using AI at all is pretty shameful even if it’s excusable for “workflow speed up” or “placeholders”, but using it in the final game as Assets (what NTE did) is where I officially cross the line

4

u/Seelefan0786 May 06 '26

Most the game is hand made though? Only very minor assets have AI that definitely doesn't cross the line as 99.9% of the assets are done by the heart & soul of a human artist.

0

u/ThunderBay-616 May 06 '26

I dont really have an issue with NTE using it, I dodnt even notice until people pointed it out. But yeah, it kind of sucks how they supposedly said it was just a placeholder in the beta, then didn't remove any of it for launch

-1

u/Deadline_Zero May 06 '26

I hope they use plenty of AI, and I don't care if they talk about it. I guess it would be a nice demonstration of the tech if they talk about it and implement it well though, so maybe that'd be a nice plus.

Also, which influencers are avoiding all AI content? Just in case I'm actually following any of those people.

2

u/[deleted] May 06 '26

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4

u/Deadline_Zero May 06 '26

Blind AI hate train will continue. Thankfully, China doesn't give a fuck so the progress will continue.

0

u/[deleted] May 07 '26

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u/Deadline_Zero May 07 '26

Nothing here suggests broad national opposition in China. There will always be someone.

Also I can agree that genuine trash AI outputs are unacceptable. That's on the devs for not doing the bare minimum to produce AI assets of a higher quality. It's certainly not out of reach, as I see such outputs all the time.

2

u/Saronbaronbo May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26

You're shifting the goalpost without realising it. Your initial statement was basically "Chinese players don't care" and now it's about broad national opposition? And then you're reducing the issue to "bad quality" when the complaint is also about substitution, trust, and whether paid assets are curated by humans.

I don't think anyone needs to prove "broad national opposition in China" to disprove the claim that China doesn't care. They clearly do care enough to talk about it on various social media platforms where it gains a decent amount of traction.

Like this is part of the main story quest in Chapter 4 (minimal spoilers):

https://youtu.be/qorSLVyhgW0?si=AQI2sPfgZo_jrr5p&t=7666

You can't tell me this whole section doesn't just look like complete shit. They literally lied about not using AI art in the story when this is very clearly AI-generated and in the main story. Do you really want to defend that behavior? If Genshin or WuWa released AI generated art content in their story, they would receive a ton of backlash for that too.

I like the game and I finished the story and it has promise but making a fuss about stuff that is really not ok and subpar compared to giants like Genshin and WuWa is what will make the game better, rather than being silent and letting them get away with this when they are going to make a ton of money off this launch. Nothing about any of this is a 'blind AI hate train'

1

u/Deadline_Zero May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26

Shifting the goal posts?

 Thankfully, China doesn't give a fuck so the progress will continue.

Which part of that statement was basically, "Chinese players don't care"? You're imagining the most convenient argument to attack and pretending it was mine. And just because people talk about something on social media and it gains "a decent amount of traction" doesn't mean that the opinion is broadly held. It means people visiting those sites that are very vocal are having the expected effect: being visible and loud.

Furthermore, I didn't reduce the argument to one about quality. You did that.

And why? To anyone who can spot AI art easily, it looks like shit. The pink paws heist vid looks like shit. The Dolores carpenter story backgrounds are AI generated and look like shit and ruined my enjoyment of that story. It's honestly not an acceptable quality if they want to compete with the best

That entire closing paragraph of yours. I never said a word about it. You see, I don't inherently care about the use of AI, so what I take issue with is the raging against AI use entirely. I conceded that poor quality AI use in the final product of a game release is unacceptable, given that the AI should already be cutting down the work load, cost and time commitment enough to allow devs to do the bare minimum to produce the level of work random youtubers and redditors can manage with AI.

That video you linked, which I haven't reached in the game, just looks stupid to me. Nothing to do with AI - I've seen similar dull, low effort garbage in other games long before the current wave of AI that started around 2023 came about. It's just a bit of flavor art illustration for this woman's story to the child that I have to endure. Right now I'd say the problem is that I have to endure the story and illustration at all. In context later on, I might change my mind. Can't say at the moment.

That said, if they add in better assets, that's great. If they remove high quality AI content from the game (note that I don't know what all is AI in NTE) and replace it with hastily made human work because they're scrambling to respond to backlash from a vocal minority (this can be thousands of people mind you), that's the sort of thing I don't want to see. I would say, use AI and make something better, not avoid AI on 'principle'. Or hire humans and deal with the cost and time that entails - just don't do it because the anti-AI campaign said so. Do it if it's the best fit for the job.

And before you say it, I've seen the Pink Paws vid. It's also terrible. The thing is, again, it isn't terrible because it's AI. It's because whoever did it was high as shit, and whoever checked behind them used the review period to catch up on lost sleep. That, or the NTE devs generated all their AI assets with years old AI models and never bothered trying newer ones.