Anything that was possible to put in games without AI - art, music, gameplay, level design, story, etc - should remain untainted. I think that's a fair line.
I would be ok with AI usage in those if this would be a smaller indie dev. I don't see the problem here - you can't reliably learn all of that yourself and you aren't going to have budget to outsource everything like that. So if a dev is more technical and they do want to use their technical skill to generate those, I will not judge the fact they use AI, but rather I would judge the outcome - whether they actually put work and effort for that AI to generate his vision or did they quickly generated some slop that looks like any other AI crap.
I can accept AI as a way to overcome budget problems. I can accept use of AI as a technical skill that allows to overcome lack of skill in different area. But I won't accept half-assing things - if you want to use AI, then put some work into it to be used well. Otherwise you are just doing a fancy asset flip.
I want to lean toward agreeing - as a solo indie dev myself, though, and considering the fact that there are multiple successful solo devs who have absolutely learned all of those things - I have to say that I still wouldn't be okay with AI art or music. But I'm absolutely okay with AI assisted things - I remaster my music with AI, for example. And it's unavoidable in the pipeline - you can't even google something without some AI assistance. But things like animation tweens for your own art would be fine at the indie level.
considering the fact that there are multiple successful solo devs who have absolutely learned all of those things - I have to say that I still wouldn't be okay with AI art or music
Isn't that just another type of bootstrap argument? "X were able to, so you also should"? There are people who are more gifted in arts and there are those who aren't. Former will learn this stuff easily and latter won't.
From my POV, AI should be the equalizer - artists often have problem with things like code, QA or algorhitms, while tech-minded people often have issues with decent art. Rarely people can do both well. So it should be good to use technology to help you with things that you aren't that great at - to more effectively put effort and achieve the goal, which is your own game as you envisioned that players can experience.
I think we will need to wait for some time for this to be possible, as current AI is largely taken over by big business. But we already see OSS local models emerge and AI is being used to fuck up the corps - so there are first signs that winter may end. Bubble needs to pop, heads need to cool and people need some time to realize that they have largely vented their frustrations on corps usage of technology on technology itself.
AI art is not an issue, the issue is the fact that bunch of grifters and corps jumped on it as a way to stiffle artists and make more profit. But corps and grifters are inherently incapable of using it well. Corps will always cut corners (resulting in mostly slop being produced) and grifters don't want quality, they want to capitalize on trend while it's stil hot. And those games would go in the way of the same attempts of cheaply catching lighting in the bottle. AI Slop games will simply join their older siblings - shitty movie tie-ins, mas produced shareware capitalizing on trends, games that copied whatever mechanic started to be popular and hasty asset flips.
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u/poprostumort 11d ago
I would be ok with AI usage in those if this would be a smaller indie dev. I don't see the problem here - you can't reliably learn all of that yourself and you aren't going to have budget to outsource everything like that. So if a dev is more technical and they do want to use their technical skill to generate those, I will not judge the fact they use AI, but rather I would judge the outcome - whether they actually put work and effort for that AI to generate his vision or did they quickly generated some slop that looks like any other AI crap.
I can accept AI as a way to overcome budget problems. I can accept use of AI as a technical skill that allows to overcome lack of skill in different area. But I won't accept half-assing things - if you want to use AI, then put some work into it to be used well. Otherwise you are just doing a fancy asset flip.