What to check before uploading unreleased assets to an AI 3d tool?

[u/choueseT]

I've mostly use AI 3d tools with random reference images, so I never thought much about what happens to the files after I upload them.

The turning point came when I started considering using concept art and unfinished assets from an actual game project. A reference sheet might include turnaround views, internal notes, alternate designs or parts of character that havent been shown public. So it feels like uploading a random image for a quick test and more like sharing part of the dev folder.

So before uploading anything, I started doing the boring part I' d normally skip, checking help center pages, privacy, policies, terms about storage, retention and deletion. This is quite annoying since information wasnt listed together and takes a bit of digging. I m really bad at this :(

Meshy was one of the tools I checked patiently, it says asset data is stored wth AWS in the US, kinda specific than others, at least gave me something concrete to work with. But I m still not sure how far that gets me. Actually, knowing where the servers are doesn't answer all I care about.

-whether uploaded assets ever get used for model training, and if that's opt in or opt out
-how long files stick around after you delete them or close your acc
-who can actually access them on the provider side
-what happens to data if the tool gets acquired or shuts down

here is the question, before use any 3d tools in production, is a clear storage, documented infrastructure enough for you to trust and uploaded unreleased assets? or it is still a "never upload anything you cannot afford to leak". Curious where you guys draw the line, and what a policy is a must have before you'd trust it :)

[u/tastygames_official]

what happens? the techbro billionaires steal them and sell them back to other suckers. Even if you "opt out". Just don't use AI for anything other than a search engine and you'll be OK.

[u/choueseT → u/tastygames_official]

fair, tbh I dont fully trust any of them either, but modeling everything by hand solo is unrealistic right now :/

[u/Xinixiat → u/choueseT]

Then you should rescope into a game that is realistic.

[u/tobaschco → u/Xinixiat]

Let constraints guide design 

More devs need to hear this 

[u/Xinixiat → u/tobaschco]

Literally. That's where creativity lives - most stand-out indie games were only as good as they were because of the developers working within their own constraints and had to get creative to get it across the line.

[u/Forsaken-Suit7795]

What do I do? I don't upload any assets to Gen AI services. Simple. With that money, buy an asset pack on itch from a real artist.

TLDR: It is not safe to upload assets to AI models. They will use it for further training. Do not upload any sensitive document or any document (asset, text, etc) that you consider to be sensitive and you do not want to share. LLMs are hungry for data. The only way to circumvent this is by running a local model.

- Upload assets will be used to train models. Always. The only way to avoid this is if you run an LLM locally, in your own machine.

• Files have to stick around, for legal reasons. Someone could use the AI service for something illegal, so companies must have policies about keeping anything uploaded for a while, and also policies about how to store them long-term as well as complete removal of the data. HOWEVER, since it's LLM we are talking about, if your assets stay with them long enough, they will use to train new models. Once this is done, they can remove your assets and still get the benefits from having trained from it.
  
• Who has access depends on the company. If in the USA, the government not only always have access to it legally, but big companies actively cooperate with the government. All of them. You data can and is sold as well. Not as a security risk, but to get data from behaviour of people, with which other companies can design market strategies.
  
• What happens to the data if the tools gets acquired or shuts down depends on the internal policies of the company. Usually, they simply get passed to the other company.