Tim Sweeney says Epic Games Store is open to devs using generative AI
Tim Sweeney says Epic Games Store is open to devs using generative AI
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I'm with Tim Sweeney here - why restrict creativity with arbitrary restrictions like that? We already have some amazing 1-person games, how many more we'd have with this immense productivity boost? I'm excited for more games even if that means more trash out there, I have the brain power to sift through it if it means another Stardew Valley.
The problem is more that generative AI is trained on the actual work done by other, actual people. And we have no legal framework so far how those people should get paid in turn.
Plus, let's not for a moment imagine that Sweeney is saying this out of a firmly held personal belief. He's entirely based on his reactionary stance to Steam. Steam goes against generative AI -> Sweeney is in favor of it. If Steam would say they're against eating live babies, you can sure as hell bet he'd sing praises for that, too.
I agree with both your statement about AI training and Sweeney. However, I do believe there is a legitimate argument for using generative AI in game development, and I therefore also think Sweeney has a legitimate point, even if he's doing it as a reaction to Steam.
Something oft acknowledged as okay in art (or any creative endeavor) is inspiration. Legally, we can really go even further, saying that copying is okay as long as the thing being copied is sufficiently transformed into something that can be considered new. Say, for example, different artists' versions of a character such as Pikachu. We might be able to recognize them all as Pikachu, but also acknowledge that they're all unique and obviously the creation of one particular artist.
Why is this process a problem when it's done with technology? I, as a human, didn't get permission from someone else to transform their work. It's okay when I do it, but not when it's done algorithmically? Why?
I think this is a legitimate question that has valid arguments either way, but it's a question that needs to be answered, and I don't think a blanket response of "it's bad because it's stealing other people's work" is appropriate. If the model is very bad and clearly spits out exact replicas of the inputs, that's obviously a bad thing, just as it would be equally bad if I traced someone else's work. But what about the models that don't do that, and spit out unique works never seen before? Not all models are equal in this sense.
Why is everyone have to be paid for everything? The real dillema is wether AI is learning or is it remixing and the science is on the side of learning while all grifters on the side of remixing. All of these lawsuits like the gettyimages one are for profit. They are grifting off this and people so blindly fall for this propaganda thinking they are protecting "the little guy" when big majority of world's copyright is owned by mega corporations. Fuck that.
I wonder if you would be so adamant to defend AI if it could copy your work, and even your exact style by prompting your public name. I am going to bet on no
I'm a software engineer and AI can already do a lot of my programming and it's great! Most of my software is FOSS - so your bet is very wrong.
If somehow AI kills programming and puts me out of job then that's great! I'll find another job and we'll be living in objectively better world because code is suddenly infinitely more accessible and powerful :)
So, to me this protectionism thought process is very alien. Especially when it comes to something relatively meaningless as entertainment.
When you chose a FOSS license you explicitly say that you are ok with derivatives of your work. These artists never distributed their work under a license where they allowed AI to be trained on it and make derivatives of it.
AI is far from replacing programmers. It can replace some simple boilerplate, but is nowhere near understanding the logic behind applications. So you simply say this knowing you are safe for tens of years more.
Because it is copyright laundering, which is ilegal. We are just too early in the tech to have it established. But see cases open against Microsoft's Copilot.
I'm surprised people here on open source, free software project are defending copyright so fiercly. AI is learning not copying and even if you disagree - fuck copyright and fuck protectionism. There's so much shit to do in this world and we're back to "looms will end the world" nonsense. The propaganda machine is rolling hard on this one.
Open source software has specifically devoted much of its efforts to ensuring it never breaches those copyrights.
They might look at Oracle SQL DB and say "Damn, that looks so useful and well-written. Well, I guess we could copy its codebase and pretend we wrote it ourselves...but it's probably safer to re-implement it from scratch." Then you get alternatives like MySQL.
That's a fast example that probably ignores extended history of database wars, but you get the idea.
Dude the whole foss movement was founded by one dude who hated copyright. It's even called copyleft. Lol
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Neither does AI. It's learning from art the same way I learn from Microsoft's office when I make Libreoffice.
You dont seem to know what you are talking about, or are dissingenous.
Copyright is the tool that allows to enforce GPL. The same with other free and open source licenses.
You seem to be leaning towards "permissive" libertarian licenses like MIT and BSD. Those don't care much about the end users (I got your code, now fuck off I can do whatever I want with the modifications, including never sharing them back and making the whole thing closed source).
But for GPL and licenses that protect the rights of developers (including the right to ask follow-up developers to keep the code open for the benefit of users and developers), copyright laws are the tool that enforces that.
The term "copyleft" is just a meme.
You seem to be awfully ignorant of the history and I suggest you get back to it. Copyleft and free software is fundamentally anti copyright. Copyleft and GPL is legal play against copyright because guess what - we don't have the power to change the entire legal framework. I've been foss dev for over 20 years now so might as well fuck off lol