Can someone explain whether the artwork in "Streamer" is AI?

[Selous]

So I was trying the new levels, which are a blast and really difficult, and I noticed some of the drawings in the streamer's room, along with the thumbnails on the YT videos.
One of the artworks of a Japanese anime girl appears to have multiple eyebrows, the other artworks had very strange looking hands along with her hair merging into her skin.
The YT thumbnails on the widescreen looked very contrast heavy with a style that I have seen before in AI generated content.
They looked AI generated, but is this true?

I haven't seen that many talking about this, so I find it strange.

VOID put so much effort into this game with an absurd attention to detail in their environments and suspects. Ready or Not is a game that doesn't have as much of an overt story like SWAT 3 and 4, so the game heavily relies on environmental storytelling like in Thief, so to see them using these potentially unethically sourced AI generated artwork for a level strikes me of a bit of a developer cop out for time related reasons, and such AI generated material can negatively impact the feeling of Ready or Not, if they decide to use more AI generated artworks in the future.
Whilst the artwork does suit the environmental storytelling of the level in a crypto farming weeb furry streamer, if the artpieces have been unethically sourced from an artist who isn't receiving credit for their template, that isn't exactly fair or good developer practice, and sets a bad precedent.

I'm generally not big into the debate on whether AI art is ethical or not, I'd rather just know whether the artwork in the level is indeed AI generated.
I'm worried because as it stands Valve have previously banned games that use AI generated content, and if Ready or Not gets removed from steam over this, I'd be heartbroken.

I would very much appreciate if a developer from VOID would elaborate on this as I am quite confused

[[BLK] Telu]

What if it was intentional ? It's a streamer who print poster generated by AI. What if the eyebrows were obvious to allow the player to understand than the streamer use prompt to get what he want ?

Did you see other posters like that outside of this room ?

[Multihog]

Originally posted by Selous:

Whilst the artwork does suit the environmental storytelling of the level in a crypto farming weeb furry streamer, if the artpieces have been unethically sourced from an artist who isn't receiving credit for their template

Tell me you have no idea how AI models work without saying you have no idea how AI models work.

Who is that artist who has been ripped off? What "template?"

I'm worried because as it stands Valve have previously banned games that use AI generated content, and if Ready or Not gets removed from steam over this, I'd be heartbroken.

Valve isn't going to ban sh!t. The Finals famously uses AI voices, and it happily sits on Steam. Do you think any company is stupid enough to ban a technology that will inevitably become more and more common? Certainly not a giant like Valve.

In 5 years I wouldn't be surprised if most assets were AI-generated.

[𝒞𝒶𝓈𝓊𝒶𝓁 Sinner]

Can't speak on the behalf of the devs, but can certainly throw in my own two cents. Overall, I really don't think this is a big deal in the grand context. Void has their own paid art team as you can see with the rest of the game, in fact they're some of the most active devs when it comes to interacting with users, posting concept art pre-1.0, etc. So I don't have any doubt that they had a role in creating it, and I ultimately think it goes to reinforce the character that is Milky Toes being.. bad.

I mean, it's probably one of the least questionable things in his apartment, especially if you look at his computer status and his soft objectives. But it certainly goes deep into the "weeb streamer" feel of his character. I'd say more of the.. uh.. there's a lot of words I'd use actually, but i'd have to delete my own post.

[Selous]

Originally posted by BLK Telu:

What if it was intentional ? It's a streamer who print poster generated by AI. What if the eyebrows were obvious to allow the player to understand than the streamer use prompt to get what he want ?

Did you see other posters like that outside of this room ?

I did have a look at the other posters, they seemed handmade like the ones in the Valley of the Dolls.
I don't mind if it was intentional, hell it does add to the level if it was, but I'd like to know if VOID got the art from someone who made it for them, or if it was just taken from an artist without credit if so.

[Multihog]

Originally posted by Selous:

Originally posted by BLK Telu:

What if it was intentional ? It's a streamer who print poster generated by AI. What if the eyebrows were obvious to allow the player to understand than the streamer use prompt to get what he want ?

Did you see other posters like that outside of this room ?

I did have a look at the other posters, they seemed handmade like the ones in the Valley of the Dolls.
I don't mind if it was intentional, hell it does add to the level if it was, but I'd like to know if VOID got the art from someone who made it for them, or if it was just taken from an artist without credit if so.

"Taken from an artist without credit" is not how AI works. Every picture fed to the model—and there are billions of them—only has a vanishingly tiny impact on it. It doesn't rip off any given artist but is more like an aggregate of every image ever made in the world (not exactly every single one but you get the point.) It's more like if a person sees 100 images, they might be subtly influenced by each one of them, and what they make in the future is impacted.

If that's unethical, then so is a painter seeing other paintings throughout their lifetime and them having seen those paintings figuring into their art. Nothing is created from nothing, whether by human or machine—and really, humans are just bio-machines. Machine LEARNING.

It's hilarious that people demand that AI create things out of nothing—which is 100% impossible and nonsensical because it goes against how the physical world works—to be "ethical" when they have no problem with people creating stuff based on existing material. Those artists surely are ripping other people off by their brains wiring into themselves all those artworks they see throughout their lives. There's an illogical double standard because humans themselves create art based on their accumulated experiences and influences.

[[BLK] Telu]

1st part :

Generated AI art are taken from nobody. It's generated Art. You can do it by using an open-source AI as a tool. The Artist behind a generated AI Art is the AI itself. You can't backtrack the source of a generated AI since it have no owners.

2nd Part :

The learning can be made on Art publish under GFDL, LAL, CCO, ... licence.
The learning can be made on Art protect under copyright Law.

For the 2nd Part, you don't know.

For the anecdote, i like to share than Van Gogh copied Millet Painting. Picasso copied Dali painting. Millet was dead when Van Gogh painted his copy. Van Gogh had no money to buy rights from Millet and couldn't anyway.

[steven777]

The AI suspects made the AI art. Which was confiscated by the AI SWAT team and taken home and hung on their AI walls.

[𝒞𝒶𝓈𝓊𝒶𝓁 Sinner]

Originally posted by steven777:

The AI suspects made the AI art. Which was confiscated by the AI SWAT team and taken home and hung on their AI walls.

Ignore my previous response. This is now my answer.

[Haar]

I saw them and thought the same.
Would be cool if instead of AI, VOID commissioned an artist for the posters and magazine covers and sold them on a storefront.
I'd buy some for sure so when it's my turn to get swatted, it becomes a Ready or Not reference and the judge absolves me of my charges.

[Selous]

Originally posted by steven777:

The AI suspects made the AI art. Which was confiscated by the AI SWAT team and taken home and hung on their AI walls.

They clearly didn't smarty, the developers at VOID did.

Artwork is like climbing a mountain to each the summit. The struggle and process is what makes it rewarding when you finish, and VOID's talent speaks for themselves in every other aspect of the game.
AI artwork has its place, but it's like taking a trolley or cable car to the top of the mountain and claiming that you climbed it the same way as a mountaineer.

It's just a shame that they'd decide to use it for this level to save time when they did such a slam dunk on everything else.

[[BLK] Telu]

Using Unreal Engine to make a game is also the lazy path, you know. You could code everything like in the old days. You don't really know where Sweeney got his code, maybe he copied some scripts without asking.

[Andy Mil]

Which map u guy talking about?? streamer? I just finish that map and art there look cool and each one giving me diff artist work to them but model figure have that western feel to it

I don't see anything that will scream AI art there. Hey, Maybe ai is that good that i can not tell the different but i know that they can't make abit of abstract and anime combined

[Selous]

Originally posted by Multihog:

Valve isn't going to ban sh!t. The Finals famously uses AI voices, and it happily sits on Steam. Do you think any company is stupid enough to ban a technology that will inevitably become more and more common? Certainly not a giant like Valve.

In 5 years I wouldn't be surprised if most assets were AI-generated.

Didn't valve recently threaten to ban a game for having AI assets in it recently, I remember reading about it on a newsite somewhere.
If they don't get banned over this then that's good tho

[Multihog]

Originally posted by Selous:

Originally posted by steven777:

The AI suspects made the AI art. Which was confiscated by the AI SWAT team and taken home and hung on their AI walls.

They clearly didn't smarty, the developers at VOID did.

Artwork is like climbing a mountain to each the summit. The struggle and process is what makes it rewarding when you finish, and VOID's talent speaks for themselves in every other aspect of the game.
AI artwork has its place, but it's like taking a trolley or cable car to the top of the mountain and claiming that you climbed it the same way as a mountaineer.

Ah, I must've missed the public statement by VOID where they bragged about not having used AI in their game.

Why aren't you mad that Speedtree is being used in virtually every bigger game? Every tree should be placed manually by the mappers. What about game engines? The real work is making your own tech from the ground up. Such cheating! Man, why are people using existing computers to make their games? That's just taking cheap and lame shortcut when people should be arduously climbing. The bulk of the work is making your own computer.

[Selous]

Originally posted by BLK Telu:

Using Unreal Engine to make a game is also the lazy path, you know. You could code everything like in the old days.

I dunno, most successful games have used or modified existing engines. Counter Strike, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto. Go no issue with Developers using preexisting tools if they can make incredible things with them