So, Twitter recently exploded after Larian admitted to using AI, and honestly? I'm still struggling to see why. I don't think Larians use of AI is in any way... unethical. What people are worried about are what is known as a "Transformer based Large language model chat bot" which are typically the size of an airport hangar, actually do steal art, and are ludicrously bad for the environment. The fact of the matter is that new tools are used in game development all of the time, and AI is far from a new one.

- AI has been used for enemy behaviours since games with enemies began. It was used to determine their attacking, their defending, their navigation and their pathfindingA to certain locations.

- it is already used for motion capture, It replaced the extremely tedious (trust me) process of repeated animations of the same thing for different scenarios and fixing mistakes. (Trust me, no one wants to do that,) but hasn't replaced actual actors. This is achieved by Machine learning, which is something else entirely.

- games use it extensively for enemy spawning like L4D2s AI director.

- AI is already used in procedural generation, usually from a seed or code (Hello MInecraft.)

- find bugs, cutting out the notoriously boring and draining phases of game testing. Real humans still test it, just letting AI run it for a bit will cut out most bugs. This is also done with Machine learning, and not TB LLM CBs.
A very crude example of what that can look like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmQ4Dqxs0HI )

the reason why I bring this up is because people do not have a clue what Larian are using. They haven't specified if they are using something like chatGPT or an internal AI (possible.) The other counter argument I see is that it ruins creativity, and while this point is - at the very least - an understandable mistake, using new tools like this actually can BOOST creativity. How? you may ask, doesn't it take up stages of creativity and automate them? no. AI can be used to cut out tedious, repetitive and often unwanted tasks (like when I mentioned mocap.) Researching, while sometimes fun, can also be tedious, unexciting and take up time you could be thinking up ideas. Automating this doesn't break creativity, it doesn't kill fun ideas, it can actually give artists MORE time to focus on creating for the game, to be able to just see the references you want without spending hours researching and use that information to start the process. THIS seems to be the way Larian wants to implement it, not replacing artists.

AI is not going to replace artists, because the simple fact is it isn't actually efficient enough to do so, and no amount of AI can replace creativity. People are getting a bit too worried, but we have been told dozens of times now it would happen and it hasn't. You can still tell AI art a mile off, and it only really does real life picture emulation "well." Stylised art, and semi realism, is protected, because AI doesn't and cannot know what it's drawing, and if it ever got to that point then it would be more efficient to just hire a human anyway (with only speed as a compelling factor, but lacking efficiency and cost effectiveness. Plus, from a human you get more feedback, more creativity, and generally just a nice conversation.) There was also a worry for a long time of whether AI would replace musicians, and so far, nothing.... because while AI is excellent at generic, by the book pop songs (because they are so fucking easy to make.) They are awful at basically anything else.

conclusion? the anti AI crowd are just as mistaken sometimes as AI bros. I think people need to have a sensible head about this, AI in the form of a LLM has it's uses, even if it is sometimes painful to accept. I get the hypocrisy that people claim Swen seems to have here, some believed he was once staunchly against AI, and yeah it is true that, judging by past posts, he wasn't a fan of it, but believe it or not people can become convinced or changed by reasonable arguments or advancements in what they once scoffed. For how many years were diesel trains shunned by steam absolutists before people finally realised they were better? how long did things like the internet take to actually take hold of the world? take the world of guns as well, the M16 was shunned for so long despite being superior to rifles used at the time. Life evolves, changes, and Swen was right when he said "it would be irresponsible not to look into advancements in AI."

Larian have, over and over again, proved they are an ethical and very pro art and creativity company. Swen seems like a genuinly nice guy that sticks to principles like this, and I really struggle to understand the "Larian is now an evil, anti artist company that seeks to make endless AI slop" angle. how on earth can you believe that after the extensive community support, aid for other developers and constant transparency they have shown? A lot of people like getting caught up in hype, I understand that. A lot of people enjoy boarding a drama train and producing reactive content without fully understanding it. It was like Adam said, it is actually outstanding how fiercely people defend opinions that aren't even their own, and I've seen that so much over the internet. This seems to have all started from a bloomberg article, where they exaggerated the way Larian are using AI, but Swen has since clarified that the interview wasn't an accurate portrayal or their use as a whole. In plain terms, no they are not using it to generate concept art.

AI isn't going to replace artists, because art is a reflection of the human condition. It is something that only we can understand, that only we can break down and take meaning in, which is why AI will never be good at it. Let's say that AI does become perfect one day, that it reflects human artisty to the T, even then it still will not take over real artists. The thing is, art is a creativity field, and like all creativity fields it is a reflection of experience, inspiration, dreams and fantasies. What does a bot do? It calculates what people want to see based off a prompt and what it thinks is the best thing to put into a position. It cannot understand, it cannot comprehend, it cannot replicate us no matter how hard it tries. I think people worry too much, I think people concern themselves with this when the reality is AI will only be useful as a tool, that it will hit a usefulness ceiling where, like AI so far, it is more useful as an assistant to real humans over an actual replacement.

Is artists concerns valid? Of course! and I'm not going to try to pretend otherwise. This is not a post trying to dismiss concerns like theft and training without consent. This is more about the idea of Larians use of AI, more specifically, that I think people are overreacting. I am a very pro art and creativity person, but I'm also extremely into computer and tech, and that's why I defend AI as a tool but not a replacement. I think that the only data it should ever train off is what is public domain or it's given with consent, and that consent should be given clearly, not hidden in a 5000 page TOS. The concern it steals artwork is a real one, and debates around the environmental impact of TB LLM Chat bots is extremely important, as towns have suffered not being able to get enough water and power for a while now (like New Carlisle, Indiana.) What I'm presenting is an anti absolutist perspective against AI as a whole (and not just TB LLMs,) against any use of AI in game development. I'm not asking you to take what I say as gospel, that would go against my point. I'm asking you to do research, to form your own opinions, to actually understand and read into a situation before forming a strong opinion on it. Whether you turn out wrong or not, at least you are forming your own opinion, at least you are holding yourself to your own principles, over parroting what others say.