Apparently now is the season to promote indie games with AI-generated junk. A Microsoft Twitter account recently posted low-effort, energy-intensive art promoting an indie game on Xbox, but it was removed after being ridiculed by fans and developers alike.
“Walking through the magical world of indie,” the ID@Xbox account tweeted on December 27th. “What’s your favorite indie game of the year?” The post was accompanied by an image of kids sledding down a hill with a giant, AI-generated green Xbox logo.
It seemed harmless at first glance, but on second or third viewing, you’ll notice obvious things, like kids steering sleds with cranks with nothing attached to them, or fishing presents out of the snow with strange black vines. Anomalies in the AI quickly became apparent. The man playing a handheld game console in the upper center of the image has had his upper lip replaced by teeth. A child jumping in the snow appears to have a mustache. This was a really bad situation considering ID@Xbox is a team that faces people within giant corporations who champion individual creators and small independent teams.
“Xbox should stop using shortcuts to promote indie developers.” I have written Pixel artist TAHK0. “Nothing says ‘I don’t care about indie developers’ like the use of AI.” I have written Artist NecroKuma3. “If you can’t hire an artist to do the advertising, hiring an independent developer is highly questionable.” The company did not acknowledge the backlash and quietly deleted the post overnight. Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment.
It seems like a no-brainer not to post half-baked AI art to promote an artist, but more and more companies are doing it these days. There are Promotional images generated by AI In the case of Amazon fall out Promote TV shows, AI-generated art new Pokemon GO eventand even a Ubisoft account representing an office whose staff was recently laid off. AI generated assassin’s creed art.
When this stuff first started happening, it felt shitty, but the risk is low. But the assumption is that companies are taking the same approach to AI art as they are to other Internet-era advancements, with the assumption that people will complain at first, but eventually get tired of it and move on to the next thing. It is becoming increasingly clear that it is operating under the. Being angry about something else. If you boil a frog slowly enough, it will eventually stop realizing that it has 11 fingers, 13 toes, and strange wires growing out of its back.
read more: AI creating “art” is an ethical and copyright nightmare
As a support group for AI technologyBut Microsoft’s role in this is particularly egregious. The company has already Promote tools for AI-generated content in-gameAnd we’re encouraging all 20 Bing users to try out its AI art tools. Never mind that no one is actually entirely sure how technology makes money. Or even if it’s legal. If we can replace human creativity with predictable slop and reduce headcount, it’s bound to be a win-win.
by MIT Technology Review, every AI-generated image requires as much energy as charging an entire smartphone. And Microsoft’s own internal environmental report blames this technology. 34 percent jump Among other things, if the user A shitty post about Kirby doing 9/11.as immortality game director sam barlow put it “It’s really impressive that just as we’re finally starting to tackle the climate emergency, we’ve invented a stupid way to undo all of our progress,” the AI-generated ID@Xbox post said.