Valve, the company behind the popular gaming platform Steam, has reportedly started banning games that use artificial intelligence to create their art assets. The reason? The legal ownership of such AI-generated art is unclear, and it may infringe on the copyrights of third parties.
This policy was revealed by a Reddit user who goes by the name of potterharry97, who claimed that their game was rejected and banned by Valve for using AI-created assets from Stable Diffusion, an AI art tool that uses a technique called neural style transfer to generate images based on existing ones.
“I tried to release a game about a month ago, with a few assets that were fairly obviously AI-generated,” potterharry97 wrote in a post that has since been made private. “My plan was to just submit a rougher version of the game, with 2-3 assets/sprites that were admittedly obviously AI generated from the hands, and to improve them prior to actually releasing the game as I wasn’t aware Steam had any issues with AI-generated art.”
However, potterharry97 received an email from Valve that stated: “As the legal ownership of such AI-generated art is unclear, we cannot ship your game while it contains these AI-generated assets, unless you can affirmatively confirm that you own the rights to all of the IP used in the data set that trained the AI to create the assets in your game.”
Potterharry97 resubmitted the game with some art edits to remove “any obvious signs of AI”, but Valve still declined to distribute it, saying that it was unclear if the underlying AI tech used to create the assets had sufficient rights to the training data.
“I didn’t even realize AI art was not allowed, as I’d heard of it being used, and even seen a few fairly obvious examples myself,” potterharry97 wrote in a comment thread.
Valve’s policy is inconsistent with some other games that openly use AI-generated content, such as This Girl Does Not Exist, which uses StyleGAN, a generative adversarial network (GAN) that can create realistic portraits of non-existent women. The game’s description states: “This Girl Does Not Exist is an experimental game where you can interact with a girl who is entirely generated by artificial intelligence. She does not exist in real life, but she can talk to you and respond to your questions.”
AI-generated content is a controversial and emerging field that poses many ethical and legal challenges, such as authorship, originality, consent, and quality. The problem with using AI to generate art is that it’s not always clear who owns the rights to the final product. The AI itself can’t claim authorship, but neither can the person who simply fed it some data and pressed a button. The data itself may also be derived from existing works that are protected by copyright.
“AI-generated content is not inherently bad or unethical. It can be a powerful tool for creativity and innovation, as well as a source of entertainment and education. However, it also requires careful consideration and regulation to ensure that it respects the rights and interests of all stakeholders involved,” I wrote in my opinion.
Valve’s ban on games with AI-generated art may be seen as a precautionary measure to avoid potential lawsuits and disputes, but it also raises questions about the future of AI and creativity in the gaming industry. Will Valve change its policy as AI becomes more advanced and ubiquitous? Will developers find ways to circumvent or challenge Valve’s decision? Will gamers embrace or reject games that use AI-generated content? These are some of the questions that remain unanswered as Valve takes a hard stance on this issue.
Relevant articles:
– Valve is reportedly banning games featuring AI generated content, Video Games Chronicle, June 29, 2023
– Steam Might Be Banning Games Made With AI Art, Kotaku Australia, June 29, 2023
– Steam’s Ban On Games Using AI Art Is Inconsistent, Gameranx, June 29, 2023
– Developer claims Steam is rejecting games with AI-generated artwork, Ars Technica, June 29, 2023