This morning, the news broke that Larian Studios, developer of Baldur's Gate 3 and the upcoming, just-announced Divinity, is apparently using generative AI behind the scenes. The backlash has been swift, and now Larian founder and game director Swen Vincke is responding to clarify his remarks.
As someone who owns D:OS2, this is really disappointing and below their standards. I’ll be giving this new Divinity a pass.
They don’t need to be using AI to create concepts, and if they do, I don’t think the “concepts” will be all that great in the first place. Not to mention the ethical perils of using models trained off other artists who are not licensed or compensated.
This is some classic CEO “step on a rake and then get mad at everyone else” nonsense. They openly talked about how they liked AI, and get mad at us for saying “cool, that’s a game I’m gonna skip then!”
What if it’s a home grown model to assist with mocap?
Well, that’s not what it is (a), at least according to the CEO. They used it for concepts, not animations. And also, (b) I’m not really in the place to give people the benefit of the doubt when using AI that is trained off stolen materials. I sincerely doubt they’re using a “home grown model” because anyone who knows even a scrap of how LLM/GANs work knows that the data needs to train a model would be far beyond the reach of a company of Larian’s scale. They’ve likely just licensed it from one of the many grifting oligarch AI peddlers.
We don’t need defenders coming in here trying to pretend that the CEO hasn’t just clarified that they are using AI for preproduction, we know this and it’s not up for debate now.
Would that be enough to write it off?
As someone who really appreciates and likes animation, in that particular example, then yes it would probably be enough to write it off. And frankly, why do I need to play their game when I could just AI generate my own slop and save the 70 bucks? In reality, it’s actually fine for me, I have plenty of games and can replay the old Divinity games before these guys lost their way. They used to be a company that followed a passion for CRPGs with good-will behind them, but now that BG3 has been a runaway hit, it seems like they’ve forgotten about the community that got them to where they are today in favor of some AAA gaming nonsense.
Edit:
That’s an awfully early point to judge a game, with basically zero knowledge of what they’re actually doing/using.
Frankly, there are plenty of games that people judge from the outset. There’s a reason why we have the saying “First impressions matter”. They’ve left a bad taste in anyone who dares question the ethics of AI use, but thankfully there might be an audience of people out there who like slop more than I dislike it so they could be ok. No skin off my nose.
because anyone who knows even a scrap of how LLM/GANs work knows that the data needs to train a model would be far beyond the reach of a company of Larian’s scale
If it’s like an image/video model, they could start with existing open weights, and fine tune it. There are tons to pick from, and libraries to easily plug them into.
If it’s not, and something really niche, and doesn’t already exist to their satisfaction, it probably doesn’t need to be that big a model. A lot of weird stuff like sketch -> 3D models are trained on university student project time + money budgets (though plenty of those already exist).
We don’t need defenders coming in here trying to pretend that the CEO hasn’t just clarified that they are using AI for preproduction, we know this and it’s not up for debate now.
No. We don’t know.
And frankly, why do I need to play their game when I could just AI generate my own slop and save the 70 bucks
I dunno what you’re on about, that has nothing to do with tools used in preproduction. How do you know they’ll even use text models? Much less that a single would ever be shipped in the final game? And how are you equating LLM slop to a Larian RPG?
hit, it seems like they’ve forgotten about the community that got them to where they are today in favor of some AAA gaming nonsense.
Except literally every word that comes out of interviews is care for their developers, and their community, which they continue to support.
Frankly, there are plenty of games that people judge from the outset. There’s a reason why we have the saying “First impressions matter”. They’ve left a bad taste in anyone who dares question the ethics of AI use, but thankfully there might be an audience of people out there who like slop more than I dislike it so they could be ok. No skin off my nose.
Read that again; pretend it’s not about AI.
It sounds like language gamergate followers use as excuses to hate something they’ve never even played, when they’ve read some headline they don’t like.
…Look, if Divinity comes out and it has any slop in it, it can burn in hell. If it comes out that they partnered with OpenAI or whomever extensively, it deserves to get shunned and raked over coals.
But I do not like this zealous, uncompromising hate for something that hasn’t even come out, that we know little about, from a studio we have every reason to give the benefit of the doubt. It reminds me of the most toxic “gamer” parts of Reddit and other cesspools of the internet, and I don’t want it to spread here.
I won’t bother engaging with the “gamergate” false equivalency. I think it’s disingenuous to try to tie any of what I said so far to a some fearmonger induced culture war, biggotted nonsense when we’re talking about a much broader wealth extraction mechanism and misanthropic tech movement. I think you’re saying this from a well-meaning place, but I actually don’t think what I’ve said is overzealous at all. The CEO is saying he’s using AI and, if you’re opposed to the social and financial repercussions of this, it’s fair game to boycott a product over this.
To pick a true real world example, some people won’t eat meat that isn’t free-range. This isn’t about the quality of the meat really, it’s about the inhumane treatment of animals. Not everyone subscribes to this, sometimes I don’t buy free-range meat either, but it’s not “wrong” for people to choose to not buy meat that isn’t free range. The same can and should be true about the media we consume, whether it’s games or films.
If it’s like an image/video model, they could start with existing open weights, and fine tune it. There are tons to pick from, and libraries to easily plug them into.
If it’s not, and something really niche, and doesn’t already exist to their satisfaction, it probably doesn’t need to be that big a model. A lot of weird stuff like sketch -> 3D models are trained on university student project time + money budgets (though plenty of those already exist).
…Look, if Divinity comes out and it has any slop in it, it can burn in hell. If it comes out that they partnered with OpenAI or whomever extensively, it deserves to get shunned and raked over coals.
I won’t get into this too much, but “open weights” is not “open source”, and even “open source” is not real “open source” when it comes to AI. Really, what you should be talking about is an open dataset based model, which there are very few of in reality. The issue isn’t the weights, the issue is the data that was used to generate the weights in the first place.
It’s not impossible that they’re using some bespoke model derived from an open dataset model, but considering the full transcript is now out and he name dropped ChatGPT in particular, I don’t really have much confidence that there’s some kind of ethical silver lining. Since he was the one who mentioned using AI in previs development, it’s actually up to him to clarify what models they’re using and whether they’re ethically sourced. I don’t really have to prove anything beyond them using AI and not thinking AI is to my personal pallet. That’s fine, everyone has their own tastes. To me, I was excited about the new Divinity until this news dropped, and the hype is simply deflated because it is against my morals. That’s on them, not on me.
If he wants to push for open datasets as an AI industry counter play, then fine – fair play and good riddance to closed source (closed data) AI industry players. But until that happens it’s actually just a fantasy and not based on reality. I’ll stick to what has been said and not extrapolate what could-be.
As someone who owns D:OS2, this is really disappointing and below their standards. I’ll be giving this new Divinity a pass.
They don’t need to be using AI to create concepts, and if they do, I don’t think the “concepts” will be all that great in the first place. Not to mention the ethical perils of using models trained off other artists who are not licensed or compensated.
This is some classic CEO “step on a rake and then get mad at everyone else” nonsense. They openly talked about how they liked AI, and get mad at us for saying “cool, that’s a game I’m gonna skip then!”
That’s an awfully early point to judge a game, with basically zero knowledge of what they’re actually doing/using.
What if they’re referencing a small, home grown model to assist with mocap? Or a sketch->3D drafting tool? Would that be enough to write it off?
Well, that’s not what it is (a), at least according to the CEO. They used it for concepts, not animations. And also, (b) I’m not really in the place to give people the benefit of the doubt when using AI that is trained off stolen materials. I sincerely doubt they’re using a “home grown model” because anyone who knows even a scrap of how LLM/GANs work knows that the data needs to train a model would be far beyond the reach of a company of Larian’s scale. They’ve likely just licensed it from one of the many grifting oligarch AI peddlers.
We don’t need defenders coming in here trying to pretend that the CEO hasn’t just clarified that they are using AI for preproduction, we know this and it’s not up for debate now.
As someone who really appreciates and likes animation, in that particular example, then yes it would probably be enough to write it off. And frankly, why do I need to play their game when I could just AI generate my own slop and save the 70 bucks? In reality, it’s actually fine for me, I have plenty of games and can replay the old Divinity games before these guys lost their way. They used to be a company that followed a passion for CRPGs with good-will behind them, but now that BG3 has been a runaway hit, it seems like they’ve forgotten about the community that got them to where they are today in favor of some AAA gaming nonsense.
Edit:
Frankly, there are plenty of games that people judge from the outset. There’s a reason why we have the saying “First impressions matter”. They’ve left a bad taste in anyone who dares question the ethics of AI use, but thankfully there might be an audience of people out there who like slop more than I dislike it so they could be ok. No skin off my nose.
If it’s like an image/video model, they could start with existing open weights, and fine tune it. There are tons to pick from, and libraries to easily plug them into.
If it’s not, and something really niche, and doesn’t already exist to their satisfaction, it probably doesn’t need to be that big a model. A lot of weird stuff like sketch -> 3D models are trained on university student project time + money budgets (though plenty of those already exist).
No. We don’t know.
I dunno what you’re on about, that has nothing to do with tools used in preproduction. How do you know they’ll even use text models? Much less that a single would ever be shipped in the final game? And how are you equating LLM slop to a Larian RPG?
Except literally every word that comes out of interviews is care for their developers, and their community, which they continue to support.
Read that again; pretend it’s not about AI.
It sounds like language gamergate followers use as excuses to hate something they’ve never even played, when they’ve read some headline they don’t like.
…Look, if Divinity comes out and it has any slop in it, it can burn in hell. If it comes out that they partnered with OpenAI or whomever extensively, it deserves to get shunned and raked over coals.
But I do not like this zealous, uncompromising hate for something that hasn’t even come out, that we know little about, from a studio we have every reason to give the benefit of the doubt. It reminds me of the most toxic “gamer” parts of Reddit and other cesspools of the internet, and I don’t want it to spread here.
I won’t bother engaging with the “gamergate” false equivalency. I think it’s disingenuous to try to tie any of what I said so far to a some fearmonger induced culture war, biggotted nonsense when we’re talking about a much broader wealth extraction mechanism and misanthropic tech movement. I think you’re saying this from a well-meaning place, but I actually don’t think what I’ve said is overzealous at all. The CEO is saying he’s using AI and, if you’re opposed to the social and financial repercussions of this, it’s fair game to boycott a product over this.
To pick a true real world example, some people won’t eat meat that isn’t free-range. This isn’t about the quality of the meat really, it’s about the inhumane treatment of animals. Not everyone subscribes to this, sometimes I don’t buy free-range meat either, but it’s not “wrong” for people to choose to not buy meat that isn’t free range. The same can and should be true about the media we consume, whether it’s games or films.
I won’t get into this too much, but “open weights” is not “open source”, and even “open source” is not real “open source” when it comes to AI. Really, what you should be talking about is an open dataset based model, which there are very few of in reality. The issue isn’t the weights, the issue is the data that was used to generate the weights in the first place.
It’s not impossible that they’re using some bespoke model derived from an open dataset model, but considering the full transcript is now out and he name dropped ChatGPT in particular, I don’t really have much confidence that there’s some kind of ethical silver lining. Since he was the one who mentioned using AI in previs development, it’s actually up to him to clarify what models they’re using and whether they’re ethically sourced. I don’t really have to prove anything beyond them using AI and not thinking AI is to my personal pallet. That’s fine, everyone has their own tastes. To me, I was excited about the new Divinity until this news dropped, and the hype is simply deflated because it is against my morals. That’s on them, not on me.
If he wants to push for open datasets as an AI industry counter play, then fine – fair play and good riddance to closed source (closed data) AI industry players. But until that happens it’s actually just a fantasy and not based on reality. I’ll stick to what has been said and not extrapolate what could-be.