"Our way of making a living is destroyed," says game artist on AI art

Naraka: Bladepoint – did a human do this or an AI? (photo: NetEase)

AI art is already replacing human creators in China’s video game industry, amid growing fears it will do the same all over the world.

For all the Skynet jokes, AI – or at least deep learning models – is now so widespread that anyone can use it to do anything from have a quick chat to create… complex art according to very specific instructions.

This quickly begins to create potentially societal-changing problems, especially for anyone whose jobs have suddenly become automated. It’s already started to affect the games industry in terms of voiceovers, but a new report suggests that AI is also widely used to generate art in games – at least in China.

AI is reportedly already taking jobs from artists in China, where work that used to be done by 10 people now requires only two. This will naturally include many Western and Japanese games, which rely heavily on outsourcing studios based in China.

As debate rages over the legal and ethical uses of AI art, the fact that it can quickly generate almost anything asked of it is particularly useful in games, where many slot companies -contracting are used to create textures, background characters and other discrete elements. assets.

However, Chinese developers have already gone further and even giants such as Tencent and NetEase are reportedly using AI to design characters and promotional materials.

As noted in an in-depth post on Rest of World, freelance illustrator Amber Yu reveals she earned between 3,000-7,000 yuan (£350-£820) for every video game poster she drew for social media , but those jobs have already started to disappear. .

Rest of World claims to have spoken to seven game illustrators, all of whom have been affected by the use of AI software.

“AI is developing at a speed far beyond our imagination,” said artist Xu Yingying. “Our way of earning a living is suddenly destroyed,” said another anonymous artist.

NetEase was even able to turn the use of AI into game features, allowing players to create their own AI-generated skin in the game Naraka: Bladepoint.

The Chinese government is trying to regulate AI art, and in January passed a law requiring deepfake software to clearly label its content. In April, he created a bill that would ensure that all AI-generated arts would have to do the same.

However, that seems unlikely to stop anything and it’s almost certainly only a matter of time before western studios start using AI generation, not only for art, but also for voice overs, music and even coding.

The AI is already trained to make simple video games and while it’s not up to The Last Of Us standards yet, it can handle Flappy Bird.

It’s impossible to say how this will all pan out and whether it will lead to widespread legislation, but for video games, the AI revolution is already in full swing.