You don’t have to look very hard to find examples of AI backlash in creative industries: Authors are pissed, and so are readers; an AI-generated chart hit is causing a crisis in country music; filmmakers, anticipating criticism from professionals and fans, are preemptively disavowing AI use; even Saturday Night Live, which was recently accused of using AI to generate some “Weekend Update” graphics, can’t escape the chatbot culture wars. AI-generated material is appearing all around us, and quite a few people aren’t happy about it.

But perhaps no group of fans, industry workers, and consumers is more intense about AI use than gamers. This week, after mentioning AI use in an interview, the CEO of Larian, the company behind Baldur’s Gate 3 and the forthcoming Divinity, tried and failed to quell massive pushback from fans:

Holy fuck guys we’re not "pushing hard" for or replacing concept artists with AI.

We have a team of 72 artists of which 23 are concept artists and we are hiring more. The art they create is original and I’m very proud of what they do.

I was asked explicitly about concept art…

This episode is just the latest of many. Just this month, the latest Postal game was axed by its publisher, which was “overwhelmed with negative responses” from the “concerned Postal community” after fans spotted AI-generated material in the game’s trailer. The developers of Arc Raiders were

© Daily Intelligencer