A recent interview session between Twitch streamers and content creators saw Sandfall Interactive's Guillaume Broche clarifying the studio's AI usage
The gaming world appeared ablaze after the Indie Game Awards announced that it was rescinding the top honors awarded to RPG darling Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 due to the use of generative AI during development. Sandfall Interactive recently sat down with a group of influencers for a private interview session, where the French studio was probed about recent AI controversies. Game director Guillaume Broche clarified some of the misinformation surrounding the studio and reiterated what other Sandfall developers have said about generative AI usage during interviews held earlier in the year.
Transcription of the Q&A comes courtesy of gaming content creator Sushi, who was one of the handful of influencers who were present at the session. Twitch streamer crizco prefaced his question by recounting the storm surrounding Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios’ admission about using generative AI during game development.
I see no issues here. These AI tools came out during the game’s development. Its not unreasonable to try using new tools upon release. And its reasonable to be unaware of the harms of these new tools before the harms are widely reported on.
If things were as described, this seems fine. They now have a clear policy against AI. People, even in groups can be mistaken and learn and change their ways, which is what appears to have happened here. I can’t fault anyone for making the occasional misstep.
So long as they stick to their commitment to not use AI.
Look I’ve seen the hours those studios and devs put into design… If they want to prototype using a tool? Nobody’s losing a job over that. Its a couple hours saved from doom scrolling though your existing assets looking for something temporary.
Yeah, it slipped out though the cracks. But then how many games are loaded with “Unintended Easter eggs” because people are human. I don’t get it. The event is no more novel than finding an untextured brick off the beaten trail or a picture of a dev left in following an in joke amongst the team.
No artist gets paid to create placeholder art during development. They get paid for the final art pieces that are used in the game itself. No actual AI art was used in the final game except for a few accidentally included bits that were not correctly replaced with the final art and that issue was corrected. No artists were harmed in the making of this game.
AI as a monolithic “thing” is bullshit. Fugazi. We relabled a ton of tools like OCR and other pattern recognition engines: “AI” to capitalize on the sheer stupidity of the average investor. Artificial intelligence indeed.
I digress. Tools save time and energy. If a team can prototype a space and become more immersed in their project faster and with less effort - so much the better.
I’m for tools as effort multipliers. My initial statement implied as much. I don’t see us running back to rooms full of women doing math at NASA and discarding the digital equivalent.
Look - everyone is absolutely sick of “AI” being jammed into everything. I get the raw response to it… But the concern isn’t about renamed tools; it’s not about a glorified chatbot being an “ok” facsimile. No company would spend billions on that. If by some chance they could make an automiton that was good enough… That could work without stopping, have no rights, for free. Literally they are gambling everything on a shot at replacing every single worker they currently employ. They don’t want workers. They want slaves. That is short sighted, ignorant, bullshit… which deserves all the hate it gets and more. But that - ain’t this.
What does NASA have to do with the creation of art? Art and science are not the same thing. What might be good for progress technologically, like flying to the moon, might not be good for a different field.
Art is all about the time and energy spent. If Clair Obscure came out of an AI machine that took 3 minutes to create it, most people wouldn’t play it and it wouldn’t have won any awards.
Cutting corners or “saving time and energy” is the opposite of exploring creatively, and these tools are not capable of unique thought or inspiration.
What does NASA have to do with the creation of art? Art and science are not the same thing. What might be good for progress technologically, like flying to the moon, might not be good for a different field.
Reread the comment instead of irrationally reacting before you understand the context. Calculators used to be people. Literally. It was a job. I brought up NASA as an example because, very famously, their “calculators” were part of history… So it should have been well known enough for people to see the parallel. But then I guess ever since moving to digital boards for math we can just downplay all subsequent achievments because the scientists didnt work hard enough.
Art is all about the time and energy spent. If Clair Obscure came out of an AI machine that took 3 minutes to create it, most people wouldn’t play it and it wouldn’t have won any awards.
If I’m not mistaken those artists’ art was well recieved. I find it interesting that so many people seem intent on defining a world they aren’t part of. Wacom tablets are tools, are digital artists not real artists because they don’t use paper?
Know any artists? I know quite a few. I wouldn’t dare inject my preconceptions on their process. Who the fuck am I to tell somone what is or isn’t part of their process. Traditional media, music, …even architects use tools to help iterate on their ideas - and their lives are easier for it.
But please, explain to the class why your ideals supercede their own.
Cutting corners or “saving time and energy” is the opposite of exploring creatively, and these tools are not capable of unique thought or inspiration.
Speaking for everyone? That’s bold. Is that your process or are you just a bobblehead parroting what someone else told you to say?
Oh cool, now I’m an irrational person who reacts quickly. Thats a good start.
Do you even know the point you are trying to make? You make a bunch of preconceptions and then claim you won’t do that, so thats fun too.
You can keep writing nonsense arguments all you want, you aren’t an artist and should probably do what you said and shutup instead of making a bunch of assumptions.
Want to mention that I really appreciate this reasonable, nuanced perspective of the situation that takes pains to see the humanity in the devs, that they are humans who make mistakes, and not ascribe malice to what can easily be ignorance.
The benefit of the doubt is lost in modern day and it’s nice to see it still being given.
Yeah this is something that keeps getting completely lost in this conversation.
The assets in question were from development during 2022-2023 at the latest. GenAI image tools at that time were extremely primitive compared to what’s out there now - remember DallE-Mini? That’s the kind of thing they were using. And because these tools hadn’t breached containment yet, literally no one was talking about ethical issues yet. Sandfall was basically just experimenting with brand new tech long before it was “good” and long before anyone was talking about it.
Now? It’s good to see them committed to avoiding it. GenAI is a plague and should be treated as such. But 2022-ish was totally different than today.
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I see no issues here. These AI tools came out during the game’s development. Its not unreasonable to try using new tools upon release. And its reasonable to be unaware of the harms of these new tools before the harms are widely reported on.
If things were as described, this seems fine. They now have a clear policy against AI. People, even in groups can be mistaken and learn and change their ways, which is what appears to have happened here. I can’t fault anyone for making the occasional misstep.
So long as they stick to their commitment to not use AI.
Not only is AI bad it is also bad —
Look I’ve seen the hours those studios and devs put into design… If they want to prototype using a tool? Nobody’s losing a job over that. Its a couple hours saved from doom scrolling though your existing assets looking for something temporary.
Yeah, it slipped out though the cracks. But then how many games are loaded with “Unintended Easter eggs” because people are human. I don’t get it. The event is no more novel than finding an untextured brick off the beaten trail or a picture of a dev left in following an in joke amongst the team.
Those poor artists, its actually a good thing they have AI now, isn’t it?
No artist gets paid to create placeholder art during development. They get paid for the final art pieces that are used in the game itself. No actual AI art was used in the final game except for a few accidentally included bits that were not correctly replaced with the final art and that issue was corrected. No artists were harmed in the making of this game.
I guess I’ll just take your word for it then.
AI as a monolithic “thing” is bullshit. Fugazi. We relabled a ton of tools like OCR and other pattern recognition engines: “AI” to capitalize on the sheer stupidity of the average investor. Artificial intelligence indeed.
I digress. Tools save time and energy. If a team can prototype a space and become more immersed in their project faster and with less effort - so much the better.
I’m for tools as effort multipliers. My initial statement implied as much. I don’t see us running back to rooms full of women doing math at NASA and discarding the digital equivalent.
Look - everyone is absolutely sick of “AI” being jammed into everything. I get the raw response to it… But the concern isn’t about renamed tools; it’s not about a glorified chatbot being an “ok” facsimile. No company would spend billions on that. If by some chance they could make an automiton that was good enough… That could work without stopping, have no rights, for free. Literally they are gambling everything on a shot at replacing every single worker they currently employ. They don’t want workers. They want slaves. That is short sighted, ignorant, bullshit… which deserves all the hate it gets and more. But that - ain’t this.
What does NASA have to do with the creation of art? Art and science are not the same thing. What might be good for progress technologically, like flying to the moon, might not be good for a different field.
Art is all about the time and energy spent. If Clair Obscure came out of an AI machine that took 3 minutes to create it, most people wouldn’t play it and it wouldn’t have won any awards.
Cutting corners or “saving time and energy” is the opposite of exploring creatively, and these tools are not capable of unique thought or inspiration.
Reread the comment instead of irrationally reacting before you understand the context. Calculators used to be people. Literally. It was a job. I brought up NASA as an example because, very famously, their “calculators” were part of history… So it should have been well known enough for people to see the parallel. But then I guess ever since moving to digital boards for math we can just downplay all subsequent achievments because the scientists didnt work hard enough.
If I’m not mistaken those artists’ art was well recieved. I find it interesting that so many people seem intent on defining a world they aren’t part of. Wacom tablets are tools, are digital artists not real artists because they don’t use paper?
Know any artists? I know quite a few. I wouldn’t dare inject my preconceptions on their process. Who the fuck am I to tell somone what is or isn’t part of their process. Traditional media, music, …even architects use tools to help iterate on their ideas - and their lives are easier for it.
But please, explain to the class why your ideals supercede their own.
Speaking for everyone? That’s bold. Is that your process or are you just a bobblehead parroting what someone else told you to say?
Oh cool, now I’m an irrational person who reacts quickly. Thats a good start.
Do you even know the point you are trying to make? You make a bunch of preconceptions and then claim you won’t do that, so thats fun too.
You can keep writing nonsense arguments all you want, you aren’t an artist and should probably do what you said and shutup instead of making a bunch of assumptions.
Want to mention that I really appreciate this reasonable, nuanced perspective of the situation that takes pains to see the humanity in the devs, that they are humans who make mistakes, and not ascribe malice to what can easily be ignorance.
The benefit of the doubt is lost in modern day and it’s nice to see it still being given.
Yeah this is something that keeps getting completely lost in this conversation.
The assets in question were from development during 2022-2023 at the latest. GenAI image tools at that time were extremely primitive compared to what’s out there now - remember DallE-Mini? That’s the kind of thing they were using. And because these tools hadn’t breached containment yet, literally no one was talking about ethical issues yet. Sandfall was basically just experimenting with brand new tech long before it was “good” and long before anyone was talking about it.
Now? It’s good to see them committed to avoiding it. GenAI is a plague and should be treated as such. But 2022-ish was totally different than today.