Following what seems an avalanche of anti-AI sentiment, Games Workshop is being cautious about the technology and has now banned it from being used on any of its content and designs, though it’ll allow senior managers to continue investigating its potential use cases (even if none of them are impressed currently).
As per IGN, Games Workshop, owner and creator of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, has issued a ban on using AI in its content and designs. The company’s chief executive, Kevin Rountree, said GW is being “cautious” and “[does] not allow AI-generated content or AI to be used in our design processes or its unauthorized use outside of GW, including in any of our competitions.”
AI is being pre-installed on many devices and software these days, which Rountree says prompted the company to “protect [itself] from a data compliance, security, and governance perspective.”
Additionally, he said that GW “respects” its “human creators” and that it is heavily investing in Warhammer Studio by hiring a lot more actual artists, from writers to concept artists to sculptors. The company will allow some of its senior managers to continue investigating potential applications of AI, but it appears that none of them have found viable use cases thus far.
This will probably change at some point because of AI’s inherent usefulness in cutting down rudimentary work, but that’ll likely not be of much help in an artistic sense.
Still, I do believe this is a great step in the right direction, not least because it adheres to the Holy Sacraments of the Omnissiah, who bids us to reject the abhorrent false consciousness of these so-called “intelligent” machine spirits. It’s also nice to see industry giants reject AI for the time being, somewhat slowing down its progress in making everything soulless and commodified.
Not everyone is of such inclinations, though. Microsoft is spearheading AI, forcing you to have it installed on your Windows machine regardless of what your opinion of it is. AAA corporations like Krafton have also adopted an AI-first approach, causing plenty of controversies in the past and leading games like InZOI to suffer tremendously amid low-effort, unimpactful content.
It’s not a great time to be an artist, that much is certain, but decisions like these bring us closer to the God-Emperor and revive the hope that there is life after AI.
