TL;DR: This application of AI is arguably novel and ethical, and reactionary takes dunking on some of the only ethical usage in the AI world hurt our cause in the long run.

Correct me if I’m wrong, the game only uses TTS trained on the voice actors for the characters, who gave their consent and were paid for their labor, right? I feel like of all the applications of generative AI, that is not really the hill I want to die on. The game certainly is not unartistic, and this is one of the few cases where AI was used in a novel way where the voice actors are still paid and credited, and now the characters can respond to things in world far more dynamically. Otherwise callouts would have to be pretty generic, as there are just too many locations and combinations of phrases to record.

I feel like we, as those members of the public that oppose generative AI’s wasteful use of power and water and the general watering down of human creativity, get really caught up over the use of “AI” in a very reactionary sense. We’ve used TTS, and TTS in games for decades. This is just the newest form of that, and done far more ethically than I suspect a larger studio might have. The voice actors gave them tons of lines and locations, and the TTS mashes those lines together to create very specific callouts. They were paid, and consented. AI is not inherently evil, it’s a technology, and it’s how we use those technologies that determines the ethics of the situation. Using the voices of paid voice actors that consented to that specific use is ethical in my opinion.

I’m very much opposed to the AI bubble and the invasion of AI into my life in so many ways that are unhelpful and dystopian, but it really bothers me to see reactionary behavior from other members of the anti-AI community. We should be opposed to AI wasting power and water and being used to dilute art and media, or deceive us. This just isn’t that. There is an argument to be made that this is a slippery slope towards less ethical applications, but the slippery slope is a well known fallacy for a reason. AI, just like the internet after the .com bubble, will find legitimate and useful applications. We’re in a very speculative phase of way too many (very invasive) applications of AI being shoved down our throats, and I totally understand resentment, but keep it rational. We shouldn’t be dunking on one of the few applications in the space that is choosing a novel and ethical route. It’s overall just going to hurt us in the long run.

That’s fair. I didn’t realize it used gen AI till after I bought it and couldn’t refund, entirely my bad. Im very opposed to it.

And in my defense, solo queue is generally pretty friendly throughout the week.