In a statement, 11-Bit Studios confirms that an instance of AI-generated text appears in The Alters due to an “internal oversight”
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/11-bit-studios-acknowledges-the-use-of-ai-generated-text-in-the-alters
Shameful, but this is the state of modern game developers. Scrap every possible avenue of paying your workers a living wage while surrendering to all latest failure tech fads.
Just so we’re clear, the first pass of localization of every game you’ve played in the past decade has been machine-generated.
Which is not to say the final product was, people would then go over the whole text database and change it as needed, but it’s been frequent practice for a while for things like subtitles and translations to start from a machine generated first draft, not just in videogames but in media in general. People are turning around 24h localization for TV in some places, it’s pretty nuts.
Machine generated voices are also very standard as placeholders. I’m… kinda surprised nobody has slipped up on that post-AI panic, although I guess historically nobody noticed when you didn’t clean up a machine-translated subtitle, but people got good at ensuring all your VO lines got VOd because you definitely notice those.
As with a lot of the rest of the AI panic, I’m confused about the boundaries here. I mean, Google Translate has used machine learning for a long time, as have most machine translation engines. The robot voices that were used as placeholders up until a few years ago would probably be fine if one slipped up, but newer games often use very natural-sounding placeholders, so if one of those slips I imagine it’d be a bit of drama.
I guess I don’t know what “AI generated” means anymore.
I haven’t bumped into the offending text in the game (yet), but I’m playing it in English, so I guess I wouldn’t have anyway? Neither the article nor the disclosure are very clear.
That said, the game is pretty good, if anybody cares.
Machine generated voices are also very standard as placeholders. I’m… kinda surprised nobody has slipped up on that post-AI panic
Diablo 4 had this recently, where an obviously Microsoft Sam like robot voice made it through, and a few people lost their minds.
I thought MS Sam was an accessibility feature, that you can enable and disable text-to-speech. Did they use that for NPCs voice-overs?
What an insanely non-issue to clutch one’s pearls at… Between Luddites and Trumpites, this is the worst timeline…
Really appropriate example, actually.
As the Industrial Revolution began, workers naturally worried about being displaced by increasingly efficient machines. But the Luddites themselves “were totally fine with machines,” says Kevin Binfield, editor of the 2004 collection Writings of the Luddites. They confined their attacks to manufacturers who used machines in what they called “a fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labor practices. “They just wanted machines that made high-quality goods,” says Binfield, “and they wanted these machines to be run by workers who had gone through an apprenticeship and got paid decent wages. Those were their only concerns.”
Me and the boys being worried for our jobs as automation stretches onwards and just wanting some level of guarantee that good paying jobs will still be available 😭
For the record, the word as a general noun is widely recognized to mean what everybody thinks it means:
Luddite noun Ludd·ite ˈlə-ˌdīt : one of a group of early 19th century English workmen destroying laborsaving machinery as a protest broadly : one who is opposed to especially technological change
One of the weirder annoyances of the AI moral panic is how often you see this spiral of pedantry about the historical luddites whenever someone brings up the word as a pejorative.
I mean, fair rhetorical play, I suppose, in that it creates a very good incentive to not bring it up at all. If the goal was to avoid being called a luddite as an insult or as shorthand for dismissing AI criticism as outright technophobia I suppose that is mission accomplished, disingenuous as it is.
Someone disagreeing with you =/= moral panic
Ah, the always welcome “and so what?” comment, with a side of name calling for some extra spice.
It wouldn’t be lemmy if we weren’t always in a moral size measuring contest.
Thank you. At least some people on this abomination of an antisocial media still seem to use their brain.
Showing that even a small non-issue use of AI will be detected is a pretty strong incentive for other games to disclose that willingly. Otherwise, why would they admit to it if no one can tell? Morals??? 😂😂😂
Why should they “admit” to it when NeoLuddites with pitchforks and no ability to reason lurk around every corner?
A substantial part of the market not wanting AI in their products is actually a great reason for them to disclose when it is or isn’t used
Like I’m not the biggest fan of gen ai but a generic computer screen feels like a good use case for filler text.
Gamers who get mad having to wait for company logos to show while games boot: They have to disclose every piece of software they use to make every game! I want my games 100% hand crafted and bespoke. I want to sense the life people spent meticulously crafting mudsplat_texture_1 - mudsplat_texture_500. Also no crunch (and no bugs, obviously)
Nice strawman Dorothy
