A minor kerfuffle within the Balatro subreddit has led developer LocalThunk to weigh in on the subject of AI-generated artwork, and his place is evident: It hurts artists, and it is not welcome.
As documented by RPS, the entire thing started when a now-former subreddit moderator named DrTankHeadvert jumped right into a thread questioning the presence of AI artwork within the subreddit. “We won’t be banning AI artwork right here, whether it is correctly claimed and tagged as such,” DrTankHeadvert wrote. “This has been carried out after dialogue with the employees at PlayStack.”
The subsequent dialog went to some attention-grabbing locations, together with the invention of a NSFW “Balatroromance” subreddit, of which DrTankHeadvert can be a moderator. But there was additionally important pushback in opposition to the obvious official approval of AI-generated artwork. As Reddit beef goes, it appears pretty gentle to me, a minimum of from what I’ve seen of it, nevertheless it did not take lengthy earlier than LocalThunk felt the necessity to set the document straight.
“A mod lately modified the aptitude on this subreddit for AI generated artwork making it look like Playstack condones AI artwork,” LocalThunk wrote in a separate thread. “This was not as a result of a direct order from Playstack (a Playstack consultant instructed me this) however from an interpretation of a message about imposing the principles of the subreddit.
“Neither Playstack nor I condone AI ‘artwork’. I do not use it in my sport, I believe it does actual hurt to artists of all types. The actions of this mod don’t mirror how Playstack feels or how I really feel on the subject. We have eliminated this moderator from the moderation workforce. We won’t be permitting AI generated photos on this subreddit to any extent further. We will ensure that our guidelines and FAQ mirror this quickly.”
Playstack communications director Wout van Halderen echoed that place in a reply, writing that “we don’t help the usage of AI artwork.” In a subsequent put up, Van Halderen stated the subreddit guidelines initially forbid “unlabelled AI content material,” which might be taken as indicating that AI content material was allowable so long as it was marked as such. That was not the case, nonetheless, and Van Halderen wrote that “this could have been mentioned by the mod workforce earlier than making sweeping statements in regards to the interpretation of the rule.”
He additionally dedicated to working with subreddit moderators “to tighten up the principles and FAQ round this.” Sure sufficient, the Balatro subreddit’s guidelines, underneath the “No low-effort posts/no spam” part, now explicitly forbid “AI generated artwork or content material.”
This will not be the final time we see this form of disagreement play out. I heartily endorse LocalThunk’s place on the matter, however I additionally acknowledge that AI-generated artwork is right here and it is not going away. And whereas it stays deeply unpopular with a number of avid gamers, some builders have opted to embrace generative AI, and a few avid gamers do not appear too fussed about it.
The excellent news for individuals who fall into the latter camp: AI-generated Balatro artwork has a brand new residence. In a put up on the Balatroromance subreddit (NSFW, bear in mind), DrTankHeadvert stated they proceed to help LocalThunk, PlayStack, and the remainder of the Balatro mod workforce, “and perceive why they’ve made the alternatives they made.” They additionally introduced a change to the Balatroromance guidelines to permit AI-generated artwork together with NSFW content material.
