I’ve used AI art in some of my games. I found that a great practice opportunity to work on UI (eg Arcbow, Delve). Using the AI art let me work on things like image mapping and NPC dialogue popups - it was a learning experience.
I wouldn’t submit those to something like this however, as I know the audience doesn’t want that.
I do worry that trying to discern AI text will result in a witch hunt. For example, I used a hyphen above, and I definitely overused them in Succor. I’ve been a fan of them for decades; it’s a lazy version of an em dash…and now em dashes are seen as a hallmark of Ai-generated text.
Will Succor be viewed as using a LLM for text because I’m too lazy to wrangle a backslash for every semicolon so I use a hyphen because most of my text is written in a neurodivergent flurried haze in the JavaScript section of twine?
Will my games be scrutinized extensively because I have a history of using AI art for practice in my profile?
Will I be unable to use a LLM to help with code even if I’m using it for education and then changing most of what it outputs as I QA and apply my own learned knowledge because I’m too socially awkward to successfully navigate the social dynamics of the twine discord?
I agree that games fully made by AI shouldn’t be allowed, but I think the implementation of such a policy requires a lot more nuance than these polling options provide.
…and I also think that blanket banning AI completely restricts us. I know that’s going to be controversial, but, for example, I made a prototype of a sidescroller in twine using AI code just because I wondered if we could (we can). That’s fun and funny and it opens the door to people making legit projects with the zany ideas we can whip up quickly. Maybe add another category for those type of experimental projects and require them to use an itch link and not an upload to save on server space, but I think there is some value in seeing what sort of wild ideas people make, as that can inspire us in our own future creations.
Anyways, I think an overall blanket ban is dangerous as it encourages us to witch hunt. AI writing is dull enough that those using it won’t float to the top. If the issue for art is server space, require it to be hosted remotely.
Spring Thing is an established competition with an established community. @mathbrush has said that he wants to ban games containing genAI art and text, and there’s clearly enough support for the idea that going ahead with it isn’t going to harm Spring Thing as an institution.
There’s no proposal here to ban AI-assisted games from being created by anyone, anywhere in the world, ever. Anyone with some time and energy to spare can create their own competition which actively invites those games. If enough genuinely good games and little enough dross come out of it, you might even change some minds. And if it turns out that no-one wants to enter such a competition, then banning AI games from Spring Thing probably doesn’t matter anyway.
@mathbrush, I think it’s pretty clear that the current discussion is pretty much over. Figuring out the broad strokes of the policy is pretty much solved since 90% support your anti-AI policy or even a stricter one, and the conversations going on in this thread seem to be mostly a vocal minority.
A reminder to people who support use of AI: this is one of countless jams/competitions and you are free to submit your AI-assisted work to other events that allow it.
The next step now is probably to clarify the rules and wording. Might we create a separate thread for this? This one has gotten too derailed.
I know this might be very unpopular, but I still wonder what is the gain from an AI ban?
After all there is something I have in mind for a game that I want to make real and enjoyable. But there might be obstacles that will prevent the project from starting at all - coding, images, writing, … Besides the downsides AI has an „enabling“ effect as well. It is just a tool, you probably will not get a good game without empowering and reworking the AI stuff with your own ideas and imaginations. Bad, uninspired walls of text, weird, unsuitable pictures - all this destroys a game - AI or no A. If the game is bad, no one is forced to play it - like a disappointing or boring book.
But who knows, perhaps the AI input does give a good start and lead to something enjoyable. Surely a competition is special in terms of the limited playing time. But perhaps it would be more expedient to stop playing the bad stuff earlier, but not categorically ban AI. A ban saves you from some bad entries, but maybe it „saves“ you from good entries as well. Bad games are not an exclusive domain of AI…
The problem is that multiple reviewers have said AI writing in the competition hurts their motivation to play and review. And without reviewers, there is no comp. People seem to enjoy creating AI works much more than they enjoy reading or playing them.
It’s not an ideological anti-AI stance, it’s ensuring that the comp can continue, by not driving away the reviewers who make it possible.
Yes, I can wholeheartedly understand this. Just clumping the AI stuff into a game without proper work to make a real game out of it is surely no work of creativity and a loss of time (and IMHO cannot be satisfying for the author as well unless adhering to a low self-efficiency)
But perhaps a clear marking (text, images, coding ) on the entry might be sufficient without strictly ruling out AI.
So if someone is loathe to playing AI stuff, the entries can be ignored or at least pushed to the end if the review list.
Just ideas, if I had a perfect solution, I‘d be rich and famous - which I am not
An “AI showcase” event could be interesting. I’d not want to play a game with AI-generated writing in any other context. Except maybe this, if it’s clearly labelled:
But even that might be better kept for a separate AI-themed event, at this stage anyway.
The game I made which I referenced, Succor, was part of Spring Fling. My questions are not just academic - I’m asking if something like my love for hyphens (eg janky em-dashes) is going to lead to my writing being flagged as AI? That’s already incredibly common behavior on reddit (granted, most call outs are clearly AI but I’ve seen some legit human written works being called out as AI simply for the use of an em dash). This is a fairly important question to me going forward with the competitions here, because I don’t want to be subject to a witch hunt due to my writing style combined with public dabbling in AI.
This seems to be a great solution, given that the biggest issue is people not wanting to interact with AI. Steam and itch have flags you can set to mark something as made using AI.
Regarding the hosting issue, as AI art often is lazily (or not even attempted to be) optimized, I again suggest mandatory external hosting for large size projects.
These comps also need participants and that’s why I’m suggesting being wary and using nuance in implementing policies. I’m not saying open the floodgates to AI generated content. I’m saying be careful of a blanket ban because it can lead to organically written art being flagged as AI, which can turn away writers.
I haven’t seen any existing events with genAI bans (e.g., all of the jams and comps hosted by the Neo-Interactives) inspire witch hunts—the organizers simply remove entries they believe infringe the guidelines. Brian/mathbrush gave one example above of publicly stating he thought a game used AI-generated text and then deleting the post because he realized it wasn’t appropriate. I think the norms of this community are strongly against making accusations and trying to get people in trouble.
Basically, I don’t think “AI bans may lead to witch hunts” is something this community needs to worry about, and definitely not a justifiable reason not to enact a ban.
No, because most people here are educated to some degree (many have master’s or even doctorates) and are well aware that not everyone who uses em dashes or “foster” or whatever is automatically using AI. Still, it’s pretty obvious when you have an unedited AI object description vs. a human-written one.
We most likely won’t be using an AI detector and will 100% be erring on the side of false negatives. There are more than enough authors who do not use AI for a successful Spring Thing. Again, if someone doesn’t like the ban, they would just not participate in this comp.
My worries are not exactly about a possible witch hunt. But I always perceived ST as a very unique mixture of fantastic, bad, weird, breathtaking, experimental, very experimental stuff.
And I think imposing rules that keep entrants away from the comp should be really hard thought over.
No one wants simple, bare and bad AI generated crap, but is „AI=crap“ so universally true, that a ban is necessary?
As a side note: Almost every ST25 entry got one ribbon or the other, so it seems they all were enjoyable at least by some members of the community. So, I wonder as well how big is the problem, actually?
There have been about 1-3 games with AI written text in most comps I’ve played recently (including the last IFComp, parser comp, TALJ). It’s a very small number.
@Hidnook you’re right that I can already make my decision now! I’m happy to get more feedback. The overwhelming number of votes is okay with my current idea (no AI text and no AI art). @dfabulich’s warning gives me pause, because he’s moderated large spaces before and has experience with the difficulties involved. So I’m definitely going to pick something between either the exact policy as stated for the original poll and asking people to voluntarily label their works as AI (with different labels for AI text and AI art). I’m leaning towards the first one.
BTW, both me and Ruber Eaglenest ectocomp have been looking for collaborators and/or eventual replacements. If anyone reading this has really strong opinions on Spring Thing or Ectocomp’s position on these types of things, feel free to contact us to become part of the team and influence the future!
That’s definitely a mistake! You were nominated for several. Let me PM you, something bad must have happened with my communication (likely because you were the only person in one category).
Less “AI = crap” and more “it seems like people enjoy generating AI games but don’t enjoy playing or reading them”. Again, multiple of the most prominent IF reviewers have said AI content makes them less interested in participating.
I like that Spring Thing has looser rules than IFComp to allow for weirder, more experimental works, but that has to be balanced against the need to have people actually play and write about the entries.
A hard AI ban implements „AI=crap“. It also rules out people enjoy generating AI games and enjoy playing or reading them. I think achieving balance often is more difficult than it seems at first sight.
Sorry for sounding pedantic. I for myself I would not use AI for text. Many of the folks here are writing on a level that I will never reach. But this would be ok for me, otherwise it is not „my game“ anymore. Coding - no AI. Something I love to do and my skills are hopefully good enough. Pictures - no chance. Even the paintings of my kids in the kindergarden are better than anything I could achieve, so this is an area where I would consider trying AI. The AI ban would rule me out…
For some of us it’s not AI=crap. It’s worse. It’s AI=plagiarism. I won’t try to convince you of that, but we can’t pretend it’s not a negative judgement.
GenAI absolutely needs its own competitions. It may end up building its own distinct community.
