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Are AI generated levels allowed?

A topic by SlashDashGamesStudio created Mar 24, 2023 Views: 1,239 Replies: 11
Viewing posts 1 to 7

Note; I'm just posting what I asked on Newgrounds onto here.

 didn't know if I should bother the owner of this site with the question or not or to even ask this in the first place.

However long story short for future endeavors I was toying with the idea of using AI generated levels instead of human made levels. Please note I'd still be using assets made by me and possibly using levels designed by other people to train said AI.

On one hand I want to cut down the workload on future projects, long story short a platformer/ brick breaker style game I have sitting on the back burner because I'm a bit more wary about this question.

Yeah, yeah I could hire an actual level designer to cut down on the work load but I'd rather not spend the money to do so. I know this is a slippery slope. I know for this site you're not allowed to put on here/ have AI generated art, of course I'm not doing that unless I am using my own art and training my own AI with my own art and not other people's art.

(+3)

I don´t know how anyone should even know if you use AI generated levels. Besides the fact you just told us. I know this whole AI thing is going to be more and more of a topic on here, there are several posts about it already. My opinion -and i guess that is all that anyone can give you- is that you can use as much or as little AI generated stuff as you want. Depending on what kind of AI program you use, of course. Some allow the use of generated stuff at least for non-commercial purpose, others may not. And contrary to popular belief, there are AI programs that are fed with free stuff, free pictures for example. But that is another topic, i guess. 


Thing is, even big companies are going to be using AI in the future, i´m pretty sure of it. Why should smaller, or even indie developers, not use it? We would have much more of a reason to. Less people, smaller budget(or non at all, if it´s just a hobby).

Huh? Is AI generated stuff banned here? I distintly remember games on here with stuff that was said to be AI.

AI is a bad word for what it is. It confuses people and gives false expectations.

For itch I imagine it would be a problem, if the copyright is unclear.   If you publish you somehwere assert that you do infact have   the right to do so.   Including  copyrights/licenses where needed. Should you have   material in the neural net training set, that you were not allowed to use,  that could lead to problems. And   there are arguments made  in courts, that you cannot even copyright AI material (imho that stems from that false expectation. AI implies I and that implies personhood, and if some other person created it, you cannot have the copyright. Or something like that. Wich is also wrong, because you can absolutely retain copyright of your employed workers. It is complicated, and the judges and lawmakers do not know much about computers, so they   try to apply rules from other fields.  That does not work well often.)

(+2)

How much different levels made by AI compared to levels made by computer for roguelike games?

Just as Crazy duck games posted above, people (most if not all) won't know if your levels have been made by AI or computer instead of human.

IMO it's shouldn't be a problem as long the assets used to construct those levels are original or at least not stolen.

Rogue Likes. Yes.

People wondering about AI  stuff, when we already have computer generated levels.  

That's good to know.

(2 edits)

Whether you can find the difference is completely missing the point of those who are against AI-generated content, because they look farther than mere material output. As you say, you are aware of the slippery slope involved, so I don’t feel the need to explain it further.

Is it allowed? Yes. Since this topic went into ethics, all I can say is: you have your market.

(+1)

I use AI for some things, personally I don't see anything wrong with it. Terrain generators and character generators could be considered AI. I have also used some AI-generated images in my games which would otherwise have been just text. I don't think there's anything unethical about using tools available to you, after all computers themselves and the internet had the same scepticism.

I think this is where the confusion is; what I mean is an AI trained on others level design/ level layouts. Not the art itself but using other people's levels to train your AI for building.

(+2)

We need a better word for that.  AI does not signify  that you trained the I with data. It only signifies that it is a computer doing the thinking. AI is everything a computer decides. From controling bots in a multiplayer game to chess computers. It is an artificial (human made)   intelligence (computational appliance based on a set of inputs and memory and rules).   It confuses that they use the term AI for those neural networks with advanced training sets. It is not what they are, though they can exhibit  a quite sophisticated level of imitation on their training sets.

Trained neural net maybe. Trained algorithm. TA. In contrast to a predefined algorithm. Or an heuristic one.

You question is of  the kind where I think, would that even be possible or would there even be any point to that.   Rogue likes use procedural generated levels. You just define some rules and let the AI work. The procedural algorithm you made for creating a level that is valid  under your game's rules.

I recently played baba is you, a puzzle game. Could you train a net to make levels for that game?   Would those levels be fun?

How about pretty much every ego shooter.    Levels for those mimic real life architecture. The layout of the level consist of more than how it looks. Some even hide their linearity from the player. Or how about Dark Souls levels.  Or Skyrim Dungeons.

What I am trying to say, I am not sure if level design is a computational problem that needs solving by a trained neural net. There are solutions that work  procedural and with a rng. Also, it would be very game specific. Or at least genre specific. I suppose you could copy platformer levels from other platformers and so on.  And if you can copy it, you could maybe train a net with that. But why bother, you can probably come up with a normal algorithm that has the rules of your level design hardwired. Maybe you just do not realize what those rules are, yet. Nets are good at figuring such stuff out.   But a    brick breaker platformer sounds predestined for procedural level generation.

It won't be satisfying working with ai to make levels.

As every developer prefers their own style to make a level for any game and it wouldn't always meet their expectations

It depends on the info you feed it. An AI is only as good as the info you give it.