Epic boss Tim Sweeney thinks stores like Steam should stop labelling games as being made with AI: 'It makes no sense,' he says, because 'AI will be involved in nearly all future production'

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney speaking Unreal Fest 2024 in Seattle — (Image credit: Epic Games)

Look at any of a number of Steam store pages—Arc Raiders, for instance—and you'll see a fairly prominent "AI generated content disclosure" laying out which parts of the game make use of AI generated content. Go to the Epic Games Store, however, and you'll see nothing of the sort. And that's a difference that's not likely to change, for one simple reason: Epic boss Tim Sweeney thinks AI disclosures are a waste of time.

"The AI tag is relevant to art exhibits for authorship disclosure, and to digital content licensing marketplaces where buyers need to understand the rights situation," Sweeney wrote on X (via GamesRadar), agreeing with a user who called for Steam and other digital storefronts to eliminate the gen AI labelling. "It makes no sense for game stores, where AI will be involved in nearly all future production."

Agreed. The AI tag is relevant to art exhibits for authorship disclosure, and to digital content licensing marketplaces where buyers need to understand the rights situation. It makes no sense for game stores, where AI will be involved in nearly all future production. — (Image credit: Tim Sweeney (Twitter))

This isn't the first time Sweeney has expressed support for generative AI: Earlier this month, for instance, he waded into the debate over Arc Raiders' use of AI-generated voices with a fantasy about games with "infinite, context-sensitive, personality-reflecting dialog based on and tuned by human voice actors." And he's probably not wrong that in the coming years, more and more game companies will take advantage of generative AI to some extent.

His comment about "the rights situation" alludes to one of the biggest worries about generative AI: That it steals and reuses actual creative work without acknowledging or paying the people who created it in the first place. Sweeney is well aware of that issue, because it's something he's voiced concerns about in the past, and I'm pretty confident he knows full well that those legalities are still being settled as major media companies fight to preserve their little slices of the pie. The presence of potentially infringing content in gen AI games alone justifies the existence of AI labelling, as far as I'm concerned.

But I think the bigger question amidst all this right now is, quite simply, what purpose would eliminating the label serve? There are plenty of game companies who don't use generative AI, and hopefully that will remain the case even as its use expands overall. And a significant portion of gamers obviously care—just look at the blowup every time the presence of generative AI in a game or image comes to light.

I suspect that's the real reason AI boosters would like to see AI labelling in games go away: Not because it's "irrelevant," but because a lot of people don't like plagiarized bullshit in their games, and it's harder for them to make informed decisions and push back on AI use if it isn't disclosed.. Maybe someday Sweeney will get his wish, and we'll be so awash in AI generated sights and sounds that we'll be forced to throw up our hands in surrender. But I imagine that if we do ever reach that point, we'll have plenty of other, more pressing things to keep our thoughts occupied.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

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