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Should the GMTK Game Jam allow AI-generated material? (Patreon)

Published:
2023-05-10 08:48:29
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Poll

Should the GMTK Game Jam allow AI-generated material?

  • Allow all AI material 429
  • Ban all AI material 402
  • Only allow AI art 65
  • Only allow AI code 137
  • 2023-05-10
  • 1033 votes
{'title': 'Should the GMTK Game Jam allow AI-generated material?', 'choices': [{'text': 'Allow all AI material', 'votes': 429}, {'text': 'Ban all AI material', 'votes': 402}, {'text': 'Only allow AI art', 'votes': 65}, {'text': 'Only allow AI code', 'votes': 137}], 'closes_at': None, 'created_at': datetime.datetime(2023, 5, 10, 8, 47, 43, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc), 'description': None, 'allow_multiple': False, 'total_votes': 1033}

Content

Hey! I'm getting very close to announcing the date for the 2023 GMTK Game Jam, but I feel like I need to make a decision on something before I do. And that's this: should we allow or ban the use of generative AI?

In the last 12 months there has been an explosion of tools that can be used to write code, create art and music, and pen dialogue. And so I need to make a stance - one way or another - on whether this stuff should be part of the jam, or kept away from it.

I have some thoughts and feelings, but I don't want to bias the poll. So please use the poll below to have your say. And you can use the comments to expand if you wish.

Thanks!

Comments

Arvin

It's futile to ban it, people will use it anyway. Embrace the AI revolution!

Two Separate Gorillas

I think that AI is a bell that cant be unrung and unless you make people release the code for their game you will never be able to tell whether AI was used for programming.

biddiBytes

I think it's best to allow it but encourage transparency

Chartor

My gut initially said "allow AI art but ban AI code" - but I realised that this is only my view because I can code but I cannot create art! I am sure that an artist would have the opposite viewpoint. If you allow all AI content I think it will be extremely difficult to judge all of the entries and there could be a lot of messy games thrown in, so although I support generative AI for helping a lot - I would vote to ban for this game jam.

Ddgr

In case it's banned, how are you planning on enforcing this? By the way, I think a Jam is a place for experimentation, so I can't imagine a better place to try any new tool.

Shoval Arad

I think that even if AI is allowed (which imho is not that bad for game gam where time is scarse) any AI part have to be labeled as such (every piece of AI code or art need to be labled and shown in the game page)

Tommaso Giubilei

Excluding the fact that you can't really tell when it's used and when it's not. It's a tool, and as such I feel it's correct that people can use it. The GoGodot Jam had a good rule about this: You can use it, but you have to explicitly say where AI was used during the creation of the game.

Pieter Pauwels

of course people could use it anyway, and there wouldn't be an easy way to tell, but that doesn't mean it's pointless to include in the rules at all. after all, what's stopping people right now to start working on a project two weeks sooner and just adapt it to whatever the theme ends up being? seems weird to join a game jam if you end up ignoring the rules

Camilla Moriconi

AI can be of assistance for ispiration, but whatever it produces (either art or code) is wildly inconsistent and always based on other people's work. I'd prefer an asset flip to stolen art

Khronos

I think it would be difficult, if not impossible, to enforce a ban. So I would say allow it, or at least allow code. After all, AI can only do code snippets and not fully functional games.

Liliana

For my ten cents, the point of a game jam is to test your design skills under pressure. If you're outsourcing code, art, music, dialogue, idea generation, what's left? I personally don't wanna play 1000 chatGPT games

Flozza

I think it’ll be near impossible to ban AI code and the line is blurry at best. How are you going to enforce the ban? Is it unfair to the honest people if you can’t enforce it? I can’t speak much in art but I voted to allow it too. The main reason is that I think we’re in a period of experimentation and gam jam seems great for that. What happens if you allow it? Great new ideas or is everything the same and creativity goes out the window? Do artists benefit or are they harmed by it? Edit: I like the idea of labelling games created with AI maybe with two labels for code and art?

ZoidbergForPresident

Before I would have been keen to allow any form of it as it is a means of doing more with less but with all the sickening religion-like "arguments" going around with this, I'd rather see absolutely nothing of the sort, even in a jam...

Vlad Kononkov

IMHO the ban will bring all the debate about possible regulations and their efficiency. And by that a lot of people that would otherwise didn't even consider using AI could now look for possible ways of using AI around said regulations. (Not even mentioning the impossibility of checking 6000 or so entries for their art and code)

Mj 323

i recommend allowing it and deciding if multiple competition / reward categories should be allowed based on the kind, number, and quality of the submissions; people who use it must disclose what parts they used AI for, and maybe how much; AI winners might need to be able to lightly prove what they used was AI-generated / inspired

Benjamin Cramphorn

Keep the AI material and allow people to vote on which games they feel are AI created games and which ones by humans. It will be interesting to see if people can tell the difference. Maybe when you make your video at the end break the games down into two categories... AI vs Human as well to showcase them and compare and contrast the differences if there are any.

Voxel Passport | VoxPa

As I said on twitter, I reckon that right now would probably be the best time to see how allowing for AI generated content would impact something like this. It's a jam, not a competition so it would be interesting to see if AI generated stuff is easy to spot and to see if and how it could potentially help with creating games.

Ben Byford and friends

think its similar to having a larger team, if you've had help then calling it out would be awesome... My team was 3 people, I used some Code generation using chatgpt, I used downloadable assets from XYZ

Megukaphii

The way stuff is going, AI of all forms is inevitably going to be used in the industry, so I think game jams should reflect that by allowing it too, just require that it be labelled as such for transparency.

An Actual Dragon

The whole point of a Game Jam, from what I understand, is to promote creativity by having creators work within a tight time constraint. It's a challenge you engage in voluntarily, to try and make something, to put your imaginings into tangible form- If you came in and just had an AI procedurally generate a game for you, that rather defeats the whole point, no? And most of all, it's never going to create anything new; It will always be derivative of what it was trained on.

Kit Rees

Allowing AI will become requiring AI. If we allow steroids in sports, then everyone will need to do steroids to remain competitive. I'm not against AI. I'm actually for it, but it does not belong in a competition. On the other hand… if such a rule can't be reinforced or regulated… may as well allow it.

Vin

I feel like especially in a Game Jam, which is about trying out new things and seeing where you can take the medium, it's important to include the new tools that pop up.

Vlad Kononkov

I mean, it will be an industry standard in months, not even years. If you Allow AI tools — we can possibly get a lot of entries with smart implementation of an AI and overall better polished games. Without it — we will get a lot of "oldschool pipeline" games that couldn't compete with other's Jams in terms of quality for 2 days of production. You cannot AI generate game design anyways.

WeakLeaf

I would allow code + art too. My reasoning is that: - Its incredibly hard to figure out which is AI generated art/code (except if there is near zero modification to it) - It automates things, but its not perfect, you still need coding / drawing skills to make the game I think the best solution would be if someone uses AI he/she should mention it somewhere. Also I would bann the near 100% AI generated games, where there is no modification at all.

Cookiedraggy

I'm against it but if you allow it, encourage transparency and discussion around the topic so everyone can learn from it. As an artist the things terrifies me, but as others have said, it is here to stay, so a jam is a perfect safe place to explore it constructively.

Damyan Momchev

I believe that new tools that advance the industry should not be banned. This is, of course, not meant to say that models trained with unlicensed assets are okay, but we currently have no way of controlling this in its entirety. What I would propose is to allow all AI content, but ask in the game submission form what content was AI-generated.

Clovis

Lets any AI content burn to ashes, and supports your favorite artists

Harsha

Why shy away from the inevitable way of working in the future? Most devs I know use AI to write code at work, even designs in their work. Game designers across would do the same. Would be a shame to ban it instead of embracing it.

Some Random Name

I feel that game jams should encourage use and understanding of tools that developers have access to. AI-handling is a valid skillset. The problem with AI art though is that the vast majority of it is illegally generated, in that the AI has been grown from art to which the AI does not have the legal rights to copy from. Less so with code. So allow code, disallow art.

Mickaël Godard

AI is just a tool to accelerate development, same as Unity, Visual Studio or Maya. The only real controversy for AI is how they are trained and that's going to be legally settled, but I don't think there is a question about the value of it or if it will be largely used or not in the future. Also, it's not that easy to generate a coherent complex product through AI. There will be good games done with AI and there will be terrible ones. It's about the craftmanship, not the tool.

Dominik Bartsch

As others said, enforcing a ban is hard to impossible. Also Ai helps people who are not that great with coding or music or art or... To cover that "weakness". So allow it but at least state, that it must be made transparent

Emilia Rosalina

Is this just to ban ChatGPT-like tools? Would it also ban GitHub Copilot? Either way this sounds basically impossible to enforce. Especially tools like Copilot I see no reason for banning since it just augments your capabilities and just saves time. Sure that's important in a game jam but with the way the industry is heading it'd be a very short lived rule, one which will sound insane just a few years from now. In my workplace the opposite of what you'd expect is happening. Newcomers to the code we write usually don't use Copilot and people more familiar with it use Copilot. I really view it as a tool to help, and not something that writes code for you. If you don't know what you're doing, it's only going to get in the way. Banning complete code generators instead of just assistants makes more sense, but it still sounds really hard to enforce and it's not like those can generate a whole game. Parts of it, sure. But the important parts of a game is stringing that together in a coherent way, something those tools aren't great at. I think just the fact that it's hard to enforce says enough with where the industry is heading. If there's essentially no difference between human written code and AI written code when looked at as a whole, why would it influence the result? That means more focus can be given on the creative aspects of the game, the concept, the presentation, the content. I think people are going to use it regardless. It's so hard to detect that it's going to slip through the cracks no matter how hard you try. Might as well explicitly allow it so that everyone is actually playing by the same rules. At the end of the day the coding of a game isn't that important. If I'm playing a game I don't care whether it's written in C, Python, Java or whatever. Someone can decide to write a game in brainfuck, that's an interesting challenge, but it doesn't make the game itself better. It changes how the developer got to the result, but it's not making the result better. The journey to the result can be the art, I'm not arguing against that, but I don't think that's the focus of this game jam. I think in that same way whether the code is written with AI also doesn't make the game better or worse, it's just different means of getting to the result. I'm not commenting on AI art here since that's tied up in even more moral issues and I'm not really sure what the state of those tools are. From what I've seen they show promise in the future but aren't actually far enough to help in game development, but I could be wrong there.

Joe Morris

Save time not trying to enforce it (as covered in other comments), and by working with people, you might get an honest response to “did you use AI”, which would allow you to judge them in separate categories vs. non-AI. AI will be used to create games in the world going forward. 🤷🏼‍♂️ The GameJam can be a good showcase / study / help us understand how that will work, will it actually help the final product, etc. You and the GameJam are awesome no matter what you decide! 😎👍🏻

Trisibo

I'm for banning AI art on principle, whatever the context, inevitable or not I do not want to support the destruction of artist jobs by something that, in my opinion, doesn't offer any advantage other than not having to pay them. And I'm for banning AI code because in my experience it's seriously terrible code, and that's when it works and doesn't have bugs.

Victor Hughes

I say give ai a try for this game jam. If things go south in some way, ban it in the next game jam. I also think if people use ai to make any art or any code, maybe they should be encouraged to add some kind of "tag", saying "some art was made with ai" or "some code was made with ai". No need to specify what was ai generated, just that some parts of it was. Quick, simple, and fair solution.

Shreyas Venkatesh

I feel like AI art and code should be allowed in a separate category of submissions. It would be a way for people who can't do art/coding to make a game for the jam which is a valuable plus but at the same time it is important to distinguish between work made with AI assistance and work without.

RoseHeartMakes

Make an AI category and No AI category this time. To do either exclusively would be a disservice to the discussion.

Dino65AC

Impossible to enforce... You'll get both sides mad if you ban it and can't enforce it. I think it will be an interesting discussion when the jam is over, how AI is impacting development, the good and the bad. Maybe you can request submission to disclose if they used generative AI and for which parts.

James Redmond

On AI code: I'm gonna side with StackOverflow in their decision to ban ChatGPT on their site: "The answers which ChatGPT produces have a high rate of being incorrect, they typically look like they might be good and the answers are very easy to produce". So at best it's wasting the time of a skilled developer and at worst offering bad advice to a novice developer who can't see that it's bad code and causing more problems than what it would solve On AI art: there seems to be widely varying results in terms of how long it takes to get useable results. You could end up spending more time tweaking prompts in order to get something that doesn't look cursed than it would to slap something together yourself even if you are "bad" at art. There's also the huge glaring issue of where AI art takes it's "inspiration" from. The winner could end up having art that bears a striking resemblance to someone's commissioned work and has to deal with "Cease and Desist" threats for using art without consent

Pau The Player

I was going to say the same thing. I'm not so AI friendly, but banning I think it's not a solution. If you have a category just for the people that want to use it (and make it work properly) it could be a plus for everyone. That way we can learn about AI contribution because, at the end, we'll have experimentation.

Erin Brioche

I definitely think AI art should be banned on principle (it's iffy from an ethical POV, and a copyright POV). Code might be more complicated, but I suppose that's not too different to using a library. A buggy, messy library.

Agathe Mametz

It's like Steve in Smash Bros (not banned 99% of the time) : it's too soon to know if it makes a difference

StanFyr

Other than being, as many said, basically impossible to enforce, I don't think banning all AI is a good thing. I would be for banning AI Art, solely based on what these AI are trained on. but the option of only allowing AI code doesn't allow for what AI are great for (IMO) : Generating ideas, and iterating on them. What makes a good game is not only code, images and ideas, you also have to weave them together into a coherent project. basically, it all depends on what the GameJam is meant to explore : Code ? Art ? Ideas, The way they are brought into a coherent game ? in any case, a tag, or section to say what was generated through AI would be a nive idea.

Jonathan Fleming

High school Game Design teacher here - The whole point of my job is to prepare students for real world experience and encouraging skill development. AI encourages laziness and promotes not needing to develop new skills or teamwork for the skills you don't have. If you can use AI, that means your future boss can use AI, which may put you out of a job. And yes, game jams are just for fun, so who cares if AI is used to get ahead, right? You won't be able to tell in the end anyways, right? Well, unfortunately all of that is correct, but do yourself a favor and take the time to train your skills. Practice your craft and make yourself valuable in your industry.

Oskar van Velden

I kinda "hate" all these AI-stuff, but that's me feeling that creativity should come from people themselves and shouldn't be generated. Probably also because I'm afraid (being an artist and coder) that at some point my work can all be generated ... which would make me obsolete somehow. But it is part of the game-dev world we currently live in, so don't think we should exclude it. Maybe allow it, but people "have to" label/mark it when it's used (just like what Damyan said above as well)

David Schoneveld

Theres something inauthentic to AI however we all have been enjoying AI generated music for a decade and almost no one's complained. Its going to be part of workflows for sure. We can all be the old man yelling "get off my lawn" or just accept that tools change. Design is so hard whatever can help you make something better, do it!

Austin Allen

As an outsider, how easy is it to detect AI material, especially code? Is there a realistic way to enforce this, or is it going to be mostly honor system? If the latter, I feel like trying to ban it wouldn't be very effective.

Mattia ''Hondrus'' Martelli

I voted for ban, but the idea of having 2 separate categories for "with AI" and "without AI" could be the right way. The results will be evenly balanced

John Micale

I'm with the camp that thinks it's a little early, and so banning it is a more prudent choice. But here's the real question then: how do you police that? Like, we know there will be people who use these tools anyway, even if they could disqualify you. It will be impossible for you to review literally everything. Tough call Mark

Anthony Brown

I voted to allow it. I think a game jam is an interesting place to see how people can use it. I also think it would be worthwhile to ask people to include what they used AI on and how they used it, then decide based off of that whether to ban it in the future. As far as I know AI can’t just make a game, so design, a large part of coding, any 3D art, actual game feel, and putting that all together is still going to require skillz. If people could just ask for a game and get a working one based on a prompt I’d say no.

OSW Review

I voted to ban AI-produced content. The idea of the Game Jam is a PERSONAL accomplishment, to challenge the limits of what one person can do in a specific deadline, a period of intense creativity and drive. Giving people an easy, dehumanized, derivative out goes against all of that.

Adam Zee

It's a really really complicated subject, but the deciding factor for me is that the overwhelming majority of material that went into programming the AI generators was used without the permission or compensation of the original creators, many of whom have since taken a strong stance against AI art at least in part because of that. If that weren't the case, I could see a strong argument for allowing generated material, but since that's not the world we live in, it seems very harmful to creators to use generators in ANY case. I don't envy your situation, since there would undoubtedly be people who still used generators even if you said not to, and there's no guarantee you could catch them all even in the finalists. But openly taking a stance is still important, because it lets people know what you value and can affect the way people feel and talk about the issue. I'll be looking forward to this jam no matter what you decide, though!

Emiliano Topino

I don't think AI can make an interesting and innovative game on its own, so I vote "no" on banning. Also it's going to be hard, if not impossible, to know if AI was used or not. However I can see that people that don't know how to use it (or don't want to use it) mighe feel it's unfair to them. I liked the idea of having 2 different categories "with AI" and "without AI". Comparing the games in both categories is going to be really interesting

Steven S

I'd say let it go. This is what AI is/was meant for: helping people create those things that they find they themselves can't. It's an extension, it's an expansion, but it in no way will make a game any better other than helping people who may not be game designers become game designers! It's like what digital did to music making!

Tim Campbell

I think it should be allowed but have its own category. That way participants could explore its possibilities transparently and it could produce some interesting comparisons between AI/non-AI results.

Ilja Plutschouw

I would allow AI, there is no way around it at this point. It will be part of our normal toolset in the future, better try out the posibilities one way or another and what better place to allow for experiments like this then a game jam. Just using generated images and code is not going to cut it for the more interesting artwork and code problems anyway, but maybe it allows for more complex game jam projects. Maybe AI should be mentioned in the credits so you’d have a nice way of distinguishing AI projects from non-AI projects, enforcing that is impossible though.

Allan Edwards

It would be worth tagging AI generated content, as people usually do on DeviantArt for example.

Lauren N

Though generally I dislike AI stuff, I do think if there's one place they'd be at the most useful, it'd be in a game jam. Game jams are more about the ideas rather than content creation, and AI could be used to generate repetitive content so you can get more done in a small period of time, and focus on the core of the game. That said, I wouldn't use an AI because it sort of defeats the purpose of learning how to make games. If I were you, I'd heavily encourage people to create their own content, but not enforce it, and instead ask people to flag what content was made by AI. If you ban it, people will sneak it in regardless and it'd be really hard to know what is and isn't AI assisted - if you allow it but ask people to flag it, you'll at least know it's there. Sorry, this has probably all been said before. The poll is really hard to answer with just those four options...

Christina Creates Games

I don't see a Problem with ai Code. You still need skills to get good results and be able to work with what you get. If you allow ai Art, I can See major backlash on Social Media coming your way. Artist are much more negatively vocal about ai than Programmers, in my experience. You won't be able to stop people from using either, but by discouraging at least AI art, you can make mostly sure that in the spotlight Video you create after the Project is no ai Art as far as you know.

JC - Thank you Boylei, you're the best!

I vote ban. The point of the game-jam is to challenge the participants' creativity. AI-generated content is a lazy way of cutting corners and automating work which should be done by humans, and I think it should automatically disqualify any contestants who are found to be using it.

Paul

It is impractical to not allow it since you couldn't check anyway. I would allow full AI use. And I would ask for (voluntary) documentation/ comment, for which parts AI has been used. Could be interesting!

Daniel

Go for it! Game Jams are about creating something amazing and creative in a short time - AI will multiply the possibilities and I cant wait to see what people will be able achieve with these tools. As an experienced programmer, use of Copilot and ChatGPT is now absolutely routine for me in all development work I do. Being told I can’t use it would be like entering a Game Jam and being told I can’t use Unity or mustn’t look at Stack Overflow. i.e. It would be perhaps interesting but quite a niche activity, more like an interview. To be worried that making games is now “too easy” is to worry that too many unworthy people will have the chance to do it. It’s a great thing! I see that there may be downstream problems - like we might get a great many fairly simple submissions. But solving that problem by banning AI will chop off not only the lowest quality, but also (potentially) the highest quality entries. What’s more - this Jam is about Game Design. It’s entirely possible that the most creative design idea might just come from someone with fairly limited art and coding skills. Previously they would have had no chance of their idea seeing the light, but now its more possible than ever! Let’s see if this is actually a problem and solve it in another way, like by tweaking the crowdsourcing of ratings somehow to make it easy to sort through more submissions.

Matthew Kennedy

I went with "Allow all AI material" but I think participants should be required to name all the software they used to create their games. What I'm about to say is intended only for independent developers who are working class people with limited time and resources. I would be in favor of banning publishers from using AI as a cost cutting measure in any capacity. Pay your employees. The following is for independent game developers (particularly in the context of a game jam). I'm a programmer and 100% okay with AI generated code. Technically every time you compile a program there's AI generating code for you. I've made small games before as learning exercises, but never intended to share them with a wide audience. These would have been impossible without having access to graphics libraries and still required hundreds of hours to create. I'd imagine there are still technical and design reasons why the game developer may want to make manual edits to AI generated code. Is this a massive departure from editing premade assets in Unreal Engine or Unity? Music I've heard some AI generated music, particularly covers of popular songs using another famous artist's voice. I'm sure most of it is terrible and easy to identify as being AI generated. The stuff that does sound good needs to have it's input meticulously tweaked by the people using it and at that point, AI is just a tool no different from FL Studio or Ableton. The decisions one would have to make to turn AI generated music into something that sounds good are creative decisions. Anyone trying to make money off a project using an AI version of another human's voice should be required to pay that person though. Visual art This the category I feel the least confident about simply because I've heard the most objections to it. Most AI created visual art is bad. I have no problem with a game designer using AI to create concept art then heavily tweaking it so it becomes actually good though. Dialogue AI generated dialogue is dry and boring for the most part. It would need a human to turn it into something digestible. I made my disclaimer up top, but once again it bears repeating that publishers (for games and books as well as TV and movie studios) should be banned from using AI generated writing. I'm fine with it being used a starting point for an independent artist as long as they turn the writing into something good. As an aside, the conversation around AI art proves the continue relevance of Marx's writing on commodity fetishism. Art is primarily a form of communication from one human to another. Corporations would prefer you believe that art is nothing more than a product that just appeared out of thin air instead of coming from the labor of human beings. Any form of media that is 100% AI generated is not art because it's missing the critical component of human expression.

Nubels

Are cs go players allowed to use aim bots in tournaments?

Brokennoodles

I feel like one of the main points of the game jam is the creativity, especially in the short timeframe, so in particular with art a lot of that is going to disappear if AI is allowed. Less concerned avout code, but that's mostly because from what I've heard you generally don't get anything good out of AI code generators. That does go against anither main point of game jams though, which is the learning. I get why people are saying 'do both and just make sure that it's noted when a project uses AI', and that might be good initially for getting data, but I feel like what will happen is people making art and code traditionally are going to end up with less polished products purely because of the time limitation, which are suddenly being compared with games where the art assets were generated in the first 5 minutes and consequently had the entire run of the jam to do their code, or vice versa. Tldr: AI generated art and code is directly opposed to the ideas of creativity and learning, which are two key pillars of the game jam

Brokennoodles

Also people are saying that it's 'impossible to police' but that's not the point. You don't make rules based on how easy it is to police them. It's technically 'impossible to police' how much of a game was made before a jam, but it's still an important rule

Evan Malmud

If it is allowed flagging it would be great.

Zebulon Pi

Hell, how would you even know? Ignoring it won’t make it go away, I say embrace it. It will never replace creativity, only help it come to fruition. Cooypasted art and code won’t a good experience make, and people that just slapdash this stuff together won’t suddenly take over game development. It’s Google 2.0, embrace it, have it be the help it can be.

Joshua Harris

I vote to allow all ai generated content. These AI tools are just tools. Ai isn't going to write the whole game and the jam participants will still need to design the content they want the Ai to help them implement. I don't think it reduces creativity but it may actually increases it since people will be able to bring to life ideas that they may have not had the skill to realize on their own.

Juan M

As an artist I have the opposite view. Especially because AI code is created from open source training, and AI art is ripped from popular websites without regard for licensing. However, I think both should be allowed as long as you are transparent about it.

Juan M

Actually AI can do the game design. It’s easy to ask, “make rules for a puzzle video game that only has mouse controls and features gems.” It generates interesting ideas. Also, old news, someone used and designed this game: https://sumplete.com/

Juan M

This is the view I agree with. But don’t just encourage transparency, require transparency.

David Butkus

Regardless of the "morality," "creative legitimacy," or "practicality of policing" the issue, let's try to maintain some perspective on the exact question: we're talking about one year's rules for an event that is run, more or less, for the hell of it. Nobody is going to lose their job or die (hopefully) if AI-generated assets are allowed. I think it would be a cool experiment to see what the results looks like compared to those of previous years, so I hope that Mark takes an open-minded, scientific perspective on this and gives AI a shot. "Cry havoc," etc.

Vanja Pejovic

Allow AI code. It's almost hard not to use it with some development environments, and it cannot replace a programmer. You will still have to write lots of code. For AI art, I'm conflicted. Allowing it would possibly allow more ideas to flourish, but also leave less space for artists to contribute. Banning it would force people to practice their art skills more. What about having 2 categories. One for no AI art, and one for no human art?

Mister Grr

I'm against AI use for primarily ethical reasons. From what little I know if it, it functions in a way that is a bit too close to plagiarism for my tastes. Additionally I think it prevents/hampers the development of fundamental skills. And it disincentivizes reaching out to others for the sake of collaboration.

Antonín Maloň

I think it may be nice to have it be a question when submitting, "Have you used AI-assisted tools when making your game?" Similarly to the questions about original art/sound, everyone can adjust their rating in a way they find appropriate for that particular entry.

Antonín Maloň

I'm afraid there is a lot of controversy regarding how coding AIs are trained as well ;). The code may be public, but there too are accusations of disregarding licenses.

Willhart

It's just a tool like any other. You won't get a good finished product with just using it, but it can help make the parts you are less good at easier.

Willhart

You still have to come up with an idea and learn/discover/plan how make it happen. The creativity is not going anywhere even with AI as help.

Apollo

this is a bit silly. AI is just a tool. If anything, allowing AI tools will allow more people to participate. People should be allowed to use any tool they want

Jeremiah Franczyk

I would say ban it. Not because "raaaar AI!" but because game jams to me are about honing your craft. AI here is like using asset packs - it turbocharges your own creative output, but doesn't really show what skills you and your team possess. It doesn't move you closer to being able to use tools like Photoshop or Maya to make those things yourself. Maybe in the future those tools will be replaced with AI-generative tools, but I still think there's value - especially in low stakes, experimental settings like game jams - in people learning how to fish for themselves.

Windastella

It is as destructive as proc gen. To me it is the same as using proc gen tools to create art or levels while not being as predictable. To me, it doesnt really useful past early pre production phase. It is not as useful as it tauted to be for art. For coding, it is out dated, Godot 4 had basically change most syntax and ap, rendering generated code is useful for idea generation but not as useful to just copy paste code with. The token amount was also major limitation for anything larger than a single function and not even enough for classes. The issue will be people claiming it was their own work which is not. I suggest to add tickbox mentioning that this work use AI for Art, Code or Content.

ignosis.co

The art and coding community do have their own unwritten rules. Both enjoy sharing, teaching and being collaborative, but there is a sense of ownership when it comes to art. With coding, no one owns it, and it's been copied and reproduced happily all the time. Ban the art as generative AI uses others work without credit or permission, allow code as it's the natural progression of open source.

Mithos56

If it were an art jam, you wouldn't allow AI art, and if it were a writing jam, you wouldn't allow AI writing. You'd want works created by the participants. Why would a game jam be any different?

Specter CD

I want to see people experiment with what they want, Even if it uses AI art.

JJK MSW

I feel less informed than others but as a gamer and not designer, I don’t want to put restraints on the designer. That said, I would still appreciate away your recognize and celebrate those who designed without any AI.

Keith Boshoff

Allow it all. The value in a game is not how it was made, but how it made you feel. AI can't create that by itself. Yet.

Fran

Creators should label their games according to areas where they used AI in order for categories to be established.

Ben Visness

The point of a game jam is to explore ideas. I don’t think AI tools will have any bearing on a jam game’s overall creative vision or execution.

Brett Russell

AI written code is a non-factor and impossible to police anyways. Might as well ban googling code questions or using visual scripting. Art on the other hand is tougher. The ethics of how the art is made isn't great which is something to consider but as a non-artist, beginner, solo dev, AI art is a tool, just like asset packs and pre made tools, that can help level the playing field a little. I also don't think directly tagging projects with AI components is a good idea because there will be people who can't look past their biases while judging. Perhaps putting the AI tools used in the credits is a compromise that acknowledges their usage while limiting pre-judging.

Jennifer S

From my understanding of how AI art is generated, it's basically stealing from every artist who ever had anything put online, without credit let alone permission let alone again compensation. Programmers have a different ethic and an open-source, google-solutions culture; artists are being constantly stolen from as it is even without AI piling on. (This is NOT to say programming doesn't require creativity, just that copying someone's art without permission is theft in a way that copying someone's code without permission isn't necessarily theft.) While it may be impossible to enforce, I think it's important for you to take a stand on how AI exploits artists in this way.

Andres de Pedro

I'have mixed feelings about this... I agree 100% in that a JAM is a colaborative experiment in a short time span to make something different, and you shouldn't use already made code/art/music by others because that feels a bit like cheating compared to other participants... In that way I feel AI must be banned from jams, as the point is what you can make in time with the experiencie and knowledge you already have in your own arsenal (as you can use your own developed code or art base material) But at the same time jams are about being crazy and foolish and you explore something to learn and try to be as creative as posible. and we can't denny AI is here to stay, as a tool (at least for now) and being able to give a good use to that tool is also important In that way banning AI tools to me sounds like the schools banning all mobile phones instead of teaching people how to live with a powerfull computer in your pocket So, I'll vote allow AI tools to be used, but would suggest, as others already said, let participants say which AI tools where used and for what, so we all can see the value in entries made without AI, and the creative things people do make with AI tools, this way we'll learn more than just ignoring AI tools exists Also, if there is anyone fool enough to think AI will just "give you all" the entry will be very poor, as for know it's just a very quick and sometimes random seach-copy-paste tool :-)

energyscarf

I would be extremely disappointed if the GMTK Game Jam allowed AI-generated material at all. Also, I take issue with the idea that copy-pasting code is acceptable among programmers -- this is still plagiarism and universally disallowed by universities and companies.

Wawro

I think allowing AI generated material in this Game Jam is a perfect platform to see if AI assistance can actually create something new and exciting, or if those utilizing the AI don't reallly come up with anything novel or different. It's a perfect test case to see if the games created in this Jam have a significant variance between those in the last Jam. We will have more concrete ideas of how this will affect the industry after seeing it implemented in a small test case like the GMTK Game Jam.

Marco Elizondo

The poll is complex... People that don't fully support AI are being split between 3 options. It isn't easy to choose because I would instead choose the winning option of those 3 to prevent AI from winning.

Craig

While I'm initially inclined to say "No to all", due to various ethical concerns around AI art, I can't think of any compelling reason to *not* allow AI code. The DeVinci engine was trained using Stack Overflow, and a sea of open source code-- all things that the software engineers of the world have offered freely for anyone to use. And while the code it writes is pretty bad, it's a great tool for rapid prototyping, which is exactly what Game Jam is all about. Plus it's not like AI can design the game for you (yet)

Joshua Carmody

Game jam games are written under very tight time constraints. Even without AI it's common for developers to re-use assets from other projects, build off existing libraries, or include placeholder art. AI is just another way of quickly generating content that the developer would likely prefer to spend more time on if they could work on the project over a longer period. I don't see any reason to restrict it, unless you also plan to restrict using assets or code from other sources entirely. And in any case a complete ban on AI content would be almost impossible to enforce.

Brokennoodles

That is true, I guess there's two levels to it. By using ai you're essentially removing the creativity that comes with things like creating the art assets under time pressure, and some of the creativity that's inherent in the coding process, and instead focusing more on the creativity of the actual game concept and design by removing some of the potential limitations you can run into (making art, coding challenges, etc.). I can see why people would prefer that for a game jam, but for me at least the things you're losing are also very important to the whole game jam concept and experience

droid

I don't think the current state of AI is likely to produce jam winning entries. It most likely makes an impact on the lower or medium quality entries: coders with no art skills or writers with no coding skills. Let the noobs have their fun. So allow AI but require labeling of what assets were generated. This doesn't restrict anything but would provide evidence of where to draw the line if things change in the future. It might make sense to require an entry to only use one source of AI content: code or art or writing or music, but no more than one per entry.

Marc von der Heiden

I fully agree with you. It's just a tool that might empower more people to create games - just like a game engine. And just like Unity, Unreal or Godot don't create games on their own, AI won't.

Naif Alrayes

AI code yes, AI art no. art is the end product of someone's specific expression, code is a set of instructions for a computer to complete. AI art uses the end product of something to create a new piece of art, which many artists have taken issue with when their art is very literally used as an input to create this new art. code is the instructions to do something, which, to me, seems fundementally different. the code that powers a platform like, patreon, is not public, even though patreon is something public facing. art, on the other hand, is by its nature public facing. ai art is not trained on "instructions" for how to create a piece of art, but is trained on the art itself. code that is posted online is generally posted with the intent to educate or with an open liscense. there are many solved problems with code and i think there's nothing wrong with using AI as a shortcut to help solve some of those problems. the risk of an AI written code plagarising someone's code when the human author of said code explicitly does NOT want their code shared is very low, since the vast majority of code posted online is either open source or posted by some person in a comment on stack overflow, which may as well be open source. even if that plagarism is possible, you still run into the conundrum of code being written to solve specific problems, so its very possible someone trying to solve those specific problems can come to the same, if not a very similar, solution. art is very different. art is posted online all the time under protected intentions. im sure there is open liscensed art out there, but the vast majority of the art created by the most mainstream AI platforms uses random art found online, which is usually posted under some intent of protection or credit. i think if there were a way to verify that the AI generated art is only made "ethically", then i would be all for it. by "ethically" i mean that the art the AI is trained on is explicitly allowed to be used for AI training; so the AI is trained on art that the person trying to make this AI art created themselves, or the AI is trained on art that is posted online with an open liscense. without such verification, i think it should be banned. you could always do an honor system to make sure the art is generated "ethically", which, i think, is the only way to do it if you decide to allow AI art, since its impossible to verify how a piece of AI art was created.

Josh Foreman

Game dev, designer and artist of 28 years here. Whether we like it or not, these kinds of tools are seeping into the industry and impacting the way we work and the possibility spaces we occupy. If the jam is meant to be representative of the artform as a whole it seems like allowing it is the best policy. Ethical issues are important to consider as well. There are currently several commercial/educational attempts being made to address these concerns so I think the future incorporation of AI assists will be less ethically compromised. Waiting until that kerfuffle is over is another valid option.

Pedro Latro

In short, my opinion is that the products of jams are prototypes, not final products. I do not think all games with AI stuff should be commercially viable, but I do think jams that rely on rapid prototyping have everything to gain with it, given the due attention to the fact that AI should mostly be used as placeholder.

Dempsey K. Tapley

I mean, pretty much all software uses AI. You doing visual effect? Probably AI. Using simulation in graphics? Probably some AI. AI isn’t just what you see on tik tok, but its a lot of digital art now. Matching colors, auto white balancing, faking focus pulls… like AI is so ubiquitous I would be surprised of any digital artist who doesn’t use AI in some capacity. Even cleaning audio tracks or voice isolation can be improved with AI.

Chase Armer

The purpose of the GameJam is to explore one key concept: game design. Designers have a vision for the game they want to build, and the use the tools of their time to build them. AI tools now enable us to bring our visions into reality faster than ever before and we should celebrate this, not give in to a backwards attempt at postponing an inevitable technological transition. If for any reason we decide it would be valuable to have a non-AI GameJam, it would be too premature to ban it before we even see what AI-driven development looks like. I am definitely open to analyzing the results and openly considering the downsides of AI-assisted game development, and it would be valuable to continue this conversation for future jams, but it is far too early to place a ban.

eMJson

I already disagree with how AI art is being handed, so that's an automatic no from me. However for AI code I'm somewhat torn because; on one hand it could make the Game Jam more accessible, but on the other hand it feels like it ruins the intent of a Game Jam in the first place (make/code a game in 48 hours). I personally went with "Ban all AI material", but it's something to think about (maybe).

Douglas Antonio

I think the focal point of your concerns should definitely not be "do I want to reflect the state of technology for code and art". The state of technology for transportation is we have planes and cars, but would it be suitable to allow them at marathons ? I think one needs to consider the interest of holding a Game Jam and where to place the cursor : is the Jam about limitations, is it about making the best possible game in the time frame, is it about coming together to make something with complementary skills, etc. My other concern about AI - solely on the field of art, I don't know code enough - has to do with ethics. I fully agree with Naif Alrayes' earlier post and cannot fathom how it can be so that we are letting these things be trained on shady data banks of stolen art without any regulation to this day. Should, in the near future, there be an ethical system of control that clearly identifies art that the author allowed for AI training, I would say 100% go for it. In the meantime it feels like peak capitalistic wild west, complete disregard towards artists, copyright, and the very meaning of art and human expression themselves,

Paul-Hugo Dlugy-Hegwer

i voted ban all, but more than anything i dont want AI art because while some of the code ai tools are ethical relying on using open source code, AI art tools overwhelmingly stole artists content without their consent. I am also concerned that if you do allow ai art and have the users use a tag, you are going to end up with users review bombing each other over it. Some will review bomb ai art games, and others will review bomb games made without it and it will just make for a far more negative space.

Willhart

I don't get why people keep saying AI art steals art. It is fundamentally misunderstanding how AI tools work, and what they were created for. Training with online data should be fair use, as long as the output is transformative enough. That can easily be ensured by using negative prompts for example, since how do you detect the opposite of something? Or you can try combining multiple different models, and hypernetworks to further finetune the results to be more unique. (Each prompt and network can have a strength value set, like 0.5 or -2). I've also trained my own models, and that way I can make sure the output takes only the "feeling/colorscheme" of the source data, and not the details.

Willhart

One of my favorite tricks is to use a model trained on simple flat style, and set it to negative, thus adding more details and texture to any image.

Data_Error

It's a difficult question, especially when you look at prospective Game Jams over the next five years. Disallowing AI-generated material out-of-hand will increasingly feel like pushing back the wind, but allowing it in its current state feels like building a dry campfire and hoping nobody brings a match. While I went with "Allow All", I wonder if there's some way to draw a line around the current state of AI content without denying it. Namely, what's the feasibility of maintaining two categories, one for projects that *do* contain AI-generated content, and one for projects that *do not*? I understand that this would likely have to be on an honor system as it's very difficult to prove when judging from the outside, but I also feel like the kind of people who invest the time and thought to participate are a relatively honorable lot overall. It involves a lot of trust in the audience, but so does leaving a decision like this out to the community.

Austin Lynch

The reality is game development software has been automating development workflow for a long time. LLMs and generative AI are the next evolution of that. That being said there's a strong argument that using artist's work as training data without their permission is unethical. As with all other tools, allow its ethical use and ban its ethical misuse. It may be hard to determine what was done ethically or not, but that's true in general.

Parachuting Turtle

It's not "just a tool" if you don't know whose original artwork it was trained on without their consent.

Glen Nelson

Ban All or Allow All are the only reasonable options in my opinion - too high chance of someone claiming a misunderstanding otherwise. And of those, I think Ban All causes the least possible criticism, because it is essentially the state as of a year or two ago. It also allows for allowing it in the future as things become more settled in this space.

Malcolm

I'm going to ultimately say no to all AI materials. Something very wonderful about game jams is the opportunity for collaboration, and allowing AI generated code or art will allow coders and artists to forgo the other. In a game jam where the process is just as important as the end product, discouraging collaboration is a no no.

EMH

I don't often comment but I will do so here. Using AI-generated art or code may not be identical to straight-up using someone's copyrighted art or code but it's too close for me, especially when we know that the AI models were trained on corpora of copyrighted material compiled without license. Ban All is the best answer here, to keep the Game Jam ethical.

Mandelbrot

I voted to ban all. But considering that the Game Jams are about creative ideas that are more than just specific art assets or code, maybe it could be allowed with a clear requirement that all AI generated content must be declared.

Featherwalk

Do you have a reliable way to figure out if something is AI generated to begin with?

New Kids in Town

I think Ai Art is okay, and having a way to tag / clarify so we can still celebrate the passion and effort in hand-crafted work is important. Some people are strong in a skill, and these tools make it accessible for those who aren't. As long as people aren't being rewarded for work they didn't do, then I see it as more helpful than hurtful.

droid

I think this is covered by the rules for previous jams, though perhaps not in an obvious way. Which isn't to imply nothing should change or be clarified. >What assets can I use? The game should be developed during the jam, but you may use pre-existing code and can use whatever art and audio assets you have the legal right to use. A generative AI is a model with the parameters of the model set during a computationally intensive training process. So unless a jammer trained a model from scratch during the jam, the model, and therefore its output, would be a pre-existing asset. So by the old rules the assets would be permitted, but one would not be allowed to check the "all art/music was created during the jam" checkbox. "Legal right to use" might be more complicated. I'm not going attempt to figure that one out.

droid

It's been permitted in the past to use assets created before the jam. Which would defeat the purpose of an art jam. I think the why is that there isn't currently an AI trained to game jam. Games contain programming but are not just programs. Games contain visual art but aren't just visual art. Something can be efficiently coded with nice visuals but not be fun. The jam is what it's defined to be. I think what it should be is to get more people to realize that they can make games. Maybe it's better to allow AI if lets more people have fun making games, maybe it's better to prohibit AI if it's harmful somehow.

Pookage

Mmmm, seeing as all these predictive algorithms have been trained on stolen content without the creator's consent (public crawl just grabs any image on the internet, and copilot just uses everyone's github code without asking), I feel like allowing it in the jam would be encouraging / condoning some pretty unethical practices... I'm all for using predictive / generative algorithms as part of the creative process - I don't think it diminishes the result - but until there are more robust protections and laws surrounding people's data (for example a mandatory GDPR-esque opt-in for your data being used as training data etc) then it's hard to see what's currently being branded as AI as anything but exploitative; our own data being stolen and then sold back to us by massive corporations 😒 As others have posted - there's no way to confirm whether a submission was produced this way, but we all follow your content out of respect and admiration and if this is something you DO have a similar opinion on, then drawing the line in the sand could, itself, be a meaningful act.

Dan Root

Not all AI platforms are trained purely on data from everywhere, some models, like Runway, you can train on your own material, making it the perfect tool.

mhogar

I don't think AI can diminish ones Jam experience, only enhance it. As cool as these generative models are, they can't generate entire games for you. At best they can create some art, music (limited), sound effects, code snippets, ideas, etc. It basically removes a lot of the busy work associated with game creation and frees up more time for the creative aspect, which I my opinion is a win for everyone. I'm not going to speak for the legal/ethics aspects; I have my opinions but this isn't the place to voice them. However, perhaps adding another option to the "I created all art and music during the jam" selection to signify the creator used AI to generate art and music would keep it fair for those how still want to do everything themselves. Personally I would only use AI for code generation to save time over frantic Googling, but would prefer to create the art and music myself. However, if others still want to generate art and music, I wouldn't have an issue with that.

Sephy

I vote for allow all since there's so much time you have during a Jam. Allowing use of AI generated material allow much more time savings for jammers and more creative work to be created. I think it'll bring much more value to the end in term of game jam. AI art has helped me tons as a solo dev who has 0 art skills.

dido

Game Jam is about rapid game development. AI placeholder art and code we'll allow creators to iterate so much faster. And allow more people with great ideas but less group members or drawing skills to participate too.

Nmaster64

I feel like I want an option somewhere in the middle between ban/allow *all*. As trepidatious as I am about a lot of this tech, I can't argue that it isn't a perfect fit for developing prototypes and game jam content. While I feel like it would be in poor taste for someone to generate huge portions of the game with it, some amount of AI assistance seems completely logical. I think the most important thing is the rules be *very* strict about declaring what elements of the game were AI generated/assisted and what AI was used. As for the ethics of using any specific AI model due to what content it was trained on and if they had the rights to actually ingest that content...well I'll concede to others on that complex topic.

Kudos26

AI is a little controversial. It might be better to wait it out until everything calms down a little. Maybe ban them this year but consider allowing them next year?

Miro Hudak

Never introduce rules you can not enforce.