Wizards of the Coast Magic: The Gathering and Respawn’s Apex Legends, both extremely popular properties in the gaming world, have come under fire for their use of AI-generated artwork in their recent promotional materials.
Forbes reports that the issue was first highlighted when Wizards of the Coast, famous for the popular Magic: The Gathering card game, was accused of incorporating AI-generated art in their promotional content.
The company initially dismissed these claims, insisting the art was human produced, but keen-eyed observers were quick to highlight elements in the artwork typically associated with AI generation.
The tweet even received a community note on Twitter highlighting the AI-generated telltale markers.
Despite initially denying that the artwork was AI-generated, the company backpedaled a day later, apologizing and admitting that “some AI components” may have “crept into our marketing creative.”
The company promised to ensure that it’ll support human artists in future marketing efforts, stating: “While the art came from a vendor, it’s on us to make sure that we are living up to our promise to support the amazing human ingenuity that makes Magic great.”
In a similar situation, Respawn – the developer behind the video game Apex Legends – was accused of using AI in its promotional materials. However, it doesn’t seem that the company used AI completely; rather, the company was accused of running its promotional video through an AI filter.
The emerging use of AI in promotional material is likely to cause controversy not just among human artists who feel as if they’re being replaced but also could lead to copyright claims related to the training data that many of these AI image generators are programmed on.
Read more at Forbes here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.