Developer Update - 3 October 2024

Official Dev Updates
21

This was my first reaction upon opening this post, disappointed. VRChat is driven by artists, making worlds, avatars, immersive experiences and so on.

Given how AI is widely seen by artists as unethical, putting our work into data training sets without consent, effectively stealing years of learning, trials, errors and the gained experience to reach the level we are at, doing something we are passionate about only for it to be stolen and copied with no care, hurting the work of thousands of artists all around the world.

It simply pains me to see AI Generated content being featured on this platform for this reason, and many other reasons that were already quoted in the quoted post.

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22

I think youre really arguing something I’m not here. My entire issue is the Generative AI and it being advertised here. I said nothing about the quality of person who made the world or even the quality of the world itself.
My main point agains Generative AI was the theft of artist’s work, my point on environmental cost is a sidenote. Someone else brought up how a portion of this dev update was cracking down on ripping, a form of theft, while simultaneously advertising a world that uses Generative AI extensively, which Generative AI steals the work of artists.
You brought up the environmental cost of VR in general, which I agree is a discussion to be had. Ultimately it is a “whataboutism,” as you said, because that is a different topic entirely. Its definitely an issue and definitely needs further discussion, but thats not what I was talking about.
I do not believe Generative AI to be ethical in practically any usecase because of the theft of artist’s work. Environmental cost is secondary to that opinion.

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23

I second this. VRChat’s strong policy on not allowing NFTs/crypto on the platform was wonderful news at the time when seemingly everyone else was eating that up, I think that showed a lot of respect for the artist community here.

I wish the same respect could be shown again.

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24

I wish we could express our stance against gen. AI to the devs and community managers of VRChat, however it will always fall onto deaf ears. Best we could do is boycott and cancel our submissions, however that too can also hurt VRC’s reputation of a platform for creators to thrive, and passions for VRC can go to waste. What other choice is there? Seeing the featured world hurt my stomach and I hope managers see this and change the feature to a different world, one that preferably DOESN’T feature AI.

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25

You say this, when there is literal evidence of gen. AI making an actual one-to-one copy of the Mona Lisa as prompted. The AI didn’t even try to differentiate from the real version. It’s not that hard to make a copy of someone’s art by prompting it to make a piece of the same name. Even if said drawing/painting is super well known to the public, that’s still the original artist’s hard-earned effort down the drain.

26

I mean you DID bring it up, but you’re right maybe I interpreted it as a bigger aspect of your point than was intended, and that’s my bad.

But I mean, yes, I do feel like immediately going off about how bad Generative AI is and telling VRC it’s bad to promote a world using it-- Despite the AI not being the ONLY aspect or efforts that went into it, is a bit disrespectful. But that’s just me.

(This is getting into a General Generative AI Discussion)

And in my opinion I’ve always gone by the “Collage” theory-- If you throw artwork in a blender, taking it down to it’s bare essentials and then reform it into something COMPLETELY different and Abstracted from it’s original sources, does that still count as theft? Would an artist need to pay royalties if they were to throw magazines and newspapers or random pulls offline into a blender and then made an entirely new piece from them? I wouldn’t think so-- I thought that’s why we always used the term “Transformative”, because once you change something so much it’s essentially unrecognizable from the original-- It’s essentially yours, or in this case, just a new creation generally.

It just bugs me people shift the goal post on what counts as Transformative, especially when it comes to it falling under the banner of something they don’t like-- I mean, imo if we can legally and morally play entire games (Which includes Music, Art, Writing, Voice Acting, etc, etc) and post them on YouTube or whatever service and make entire careers off that, in large part BECAUSE of the content being played/reacted to (Because let’s be honest, it’s not SOLELY the personalities that drive engagement)-- Why is an art piece that broke down millions upon millions of pieces of art (and none art) and then made something completely distinct and unrecognizable with it not being considered “Transformative”? I mean hell, we celebrate similar all the time-- Clint Eastwood by Gorillaz literally uses a premade loop off a toy I’m sure the person never received royalties or recognition for, and artists in music CONSTANTLY sample other works and use them in their music as backing-- But again, it’s seen as “Transformative”, even when it factually keeps more in tack and directly uses more material from other artists than Generative AI Generally does.

Tbc, not saying stealing is Good-- Though I do have my own personal opinions on Copyright Law and the Modern (imo) Obsession with credit and ownership, since to me it conflicts with my interpretation of what art is: Imagination made Real and the expression of self, regardless of recognition-- But I am saying I fundamentally disagree with the harassment of AI usage generally-- It’s just bothersome, because all else about a person or their work will essentially be thrown in the trash because they touched AI, and I don’t agree with that-- This isn’t JUST an image, it’s a Unity Project that took time and dedication-- I don’t see how it can be held in the same negative regard, and you’d think would be a pretty novel use showcase for AI Generative Art as a Tool in a belt rather than an express pass to doing nothing. I feel like harassing and confronting Generative AI and it’s users needs to be handled on a case-by-case basis, based on actual human activity SURROUNDING/DIRECTING the AI, not just “Generative AI is always inherently bad”.

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27

In this world? Cause I never said Generative AI couldn’t make a 1-1 copy, I implied it Didn’t in this world-- And thus it shouldn’t be receiving the same condemnation as other works.

My main things is it’s not all created equal, and nor should all people or creative works who use it be treated equally, some cases are better and more ambiguous than others, and I think dedicated thought in that subject rather than defaulting to anger would be helpful for everyone.

1 Like
28

Excellent update content-wise, but the choice to feature a world built using generative AI sends the wrong message to creators. VRChat is chock-full of beautiful, handcrafted worlds made by passionate and talented people. Choosing to headline AI slop over any one of these human-made worlds feels willfully ignorant of the people and work that give VRChat its identity.

(I had previously expressed a sentiment here that was born of high emotion and, on further reflection, hurtful. I have edited to remove it because it was incorrect.)

I hope this isn’t indicative of the VRC teams stance on generative AI as a whole, or this spells future trouble.

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29

The overwhelming majority of people in the comments bitching about the world being AI art related have clearly not visited the world and it shows. They’ve just flown off the handle the moment they saw the letters “AI”.

Grow up.

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31

THANK YOU!

The same people complaining about artistic respect are ALSO the same people completely dismissing, decrying and disrespecting an Artist actively and in some cases RUTHLESSLY imo, without even knowing what actual work went in it the process. It’s insane how morally impenetrable people feel when they’re in the side of Anti-AI sentiment-- It’s like all nuance or reasoning is thrown out to be replaced with the same echo chamber of opinion.

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32

Honestly I would love if all of the hand tracking controls were reworked to be like what was shown here. I really hate the pinching gestures and it would free up my hands for emoting and grabbing without having to constantly toggle on and off the lock. Just make everything a bunch of buttons like that that float next to my arm. Make the movement a big joystick that you physically grab. Get rid of all the finicky pinch gestures that barely work. That would be amazing.

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33

I skimmed through that video they have attached to their worlds page, looked pretty dime a dozen to all the thousands of other content people have image generators spit out, specially that cat thing at the end.

Personally my biggest main dislike for the image generators is it feels like an insult to one of humanities best features, our creativity, being given away to corporate automation so we can all have more free time to waste away in a cubicle while the bots get to do the fun stuff

6 Likes
34

Again, we are not talking bad about the world by itself, it looks amazing from a world quality and making standpoint. Having VRChat advertise AI Generated content is where the issue is for a lot of us impacted by it, not the world by itself.

We are loosing our jobs to AI Generated stuff, as “grown up” adults.

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35

It’s not inherently corporate, there’s tons of fully open-source models that can be used solely by individuals, even if their own hand-crafted/commissioned-- if Only corporations use it that’s imo partly on artists for fully rejecting it and not helping in anyway to steer it’s direction and ethics besides “It should burn” or some equivalent.

But also, I mean how do you think any of these AI’s got made in the first place? Do you think it WASN’T through creativity and the human thought process?

Idk when people stopped thinking coders and programmers were creative and hardworking, but it’s been a negative side effect to this AI debacle-- Coding and Programming are also hard, creatively intensive and exhaustive works. It was still Human Creativity and Prowess that got us here, Positive or Negative.

36

There are a lot of comments here about us highlighting this specific world because of its usage of AI tools. That’s valuable feedback, and I can understand why folks (especially artists) feel a certain way about it, given the rapid proliferation of generated content (and especially the type of content that is often referred to as slop, given the low amount of effort/skill used to generate it, often without thought to the myriad philosophical questions around how models are trained).

The feedback is certainly noted and understood. I cannot speak for the whole team here, but I personally certainly feel a type of way about generative content!

With that said, I think it would be doing a disservice to dismiss everything created using these tools as not worth engaging with. Nico is a phenomenal creator and capable artist who has used their talents to craft many beautiful, thoughtful worlds. This one, in particular, was featured at the Venice Film Festival, and is very much wrestling with a lot of the questions raised here rather than ignoring them.

I think instead of judging a book by its proverbial cover, it’s probably best to engage with it directly. Generally, that’s the best way to treat all art – including works you might disagree with or find uncomfortable.

Which, of course, might end up with you absolutely hating it – and that’s valid! But I think this is a tactful, mindfully created piece of media that’s worth engaging with.

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37

Glad to see hand tracking getting a wrist mounted set of buttons to open the quick menu and action menu with. Also very nice on the disclosure of the security exploit related to cache editing.

1 Like
38

This bit’s important – Nico’s work is, interpreted in various ways, actually a critical look at the usage of AI tools in artwork!

They’re an incredibly talented artist who understands and lives the nuance of the valid issues you are bringing up about the current state of the creative landscape.

Take a look at the world first, folks.

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39

also I can’t BELIEVE vrchat is adding cryptocurrency, pack it up peeps I’m outta here :triumph: :briefcase:

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40

We’re losing jobs to corporate greed and complete disregard for human well-being or importance-- The AI didn’t do that though, nor did all AI works come from that same place at this point.

We’re losing our jobs because corporations will and ALWAYS have found the most cost effective and least taxing way to make things to get a cheap buck-- And AI just happened to be the thing that came around to make that easier.

But guess what? They also abused CGI that way, and Digital Art Generally-- using it as a way to effectively cut costs, use less workers and create faster “Higher quality” products than traditional art could muster-- Displacing many people from their jobs and changing the entire industry, for the worse for many people.

But guess what? We all see value in CGI and Digital Art now, and even with the shortcomings or how corporations abuse it for greedy purposes-- We don’t immediately credit that to CGI or Digital Art, we credit it to shitty corporations deciding they need to jump on those and abuse them and use them to workaround hiring more workers or focusing on harder tradition art.

Again, I’m an artist too-- But what everyone else sees as an Inherently AI related problem-- I find it to be a more specifically Corporation and Greed related problem; most the things people hate AI for, would be bad regardless of if it was used or not (stealing, lying, firing people and replacing jobs, misconduct, etc, etc) They’re socital problems, that AI is now the scapegoat for. I swear, I hear more people hate in AI now than Corporations that use, and I’m honestly sure they’re not too upset about that.

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41

Ironically a lot of artists have seemingly used the prospect of AI as a reason toimmediately Disengage with art-- Which is just… Man lol.