Epic CEO says he won’t ban AI art from his platform

THE CEO of Epic Games, creator of Fortnite, has said he doesn’t want to “gatekeep” AI from his platform.

Tim Sweeney has taken to Twitter to explain why art created in AI has been allowed, and will continue to be allowed on his platform.

Epic owns a number of platforms including Epic Games Store, and ArtStation which the tweets refer to.

He started out the string of tweets saying: “AI has made astonishing progress in the past year, from dream-ish synthesis of images reaching mammal levels of perceptive complexity, to complex streams of text connected in seemingly logical ways. Seemingly!”

In later tweets, he admitted that current AI generators often infringe on copyright by copying existing artists’ work.

He wants people to be able to choose whether their art can be used for AI, or whether they see AI art or not when browsing, but will not prevent AI art from being shown on the platform.

Sweeney claims that he doesn’t want to “stifle innovation” hence why he’s allowing AI to continue despite pushback from the artists on his platform.

He brings up the court case between Epic Games and Apple, when Apple tried to ban Epic Games payment system from the platform.

He wrote: “I don’t want to be the “you can’t use AI” company or the “you can’t make AI” company.”

The tweets go on to claim that by banning AI on ArtStation it would violate fair use law.

Sweeney wrote: “We’re not locking AI out by default, because that would turn Epic into a “You can’t make AI” gatekeeper by default and prohibit uses that would fall under copyright law’s fair use rules.”

This decision has obvious implications for Epic and its other platforms. 

While there is currently pushback against AI in the art scene, there is also a movement to prevent AI entering video games.

Already AI is being used to voice dialogue in games, which people feel removes the emotional elements from the performance.

Sweeney has stated several times that he does not want Epic to prevent AI from its platforms, then it makes sense that this goes for the Epic Games Store as well.

Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.