100%!

First of all, stop comparing people to computer hardware. Large language models don't learn the way humans learn; they're not alive nor legal entities, and they absolutely store everything you feed them on hard drives, as Stanford University has proven just two weeks ago.

And if you're happy about the biggest corporations in the world destroying copyrights, so they can steal stuff from small writers, artists, and musicians - don't worry. Copyrights still work for big corpos. Disney did tell Google to stop using their art, and they complied. Warner Music basically took over Suno as a settlement.

Only the rights of small creators without enough money to fight against Fortune 500 behemoths are abused. Rich people's rights will be fine.

Rights will be fine - copyright upon creation is still copyright and no amount of corporate crap can change it (yet) - though they do oddly want to veer copyright into a lawyer first market again (like the USA - "work for hire" standards - and also being able to copyright AI created spaff - but this makes the AI companies further enemies of the big IP owning corps and of course the little guy).

"Fair use" is "Fair use" but there is no "Fair use" in regard to AI spaff.

Edit: and I want to make it VERY clear to the usual people that "generative AI" is in no way a "TOOL".

It is what it is, don't feel too bad because some thoroughly mediocre people got their hands on "play pretend artist" tools and are having a powertrip

Fortunately the AI slop banners are *so* shitty there will always be someone calling GOG out

I am simply saying that there is a small chance that some good may come out of mega corps fighting each other, just like some accidental good has come out of Tim Sweeney suing everyone all the time. Let the mega corps fight, rather than cooperate.

And sure, some may have settled... for now. "For now" being the key words. There are many other companies, and they will keep doing it in secret if they think they won't get discovered.

Sure, AI companies should license all their training data, but that in itself is a massive undertaking. There are millions, if not billions of creative works. I imagine there may be many creators who would refuse to license their work too, out of principle. So if every western AI company was compelled to license their training data, they would waste a lot of time and money drafting all these contracts, while companies from states that never cared for copyright would get ahead. This is why they pirate their training data. It's a race.

I'm not saying it's an inherently good thing, I'm just saying that it is what it is. And if we're lucky, maybe, just maybe, we could see some consumer-positive updates in copyright and law as a result of all this massive corporate piracy.

Personally I think it smart to not have all your eggs in one basket, so diversify, and do things to attract more folk to GOG.

And it seems to me it has been a longer than normal period without a free game, so I guess these free Mods, some of which are basically a new game in their own right, has probably been a replacement, and likely costs GOG less.

Most gamers, if they are like me, don't go searching high and low, at least on a regular basis, looking for great mods, so a curated minimal number of mods is attractive, especially when they offer something a little extra or unique here at GOG.

You guys can bitch and complain all you want, but AI is not going away.
It all depends on how it is used.
I just cannot get upset if GOG uses AI for a freakaing store banner.

This is so true. And I don't mind either if GOG uses it for something so trivial, like a banner used for so little time (till the end of the sales) and then disappears.

But moral panic is fuuuuun! You should try it! :D

AI is not going away but people have a choice whether to use it or not. And people will bitch and complain about poor standards because AI can't change that either.

I believe Fallout London led to GOG saying that Fallout 4 was in like the top 3-10 bestselling games of 2024 (or something like that, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. G.A.M.M.A. has 816 reviews leading me to believe it has led to quite a few copies of Call of Prypiat EE being sold.

So I think One-Click Mods can lead to breathing new life into games / selling copies that otherwise wouldn't be sold. But of course only GOG knows.

Last I checked Amazon Prime keys are often given away on r/randomactsofgaming, so maybe it's a generally pointless endeavor, but GOG does need to continually try to attract new people (I'm not saying don't try to keep long-time members, but companies can't rest on their laurels) and AP may be that way.

I assume GOG has data that suggests what is worthwhile and what isn't.

Yeah, but if it's anything like a certain freebie community I'm part of which I shall not name here, there's a large proportion of Prime key re-gifters which only do it because they have access to multiple Prime memberships or they already own the game on GOG or they have no interest in the GOG game on offer. Yes, there are many which just don't care to engage with GOG and prefer just to give it all away, but I doubt it's as big a pool as you may think. Those with no interest in Epic Games/Legacy/GOG (and/or Prime/Luna) often don't engage with Prime Gaming anyway.

I've unfortunately read every word of it. It was an arrogant and mostly false treatise on the dangers of alarmism and how it all turns out so well in the end seeing that corporations always want our best.

My assessment that the picture on the front page was not AI was proven false by Kosmiczna, which hurt, but my assessment that AI is killing off jobs at an absurd rate was proven correct in the very same post.

And just to get you off your high horse, even though I'm in no way part of the creative industry, AI will have shaven off my job of 18 years too like an annoying stubble in short time. The AI industry has already taken my hobby community – I'm drawing and painting; the platforms are still there, a hollow husk of their former self. The artists are gone, the cameraderie is gone. That's not alarmism, those are the facts of the present.

https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/artists-are-losing-work-wages-and

I'll take his thoughts over yours. You sound like a know-nothing about art attempting to school artists very badly.

Using AI-generated images is just sad. If this continues, I have to strongly consider switching back to Steam.