Fortnite's New Season Gets Accused of Featuring AI-Generated Images
On at least one occasion, the accusations were proven to be unfounded.
Maybe it's because people's brains are now wired to associate certain errors and art styles with generative AI – thanks to AI models frequently making those mistakes and copying those styles in particular – or maybe it's due to Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney's recent pro-AI comments, but for one reason or another, the new chapter of Fortnite has been met with a wave of criticism, with folks accusing it of featuring AI-generated images.
Epic Games
In case you missed it, the recently launched Fortnite Chapter 7 Season 1 has introduced a bunch of new features, changes, weapons, and new ways to get around, not to mention the collaboration with Quentin Tarantino to bring a previously-unrealized Kill Bill chapter to life.
Those additions, however, aren't the reason the update has become the talk of the town within the gaming community. Instead, attention has focused on numerous paintings and posters plastered across the newly added Southwestern US-themed island, which to many looked slightly off, leading to accusations that the images were generated by AI. Here are some examples that caught the most heat online:
Epic Games
Epic Games
Epic Games
Epic Games
The most smoking gun-ish image of them all was this one, showing two Yeti feet – one with five fingers and the other with just four – a mistake that many now view as the clearest sign of an image being machine-made:
Epic Games
At one point, the community also accused a synthwave-style Marty McFly sticker from the update of being AI-generated – until its creator, Sean Dove, disproved the claims by sharing a behind-the-scenes breakdown of the image, thus proving that he wasn't using AI, but rather "the one AI has been stealing from," as one commenter has pointed out:
"I guess someone on Reddit thinks this was AI," Sean comments. "I think the culprit is a clock in the background. I grabbed some clocks off image search, collaged them, and halftoned them. The numbers are bad, entirely possible I grabbed an AI clock and wasn't paying attention."
With Epic Games staying silent about the origins of the posters, and the only painting with a verified origin confirmed not to be AI-generated, the question remains: is the community overreacting by seeing AI-slop where there isn't any, is it a natural response to Tim Sweeney's statement less than a week ago that video game stores don't need a "Made With AI" tag, or is it a mix of both? What do you think the answer to this question is? Share your thoughts down in the comments below!
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