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The latest gaming controversy to arise around AI art is that Blizzard Entertainment filed a patent regarding “machine learning-based 2D structured image generation.”
The patent has since been taken out of context, with many equating the Diablo 4 developer to using AI to generate art entirely from the ground up. Complaints have even come from former Blizzard employees. However, that isn’t truly the case, as Blizzard Entertainment President Mike Ybarra explained.
“Blizzard will always strive to maintain Blizzard quality. You’re trying to associate recent AI advances (generative AI) to something completely unrelated,” said Ybarra, addressing AI art complaints from former Blizzard Entertainment associate game designer Eric Covington, who worked for the company in various roles from May 2014 to March 2023. “Our approach at Blizzard is to use machine learning and AI in ways that are additive, empathic, and allow our talented teams to spend more time on the highest quality creative thinking and tasks.”
Is Blizzard using AI art in its games?
Hearthstone Design Manager Brendan Sewell would also clarify what the AI is being used for, while criticizing the article for not linking to the actual patent by Blizzard. As the patent shows, it is using AI to apply the style of an image and create variant textures rather than creating art itself. This is quite different than the AI art seen created by prompts. So the overall concern seems misguided in this case.
“I suspect a lot of this would be cleared up had the patent the article was about actually been linked in the article. This isn’t AI art,” said Seqell. “The ethics considerations of this are about the same as the ethics of a Photoshop filter. It’s a tool to save time creating variant textures.”