

They used it to create placeholders during development. It wasn’t something they decided not to use before. It’s just something that was meant to be replaced. Usually these placeholders are a missing texture image or just a magenta texture, but they used generative AI to create something that fit into the world. Because it fit they forgot to replace it.
Honestly, I’m not opposed to this usage. It’s not like it’s replacing an artist. No one was going to create a placeholder to be replaced. However, it is obvious to see that occasionally you’ll forget to replace items with this technique, like we saw here. The old style of incredibly obvious placeholders were used for a reason; so that you can’t forget to replace them. It’s probably smart to keep doing this.





I don’t disagree that there are ways to add protections. It’d require strict compliance still though or things could fall through the cracks. Even when using the classic placeholders things have been missed on occasion. The only 100% reliable way to avoid shipping any generative AI content is to never include it in the project.
Again, I don’t think the usage here was bad. I think the reaction to one piece of generative AI art, which was replaced within a week, has been too severe. I’m just saying that if you really want to make sure you don’t ship any of it, just don’t ever include any. The old methods were perfectly fine, even if they made development look less pretty.