Video games engine provider Unity announced the introduction of two new machine learning platforms earlier today; one of which allows developers and artists in particular to ask the company questions that were not yet answered at the time of publication.
Today we are announcing two new AI products: Unity Muse, an expansive platform for AI-driven assistance during creation, and Unity Sentis, which lets you embed neural networks into your builds to provide real-time experiences previously unimaginable.
Muse is essentially just ChatGPT, but is specifically for Unity and allows users to ask questions about coding and resources and get instant answers. However, Sentis is more involved, “by allowing you to embed an AI model for your game or app into the Unity Runtime, improving gameplay and other functionality directly on end-user platforms.”
Because “AI” is a technology in many cases completely dependent on works stolen from artists without permission or compensation.Unity’s announcement share Questions about Sentis, specifically focusing on the technology’s ability to create things like images, models, and animation. For example, scroll down the announcement tweet and you’ll see tons of variations of the same query:
just to hop on the train, what dataset are you pulling the art from???
Unity needs to be completely transparent about which machine learning models will be applied, including the data they are trained on. I don’t see any possible way ML in current iterations could be effective without training on countless badly acquired data.
It’s REALLY about rendering stuff. Which datasets?
Hi, what dataset was this trained on? Is this using artists’ artworks without their permission? Animations? Materials? How was this artificial intelligence trained?
You realize that AI-generated assets cannot be used commercially, so what was the rationale for adding this feature?
What datasets were used to develop this? Have you negotiated and obtained all relevant licenses directly from the copyright holders?
A very specific question that Unity has yet to answer on Twitter at the time of publication. or on company forums (I emailed the company that specifically asked the question and will update if I get a response). Those familiar with the legal and copyright struggles of “AI” outline you have an answer In this post by Unity employee TreyK-47still, when it says you can’t use technology that exists today “for an existing commercial or external project”.
While there are clear dangers to jobs and the quality of games inherent in this push, remember that these dangers are future-proof; now this looks (and sounds like) dog poop.
