Fortnite maker Epic Games has weighed in on the increasing use of AI-generated thumbnail images within the game by third-party creators for their own mini-games.
As well as its popular battle royale modes, Fortnite is also home to thousands of user-generated Islands, hundreds of which are recommended to players at any given time from the game’s main menu.
The growing use of AI-generated imagery to advertise these Islands has sometimes left Fortnite’s main screen feeling awash with AI slop – and it’s something Epic Games has now been asked about. Will the developer put a stop to it? In a word, no – though don’t expect Epic Games to start using AI within any of its own first-party modes.
“From our perspective, for moderation, thumbnails – like, we don’t really care what tool you use to make your thumbnails,” product management director Dan Walsh said in an interview with Mustard Plays. “All we care about is whether or not it’s compliant with our rules.
“I think to some degree AI is going to become more and more difficult to detect,” Walsh continued. “It’s not going to stand out as a unique thing, it’s just going to be another tool that people are using to create things.
“So trying to look for that specifically is going to become increasingly difficult to the point where it’s probably going to become unenforceable. We’re really just focused on – ‘does this asset comply with our rules, yes or no?’, not ‘what tool did you use to make this asset’?”
Discussing the idea of Epic Games using AI image generation for its own experiences in future, executive vice president Sax Persson emphasised the company’s stance that the “best results” came from humans still. So don’t expect an AI-generated Fishstick skin in the shop anytime soon.
“We’ve always embraced new technology, but with an ethical stance on the source, like as we generate things, it has to be understood and it has to be properly licensed,” Persson said of Epic Games’ potential AI use. “So to that degree, we rely on what we provide to people directly to be the best tools that we can humanly do, but the ethical guidelines are proper ownership.”
The fact that people can still tell that third-party thumbnails are obviously made by AI was an example of how human-made images remained the better option, Persson continued.
“Do we feel like we need to start making Fortnite outfits using AI models? No. We believe the approach we have taken embraces technology but puts humans in the centre of it still, because that’s how you get the best results.”
Back in February, Activision admitted it had begun using AI generation within Call of Duty – after the discovery by fans of in-game artwork featuring a six-fingered character.