The Fortnite art team just pulled off one of the best pranks-running-the-gaming-community raffle by creating a skin that appears like it was actually designed by a drunken AI, complete with melted fingers and anatomy. It’s like saying, “Tell Dall-E, make me a cool robot guy,” and getting back this schlock instead.
It’s this robotic humanoid created in the latest update, sporting a completely damaged hand; fingers bend as if made of rubber, joints appear where they shouldn’t be… Does this even look like a hand? It appears to have been a stroke while feeding an AI with a description of “hand.” But what’s even better? It wasn’t even a mistake! It’s the ultimate `screw you` to AI art generators that the artists would love to send.
Nothing yet on the replies on the original tweet, but DUUUH!! The internet surely has so much to say regarding this one. Probably, some will defend AI art and say something like, “Well, actually, this proves that humans make mistakes too,” while others will lie on the floor laughing, saying,” SEE? THIS IS WHY WE DON’T LET ALGORITHMS COOK.”
And now, the savage kicker is that Epic has been using machine learning tools in some of their development processes. So their own artists just publicly clowned on their employer’s tech. That’s a move right there-lots of guts; or just the unapologetic bravado powered by bordering on insane amounts of talent that comes from being good on their work.
“Witnessing dusk” has already given birth to nicknames like “GPT-3’s sleep paralysis demon” and “that one robot from the Black Mirror episode that got left in beta.” I am actually interested in acquiring the skin just on meme value, TBH. Nothing says, “I’m terminally online,” clearer than really roaming the island with a character that failed the Turing test.
I wonder if game developers would ruin AI in their game titles after this. What about Call of Duty having a gun skin that had nothing but nightmare spaghetti textures? Or Street Fighter adding a fighter whose entire moveset was “designed” by ChatGPT? The possibilities for chaos are endless.
Thus, ‘Hail’! Kudos to Fortnite Art. This is the hottest roast of images for 2023 without saying a word in an industry that is sweating bullets against AI taking jobs. At times, the greatest protest is to make that so bad that onlookers call it art.
Meanwhile, I gotta go die a thousand times looking like an extra rejected from Westworld, and maybe, just maybe, the other players will be sobbing at the sight of me instead of gunning for me.
