AI covers for mods

[Bumber]

On 3/29/2026 at 7:04 PM, Vinyl Synth said:

A mod is a special kind of derivative work, where you exercise a creative right to modify something you own to your tastes, whether on a large scale like a massive overhaul mod, or on the small scale with a little UI change. A creative, creation changing art. When did we stop caring about the process and start caring about some dumb result?

A mod is a labor in which you're expected to work for free. Usually they're made for one's personal enjoyment, then shared with others (or there wouldn't be a mod database).

You folks say that you'd prefer something made in MS Paint in a few minutes, or a retouched stock photo, but I don't think that's coming from a place of honesty. There's no effort put into any of these, but only one of them seems to invoke a Pavlovian response. (I.e., you've trained yourself to feel ick when you see it.) It's not the lack of effort that makes the image bad. It's because you don't like AI, therefore the AI image must be bad.

I think it's different when people are accepting money for things, but generated images are just programmer art of the present day. If someone's art skills are crap, society shouldn't force them to attempt art. It's a waste of everyone's time. (As a perfectionist, I spent hours on school projects, and it still looked like crap at the end. I will not inflict this on future generations.)

I'm certainly not going to suggest someone implement their own bug-filled array class just because using std::vector would be lazy. You can expend great effort to produce slop, and anyone encouraging that is doing a disservice.

8 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Also Salty's floppa is a vector image, not AI-generated.

Let the witch hunt begin.

Edited yesterday at 06:03 AM by Bumber

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 hour ago, Bumber said:

Let the witch hunt begin.

No need for that. All I'm saying is if you're going to make a stance on a public forum, at least get your facts straight.

1 hour ago, Bumber said:

generated images are just programmer art of the present day.

That's basically how I see it, too. However the stigma against it comes from the fact that the programmers stole images that somebody else owned and used them to create their programs. That's where I draw a hard line. The AI I used to generate my PFP here doesn't use stolen art to the best of my knowledge because it was created by a derivative of nVidia's Cosmos 2 model. I can't say the same for other AI models.

[TeaJay]

I won't use mods that use genAI in the artwork, and I think ModsDB should actively purge them. Any screenshot / MS paint doodle is better than AI, since it shows you are willing to put an effort into making it, whereas using genAI is sending the opposite message. 

[Zaldaryon]

This discussion is leading nowhere productive, as the same as it was on Discord.