Nintendo Is Reportedly Targeting AI-Generated Mario Pictures

Targeting fan art? Yeah, that’s not cool and probably an unintended byproduct.

Targeting AI pics? Good!

They us generative simple AI, to Kill generative simple AI. I respect it.

good burn it all
mwahahhaahahahah

Good. Whoever uses generative Ai deserves to have their "work" curbstomped into the earth.

These are the DMCA takedowns I can get behind. Some of these AI generated slop are getting a bit too good.

So, fighting fire with fire?

The hypocrisy, though, is that a lot of the shovelware on the eShop seems to use AI-generated images and basically directly plagiarize Disney and other IP.

Love it! Hit 'em with the takedowns, Nintendo! Go for the KO!

Shame about the fanarts. But the ai getting taken down, the beauty!

How can they take down things that can't be copyrighted. It's not infringed because the thing making it isn't a human so it can't have copyright on it. There is a flaw in Nintendo's argument.

@Deviant-Dork Ehh even then I take it as a win because it's getting that "artwork" (if you can even call that mockery artwork in the first place) offline. Destroying it is always good in my book.

Edit: Plus, there could be a loophole Nintendo's exploiting to get the ai taken down. Probably flagging it as copyright infringement because it's their own character that they hold the copyright to.

Good stuff. If only smaller creatives were also afforded this opportunity.

BURN BABY BURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNN

Burn it to the ground. Shame for legitimate fan art but there has to be zero tolerance with this AI crap.

@Buizel If only. It would save me the headache of worrying about my own art getting stolen. Scared to post online because of how Ai databases are.

Finally, a legal action from Nintendo I can fully support. The sun will probably rise in the west tomorrow.

@Deviant-Dork but there's a human behind it profiting from it, so it's totally fair to issue a takedown

Disappointing, AI art can be pretty cool. Should never be passed off as a person’s own work or used in a commercial manner, but it’s cool that a machine can make detailed art from just a line of text.

@Shepdawg1 well, they are apparently only taking down "questionable" fanart. So most likely that refers to ones showing "mature" stuff. (Tho honestly nature individuals wouldn't do stuff that is labeled mature lol)

Really burying the lede on the terrible precedent set by Nintendo using AI to automate takedowns, huh

@SteveDaSteve I don’t think the actual artists who had their works stolen from appreciate that sentiment.

@VoidofLight Stolen? I don't think I've see anybody make that exact image of Masterchief playing on a PS5 before.

@SteveDaSteve A lot of ai images are composed of data that was ripped from other people's artwork. Therefore it is stolen, as stolen art is fed into a database and spit back out into slop.

@VoidofLight Is that not what artists themselves do, but at a slower pace? Don't artists get inspired from the works of others and incorporate their styles and techniques into their own? Why is it good when human artists do it, but bad when a machine does it?

Never expected a time I’m happy Nintendo took down something again.

Good. Destroy it all, I hate AI imagery with a passion. AI is theft. That deserves a cease & desist.

@SteveDaSteve Trust me, you're never going to convince people of this. I have trouble wrapping my head around plagarism, and barely get why it's awful... I still get it to an extent. AI confuses me even more. If you want to be right, wait a few years for the dust to settle. If it's truly harmless people will change their tune to be supportive... like they do for videogames that have some flaws.
I'm trusting the internet on this one, because again, I already have trouble wrapping my head around plagarism, and this has so many more layers of abstraction.
As for now, the comments section isn't for arguing.

@SteveDaSteve Human referencing and Ai are entirely different things. Human referencing isn't the only thing humans are capable of doing. People can use references, but just as equally if they understand the concepts they're drawing, they're able to draw anything that actually comes from their mind. Ai? Ai can only copy what it sees. It doesn't understand the rules of anatomy. It doesn't understand why human bodies bend or contort in the ways that they do. It lacks sentience, and therefore lacks intent. You could argue "well it's a tool, and therefore people can guide it to creating things," but even then that isn't right. Even if a person is behind the prompting, the prompt is the only control they have over the piece. They can't configure the composition or place the lines themselves. Thus they can't create said image that exists within the confines of their mind in the first place.

Ai is a pale imitation of actual human made work. To someone who isn't versed in actual art it may seem equal, but it really isn't. It will never be. It isn't cool either, given that again- all the images that it pulls from are sourced from people who never consented to their images being ripped online. Their hard work was ripped away to train what's effectively going to be their replacement (at least in the eyes of big corporations and people offering jobs).

I honestly couldn’t be happier.

Nintendo going against AI, you love to see it.

@VoidofLight I don't really see how AI is just blatantly copying. Yes, AI may not have an understanding of anatomy or the qualities of good artistic design in the same way a human does, but that doesn't mean it cannot learn or practice them. It is learning similarly to how a human does, by seeing what constitutes quality art and incorporating it into its own style. Generated art has even become known for a distinctive AI style, with bright colors and heavy shading, often leading to a sort of plastic-y look (if that's the right word?). I simply don't see it as copying, it's just learning from artists at a faster pace than artists can learn from each other.

I would like to reiterate, I don't think AI art (or most any AI generated resource for that matter) should be allowed to be used commercially, especially if it's being passed off as something a human made. I simply see it as a cool novelty and an impressive feat of software engineering.

I am of the opinion generative AI has its fair uses. But also many more bad ones. For an example of a good use, if an author had ideas for creatures in a book, wanted some concept images to go off of, that would be a good use case. However, large companies using AI to create images in a game would be a bad use, as even ignoring the idea of plaugerism and ethics, it would deliver an inferior product. Also this is obviously one of those bad use cases. But all that to say that immediately dismissing generative AI in every case as terrible and bad is childish and massively oversimplifies the issue.

@Bigmanfan I can see clear enough to see how Human nature would do that with AI. no objections here, you're sound and rational.

So much hate against AI in the comments... Let me join! Death to AI!

Honestly this means they trained their crap with Nintendo IP. Of course Nintendo will send an army of lawyers.

@SteveDaSteve Except it doesn't learn like we do. Again, there's a separation between Ai and people. Ai can fake knowing art well, but it lacks a core thing that humans have. Actual intent. It heavily relies upon images that are already created while human beings don't. It doesn't think as it possesses no ability to do so. All it can do is translate text into image through a processing of 1's and 0's. It has no vision, and even with a person "supplying" said vision, it still won't put out the exact image within someone's mind.

It also removes the entirety of the artistic process. A tool made for those who despise art and nothing more.

I'd love to see some crossover DLC in an Ace Attorney game starring real Nintendo ninjas as characters. Or like Herlock Sholmes, they can have Loward Hincoln as a character.

@VoidofLight Human beings do rely on images already created, that being observations of the environment around us and the creations of others. From these two inputs spring a multitude of ideas. Same goes for AI, except it doesn't observe the world around it, it's just fed the creations of others. I don't think "vision" or "intent" really matter in this case, AI learns nevertheless like a person does: It sees what works and creates based on that.

If it's just "a tool made for those who despise art", why would anybody use it? If they despise art, I doubt they would use a program that creates art, much like how a person who hates coffee would not use a coffeemaker. There's more nuance to this issue than "AI bad".

Nintendo should go against X and hopefully they will. I mean, the fact that Grok can draw Mario means that it uses copyrighted works in it's training data.

@SteveDaSteve Most of the people who utilize it despise artists or don't want to actually learn the craft because they find it to be "busywork" or a "hassle." I've spoken to many people who defend Ai, and they all reach that same conclusion. That they personally dislike art and so they want to be able to "create" with no skill bar.

Another reason I say that Ai is for those who dislike art is because Ai removes most of the actual artistic process. You don't learn the skill, and you don't draw the picture. You type in words and keep adding/removing words to try to get something specific. It turns the process into rolling the dice instead of just flat out learning the skills necessary to do the work yourself.

Most people I've seen who use Ai only got into using it because of the clout they think they'd get for being a "good" artist. They want social media brownie points and upvotes instead of actually doing the craft because they enjoy it. The people who actually enjoy art are the ones not using Ai at all. The people like me. The people like those I attend university with. People who make art their career because they want to be creative. Because they enjoy what they're doing. Those very people who are threatened by the machines that are here to replace them.

Ai is like the assembly line. It's a conveyor that's made for the mass production of art pieces. Something which people will utilize instead of supporting smaller creators, and something they'll utilize to garner fame. It floods the internet burying any smaller creator who actually wanted to enjoy what they were doing and show the world. Suffocates them before they even get a chance.

@SteveDaSteve Have you ever drawn anything? Or created anything at all? This isn't a dig or anything, I am genuinely curious.

@VoidofLight That's unfortunate, AI shouldn't be a replacement for personal skill or a way to create a following for yourself. However, I don't think it's fair to generalize people who use generative AI as people who hate or don't enjoy art. Sure, the system will attract those people since it makes it easy to get a quality image, but not everybody is using it to try to make themselves look like an amazing artist for no effort. The guy in the post that got copyright struck wasn't gloating about a piece he "made" himself, he was simply sharing something an AI made because it was interesting. I've used AI generative tools to just mess around, for mostly a "huh, that's interesting" moment.

I will agree that something needs to be done to prevent AI images from being used commercially or passed off as photos or human work. People shouldn't take credit for stuff they didn't make. Perhaps generative images could be passed through a watermarking process that imbeds the watermark into the image without impacting the appearance. I know you can inject code into an image, perhaps an identifier can imbedded in an image that can be detected by publicly available software? I just don't think killing off AI is the right decision, it can be a fun novelty if we can reliably separate human work from AI work.

@N00BiSH I have drawn stuff before, and I aspire to develop my own video games. I've been learning how to use Godot engine and have made a couple neat projects (though nothing in a state to release on a storefront). I've made mods for Crypt of the Necrodancer as well using hand drawn pixel graphics. I don't really consider art my hobby, but I have made some art.

Here's a picture of Luigi I drew using Autodesk Sketchbook awhile back when Luigi's Mansion 3 was new:

"Good."

• Zelda from Zelda Wand of Gamelon

@Shepdawg1 I'd imagine the reason it'd target fanart is because those pieces will have been stolen for the AI generators.

Fight fire with fire.

A fake depiction of a Nintendo charactor whoever generates it is the same. Take them down Nintendo.

Very funny to see the double standard in the comments too.

Good luck hunting AI generated content.

Well there you have it, the death of AI Generated art.

And nothing of value was lost.

I saw quite a lot of muscular AI Mario pictures on Google.

@Anti-Matter I'll bet you did, I hate to ask what your search criteria was....

So the War of the Machines will be fought between Nintendo and AI on Twitter

Clearly a fake artwork……NO NIPPLES……

Regardless of what people think about AI, this a clear attack on freedom of speech, not copyrights. It's all fun and games until they come for what you value. It's a dangerous, slippery slope.
"First, they came for my enemies, and I celebrated. Then they came for my friends, and I ignored them. Then, they came for me."

Lets end Ai all together before it becomes a job killer.

@Xeacons
I think your not right and your not wrong.
So the thing is, the AI needs to be feed with images of Mario to be able to create Mario images or even knows who Mario is.
This is where you can bring up copyright claims.
Also consider this: in general Fan Art is valid if you have put enough own artistic effort into it. But this cannot be the case with AI art so it's copyright infringement.

@rushiosan Maybe that Tracer company has an automated way so they don't have to do anything manually, everything else would make no sense.

LOL smh. Good luck with that. I've seen more AI adult art made of Peach on one fast moving website than they could ever possibly take down despite their illegal use of lawfare. And nobody needs to use Grok (aka Flux) for that since its locally created or genned through websites hosted in country that laugh at silly IP laws in this era of technology.

I'm not a fan of AI art either, but frankly, I don't see the right Nintendo has to take it down. It's still fan art, it doesn't matter if AI made it or an artist. If the images aren't being sold, I don't see the right they have.

I think everyone's bloodlust over AI art is blinding them to how Nintendo could set a new precedent where a kid couldn't draw fan art of Mario and post it online without being sued.

And I don't think it's a fair argument that AI is fed official images of Mario, so thus it's copyright. Real artists also "learn from" the official images as it were, since you have eyes and look at the real stuff to then make your own take on it.

Again, I'm not for AI art, but Nintendo has been known to take a mile if given an inch when it comes to copyright issues. This could become an issue for real artists soon enough. (And it kinda already is, since some real fan art has already been hit.)

@Xeacons Freedom of speech is the freedom of speech FROM the GOVERNMENT. As in Uncle Sam can't smite you speaking your mind, but your Uncle from Nintendo can smite you if you break their TOS. Remember that as big as video game companies/websites are they are still private places. Their bouncers don't need to be lawyers to kick you out.

Ask any programmer and they'll tell you - AI is a program, not some sci-fi entity; the weird fantasy idea of AI everyone has is a joke, but is politely ignored because the hype is profiting those who are using or building it. A human being has to put in input to get an output. Saying AI "art" is "not human work" is like saying digital art is not technically human work, because they're using an art program. A human has to put in those inputs. But with AI it's more of a problem; at least digital art requires you to actually do art - art not being the result, but the process itself. Hence why people say things like "the art of making a game", etc. With AI, the person putting in the inputs isn't even doing that. With AI, it's taking those inputs, running them through a database of images - other people's hard work - that were accumulated from the internet without artist awareness or consent, pulls various elements out of the pictures, and frankenstien stitches it together into a mess of copy pasted work with filters, depending on the prompt. If you yank pages out of a ton of books and put them together into a "new" book, it's not your writing - it's the stolen writing style, hard work & research, creativity, and intellectual property of all those authors that you are refusing to get consent from and give credit to for your own gain. It's wrong, and it needs to stop. Best case scenario AI "art" generators require artists to opt-IN to the program - so requiring consent without unfairly burdening the artist - with legally required credit to the artists the program is pulling from.

I mean, cool, I guess, but lol what a impossible endeavor.

@Borderlineland The trace is automated and likely the emails to request take downs.

What I think will happen is social media sites will get snowed under with so many automated takedown requests and potential lawsuits, that they'll need to introduce AI tracking to block infringing uploads just too keep up.

If the AI image uploads are blocked at upload at all the big social media sites it'll kill the spread of infringing images.

@VoidofLight I don't understand or agree with people's phobia about AI. It's a tool and I'm fine with people losing jobs and work because of it. It's called progress just like that new contraption the horseless carriage.

Nintendo can knock some sense into the AI fanatics.

@VoidofLight It's easy to say it's not real art, but...

How to stay healthy - Aze Alter
https://youtu.be/e2RT79khjvI?si=LXVAWtDjvO7fJImb

Unanswered Oddities - Neural Viz
https://youtu.be/YGyvLlPad8Q?si=yzaAYZxDFunOVcF9

@Nintendo_Thumb Ai isn’t real art end of story. Nothing will change my stance.

@Deviant-Dork Art is intrinsically human. It’s a form of expression and storytelling. Ai removing the human from the equation means that culture will die and human expression will rot.

More pointless AI fearmongering.

@Anti-Matter Don't worry, Nintendo can't remove the muscular Mario pictures from your hard drive.

@VoidofLight I don't think you're willing to change your mind so won't look at evidence that proves it's art. You couldn't have watched those and say they're not art, I mean you can, but I don't believe you. People acting like you push the ai art button and it just makes a thing, but it doesn't work like that. It's a tool, and in the right hands it can be amazing, you just need a human with vision and effort.

Good story tellers are nothing new, but until now they had no outlet aside from writing. Here even someone with practically no budget can see their visions come to life. It can be bad if it's replacing human artists, but there are some things that would never exist because not everyone can afford a hollywood budget and those stories would just go untold.

It's not all black and white. If people didn't find it useful it never would taken off like it has.

@Nintendo_Thumb You can still tell stories without having a high budget. Sure it won’t be AAA hollywood blockbuster level, but you can still do something that resonates with people just as well if not better.

I do not see it as a tool as it removes the artist from the art. The intent behind lines. All Ai does is cheapen the actual process of creating. Making ugly as sin work that apes off of others. Wasting skills that people have by having it all automated. Even if you edit ai, it’s still effortless garbage. I see it as a waste and cheating actual artistic vision. It’s why I would rather die before using it in my own works.

@VoidofLight I disagree with your definition.

Good riddance

i dont normally agree with Nintendo's incessant takedowns, but this is one i can get behind, because screw AI to hell

I’ll be honest I get a kick out the Mario AI art.

So technically this site could get a DMCA as it's using Nintendo themed images also 🙄 at some point it will be your voice, if the Nintendo ninjas hear you speak about any of their intellectual property they will also sue, don't use your eyes either to look they will take them as well!

It just shows how ridiculous And petty the situation has come, the respect level for this company is very low at this point 😤 an active relentless witch hunt 😱

@JalapenoSpiceLife Yep, exactly my thoughts. This could get out of hand quickly.

@SteveDaSteve Much of art came from dreams, which can't really be accurately measured in how they're formed. You could argue that our dreams are influenced, but you can tell that to the space alien stories written in the 1800s. Not all art could be an amalgamation of what came before it, because there would have to be a definitive end point.