Nintendo has posted a short statement denying that it has lobbied the Japanese government on the subject of generative AI.
The post on X was made following a tweet by Japanese politician Satoshi Asano, who originally claimed the company had been lobbying the government on the subject of generative AI.
Here's the full statement, as posted in English following the original Japanese version:
Contrary to recent discussions on the internet, Nintendo has not had any contact with the Japanese government about generative AI. Whether generative AI is involved or not, we will continue to take necessary actions against infringement of our intellectual property rights.
Mr. Asano has since deleted his original post and issued apologies, linking to Nintendo’s post in one. Here’s the content of his second post, as translated via X:
Regarding the content I posted the other day, there was a section with incorrect information, which I have corrected as follows. I deeply regret my own failure to verify the facts adequately. I would like to apologize once again to all related parties and will strive to prevent any recurrence. Additionally, regarding the original post that contained the incorrect information, it has been confirmed that it is being disseminated again after appearing in X's trends, so to prevent the further spread of information that differs from the facts and to avoid causing any more trouble, I have just deleted it. Once again, I will take this as a lesson and make use of it moving forward.
This comes as controversial generative AI technology is being used increasingly in the field of game development, and soon after Open AI’s Sora 2 went online and was quickly filled with unofficial video clips created via user prompts featuring Nintendo characters.
Back in April, on the topic of generative AI, NOA president Doug Bowser said: "We still believe that what makes our games special is our developers, their artistic capabilities and their insight into how people play, so there's always, always, going to be a human touch and a human engagement in how we develop and build our games."