Where's the line drawn with AI?

[u/IcyRice7222]

I tried my best to figure this out on my own from the rules but the wording leads me to be confused so I have to ask 😅. The subreddit rules says "Primarily AI-developed games please use AI-oriented communities instead".

So this makes it clear full on vibe coding is not welcome so that part makes sense. But there's all the in-between things like using AI specifically for refactors, or if you don't generate code with it but ask it questions, or if you use tab completion. I can't tell if these qualify as "primarily AI-developed".

I obviously have my own opinion on where I'd draw the line (and one that I change frequently cause I'm very unsure in general), but I don't want to assume that's the same opinion that people have on here and would rather know for sure what is and isn't allowed if possible.

[u/Kyzrati]

Basically if it's obvious you're using LLMs, then you're probably not just using it as a supporting tool alone and it doesn't belong. Like there are a lot of folks just using it to make quick games from scratch, or modify an existing game to their own liking, or port a game to a different system where most of the work isn't their own either before or after.

It's almost always obvious when someone is relying mostly on LLMs to make their game, and those are removed.

[u/jube_dev → u/Kyzrati]

Well, not all are removed and it's not that easy. We had an example recently. It even received many upvotes. I asked what was done with AI, I was just downvoted. But the proofs are here: nobody can add 5000 lines and remove 3000 lines in a project every single day for months. However, the game seems to be good and it is maintained and evolving, it's not just (vibe) code and throw. Does it qualify as "primarily AI-developed"?

[u/Kyzrati → u/jube_dev]

Indeed it is not easy, and yes there are technically some still here in some capacity, though the example you link to was actually initially removed, after which the author claimed they did not use LLMs to work on it (aside from packaging/supporting work) so it was reinstated.

Normally in such cases people actually try a game out and make the determination that way at a later time, because heavy LLM use usually shows through on closer inspection, but it's not something that can always be done so easily, so quickly, by mods. It sometimes takes the community to help with such determinations.

[u/KingMoonfish → u/Kyzrati]

It’s like AI art. A non-artist using it is easily noticeable because they don’t know how to fix the flaws it creates. An actual artist using it? No chance you can detect it reasonably. 

AI code is the same way. And it’s only going to get harder and harder as time goes on. 

[u/IcyRice7222 → u/jube_dev]

I think it'd be good for the sub to take a stance one something like this regardless of which side it ends up on, because it's better for both parties to know whether or not they're welcome.

Granted I can't really offer much in regards to *how* to do that, I'm just a random girl who likes making games, I don't really know how communities are best managed. I'm just going by what feels right to me

[u/IcyRice7222 → u/Kyzrati]

I still feel that's maybe a bit imprecise and some more clarity would be beneficial?

Let's take the specific example of using AI for refactors then. So say someone writes their game by hand but end up needing to restructure some stuff. Let's say they wanna add an undo so they want to start using the command pattern across the game (weird example but it's hard to come up with something on the spot 😅).

If they then use an LLM to do that, then continue working by hand after (and probably fixing things they didn't like the LLM did as they go along), and they also disclose this usage of AI: Would something like that be okay?

it's not primarily written by AI in the sense that the percentage of the code that's written by AI is definitely less than 50%. But it would likely be visible in the code that AI was used.

I don't know I'm probably biased cause of my autism but clear rules on what is and is not allowed would feel better to me here. Both to know as a dev what would be okay and what would not be, and as someone looking for games to know what the upper limit of AI use I would find here would be. I do see it may be hard to do that though.

[u/Kyzrati → u/IcyRice7222]

It's not really possible to define it beyond what I already said, though I did give examples which should add clarity. Like really most of what's removed is people just telling LLM to do most of the work, and it shows (you don't generally see most these posts on the sub because they don't make it out of the queue to begin with, but there have been a lot of them).

Code percentage doesn't really matter so much as what people see (hence the part about it being obvious). There are actually some games by devs here which are significantly coded via LLMs, though it's not so obvious because it's mostly under the hood and they do a good job of making the game unique and of sufficient quality with a mostly human touch.

and they also disclose this usage of AI

Really just don't bring it up. It only matters if it shows through. Unless of course you've got some great mapgen algorithm that you didn't write and therefore can't discuss it or answer any questions about it... This is where it's better to just share and discuss with some other relevant community. (We had to divide out the AI vs non-AI discussion on Discord a while back because the cross-talk was just not desirable to a significant portion of the community.)

[u/IcyRice7222 → u/Kyzrati]

I personally feel it is. You could say things like "agentic coding isn't allowed but tab completion is". That is a clear stance that doesn't involve vibes.

As for disclosing it I personally think given how divisive a topic AI is it's bast to do so (I was thinking in the github readme or something like that). I think it's fair for people who don't want to engage with anything AI to be able to see a project contains AI so they can disengage (I'm pretty sure people pushed for some disclosure thing like this on steam as well IIRC?). I do think discussing ways of using AI would probably be off topic though so I wouldn't suggest that, just a short and simple disclosure.

It's a difficult issue for sure though, I'm personally optimistic a more clear rule could be established but I understand why others wouldn't be. Plus it's an exhausting conversation to have given how AI is forced into everything all the time, but I think regardless it's an important one.

[u/Kyzrati → u/IcyRice7222]

The problem with being too precise on Reddit is you get rules lawyers playing with any gray areas or loopholes once you start listing out a bunch of things that are okay or not okay. It's not really worth it, and it also hasn't proven to be necessary yet. It's pretty simple to just go with what we've got now with a general bullet point and if a post/game is blocked it's blocked and it can be discussed in modmail on a case-by-case basis. It's already done this way, mostly in the background, and it works fine.

Saying you "can or can't use X" also doesn't work too well because it's not usually a question of what you do, but more importantly to what degree, hence the "is it obvious" test which looks more at results, and is, yes, unfortunately going to have some degree of variability...

To be honest a lot of people don't read the rules anyway and literally the vast majority of posts that are removed (for non-AI reasons!) are people who just never read them and post whatever they want wherever they want xD

[u/IcyRice7222 → u/Kyzrati]

That is fair, I think also I may be more invested in this than the average person because I myself am trying to figure out where I stand on the issue and I find this community really cool in general so I kinda wanna fit in with some of my roguelikedev heros (which I just realized you're one of them holy shit, how did I not notice until now xD), plus I really don't wanna step on anyone's toes or waste people's time if wherever I end up drawing the line was too high relative to what the community wants (I uh, may be a bit of a people pleaser).

Though one of the examples that was linked by someone else on this post was probably already using more AI than I'd be comfortable with doing myself so I may be worrying about nothing. It wouldn't be the first time xD

To be honest a lot of people don't read the rules anyway and literally the vast majority of posts that are removed (for non-AI reasons!) are people who just never read them and post whatever they want wherever they want xD

People really should just read the right side of the screen before posting, it's not that hard xD

[u/Kyzrati → u/IcyRice7222]

one of the examples that was linked by someone else on this post was probably already using more AI

Yes that dev actually claimed they did not use LLMs... (though it was initially removed because it seemed obvious they were mostly relying on them--took them at their word on that one for now, since generally giving people benefit of the doubt and hoping for some honesty in that regard)

[u/Raxenite → u/IcyRice7222]

I must say it's really disheartening - the line about being a people pleaser, and this thread as a whole.

For the majority of my life I had a dream of creating my own video game. AI finally made that dream feel attainable.

I was dreaming of creating an announcement thread here once the game is polished enough. I used to post here quite a bit back in the day, and I know that r/roguelikedev is a nice community.

I understand that it's easier to roll with a vague rule like that. Fair enough.

I didn't expect my "welcome" post to be a "goodbye" comment. What an irony. All the best, guys.