On July 19, controversy erupted over the recent art competition “beautiful summer“of The influence of Genshinwhen it was discovered that some of the winners used art drawn or generated by artificial intelligence in their works. miHoYo, the developer of the game, made the decision to disqualify the participants of this tournament in response to this scandal.
Tracing art and art generated by artificial intelligence are practices that are generally contested in art communities. This is because a person responsible for such actions is copying someone else’s work or letting a computer do it for them. Art competitions, such as this one, often offer prizes to the winners, so immoral activities like this can have negative consequences, as is evident in this case.
The controversy was fueled by a post on Reddit, which revealed significant evidence that some of the winners of the “Beautiful Summer” art competition may have copied works from other artists, either through tracking or art that generated artificial intelligence. This post featured seven different fanarts that apparently copied other people’s work:
It was mentioned in the text of the publication that the characters in question were very similar to the characters in another existing work in one of the many illustrations in question. Although the shading and color were different, the outlines were allegedly suspiciously similar, leading to accusations of plagiarizing or generating unofficial art.
It is important to note that one of the rules of the contest established that the submitted works must be fan originals created during the last month and have a high level of completeness. Submission of incomplete sketches, works edited directly with graphic design tools (such as Photoshop, etc.) or works with non-original elements was prohibited. Therefore, those who broke this rule would see their participation disqualified.
Due to this situation, the official Genshin Impact Twitter account (Japanese version) released a statement: «“Happy summer”. We received feedback that some of the winning entries broke the rules of the summer-themed doujin illustration contest. In order to ensure the fairness of the competition, we have decided to remove some of the works displayed on the results announcement page and cancel the eligibility of the entrants to win the prize. Certain users who have voluntarily removed their published works will be deemed to have relinquished their rewards».
The same tweet stated: “In the future, we will continue to improve the prize selection system for the competition. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.». As a result, Genshin Impact disqualified certain people who were found to have broken the rules.
It is important to note that the official statement does not specifically mention the drawing or generation of art through artificial intelligence, but it is relevant to mention that this statement was issued after the accusations surfaced online.
Fountain: Reddit
