"Every word" of Silent Hill Ascension was "written by real people," claims CEO amid barrage of AI accusations
Nov. 28, 2023The curse of the BerryMan has struck Silent Hill
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The CEO ofSilent Hill Ascensionco-creator Genvid Technologies has defended the game from claims that parts of it were written by AI text generators.
Navok’s comments come after a barrage of criticism leveled at the latest episode of Ascension, most notably during a scene in which characters stumble on a character who says they’re foraging for berries in the wood. After a peculiar tangent in which they discuss gifting jam to their protagonists, the forager suggests he’s seen something weird in the woods, but offers no detail before leaving the scene.
It’s fair to say that ‘BerryMan’ might not be an example of top-tier writing, and his inclusion was enough for a now-viral tweet to claim that Ascension is “absolutely written by AI.” That tweet also drew further attention to the interest that Genvid CCO Stephan Vladimir Bugaj has in the generative technology - earlier this year, Bugaj spoke at an AI conference. That’s not exactly a smoking gun, but it certainly suggests that senior staff at Genvid are interested in the development of AI technologies.
In a separatetweet, Navok goes into extra detail about Genvid’s work with AI. He admits that the company “ran tests several years ago to see whether AI could improve animation or cinematic production pipelines,” likening the result of those tests to the AI Twitch streams trained on shows like Seinfeld and Family Guy: “not great.”
AI or otherwise, Ascension remains a peculiar prospect, thanks to its episodic format, strange monetization options, and distracting player involvement via its Twitch-style text chat. After a faltering start,Genvid acknowledged feedback and said it was working on changes, but with fingers pointed so firmly at the disappointing writing of this narrative-first game, it remains to be seen whether it can ever live up to the series' potential.
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