Following an outcry from players, Epic Games is cleaning up racist AI-generated images uploaded by users to the popular battle royale game Fortnite, reports Kotaku.
One of the features that has made Fortnite a breakout online game today is the ability for users to create their own maps and share playable experiences with the world. This outlet for creativity, however, means that users can upload problematic content, which is what happened here.
Recently, users have started noticing island maps featuring crude AI-generated images that perpetrate racist stereotypes. Kotaku reports that examples of maps include names such as “Arab Zonewars”, “Nigeria Zonewars” and “China Zonewars”.
The map also highlights racist, AI-generated images, including Middle Eastern men holding bombs and black people eating chicken. While most of these maps have small server counts, one map, “Jamaica ZoneWars,” had over 35,000 active players earlier this month.
Image: Artwork from Forbidden Island with a Fortnite creation from user “Ignite”.
“Many of the islands mentioned have been removed, and the developers have taken action,” Epic Games said in a statement to Kotaku. We have already addressed content violations against over 100 islands using this same thumbnail format and will continue to do so.
Epic Games added that discriminatory content has no place in Fortnite and violates the company's Island Creator rules, adding that users who violate these guidelines may have their accounts permanently banned.
“Our human moderation team reviews all content before it's published, and we're actively updating our Island Creator rules to reduce the number of maps that violate player rules,” Epic Games said. “We encourage our players to report any islands they see that may be breaking our rules.”
In a statement to DecryptGG, all user-generated islands are reviewed by moderators before being published, but the team said it took a light touch.
Image: Artwork from Forbidden Island by user “drzen” on Fortnite Creations.
“If our moderation team is unsure about content infringement, we ask that they take good judgment on behalf of the creator so that we don't censor,” Epic Games said. “Sometimes this means inappropriate content gets published, and we work quickly to take down any offensive content and write new training materials for our moderators, including permanent publishing and monetization bans.”
The publisher added that it is working to improve “island creator laws and moderation training programs.”
Joining in on the generative AI craze, the Epic Games Store began allowing games and submissions containing AI art and other elements in September. This comes after rival PC gaming marketplace Steam initially took a stance on AI content, but has since relaxed its rules on such submissions.
“We don't stop games from using new technologies,” Epic Games co-founder and CEO Tim Sweeney wrote on Twitter.
While AI developers have invested heavily in cleaning offensive images from their models, users have found ways to “jailbreak” the models using special queries. In October, AI-generated images of SpongeBob SquarePants or Nintendo Kirby's flying jetliners flew into the World Trade Center.
Edited by Andrew Hayward.
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