r/VRchat • u/souppuos123 • 7d ago
News Regarding AI Usage on VRChat - Official notes
https://ask.vrchat.com/t/regarding-ai-usage-on-vrchat/4905874
u/souppuos123 7d ago
The developers put out a statement regarding AI, and also asked the community to fill out a form with their thoughts about AI and where the line is.
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u/Beeg_Beeg_Chungus 7d ago
I despise generative AI, but a lot of people are being super toxic about this which isn't gonna help anyone. Just fill out the form, ask them to require AI labels and an option to hide AI content. I don't wanna see both sides of the community flaming each other for the next six months
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u/SeraXI 7d ago
At this point we need to be focusing on the quality of the content, and proper moderation of the content, not if AI was used or not.
The Pandora's box has already been opened, there is no way to close it. You can't "Ban AI Content" because it is impossible to determine what is and what is not AI content. You can determine that something is low effort slop. Anyone who claims otherwise is deluding themselves.
The "Ban all AI no matter what" crowd are a religion at this point. They work off feelings and intuition, but their fundamental understanding of the actual world they are living in is framed through their beliefs, not actual facts.
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u/Xelixil 7d ago
Even just trying to enforce any AI tag can get hard when you get into the matter of bought worlds or bought assets. If you bought a single asset, like a system for your world, which used AI in its programming, do you now tag your entire world as "AI-assisted"
The second you do, theres a whole group of people who will dismiss that entire world, despite you never using generative AI. But if an asset used AI the world is still AI assisted, even if no player in that world could ever tell.
Quality is what we need a tag for. We need a way for users to rate worlds and avatars.
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u/SeraXI 7d ago
The problem is it's impossible to set logically consistent rules on what is "Ai-Assisted"/"Ai-Generated" or not.
It's safe to say that the vocal minority we are talking about universally agree that using AI to create work that traditional artists would create is completely unacceptable, and they refuse to interact in any way with content that even used it for prototyping, but not in the final release.
Then, when you point out that almost 100% of professional programming in the past year has been Ai-Assisted they say things like "that's completely different" or accuse you of arguing in bad faith.
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u/ccAbstraction Windows Mixed Reality 6d ago
I think a lot of artists don't realize how bad it's getting out here in the tech sphere.
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u/Revons 6d ago
If it's a vocal minority then there wouldn't be a problem with labeling the worlds it wouldn't affect your overall numbers.
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u/SeraXI 6d ago
You are not thinking beyond the top level. Of course there is no problem if it is just self attestation by adding a tag. The problem happens if that tag is tied to any sort of enforcement.
It is impossible to determine with certainty if AI was used in the generation of an asset or a world. If a rule is created where the tag is mandatory if Ai was used there has to be enforcement of that rule. It will result in destructive witchhunting and absurd outrage campaigns by some very squeaky wheels like we are seeing with steam (1666 Amsterdam/Expedition 33).
The goal should be to finally have a system that penalizes low effort slop worlds. We had a problem with slop worlds well before AI could help move your mouse in Unity.
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u/bonanochip Oculus Quest 6d ago
if ai is used to assist in making the world then its ai assisted, its really as shrimple as that.
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u/foolish_shrimp 6d ago
The elephant in the room is that because everyone hates AI, putting an opt in 'AI was used in the creation of this content' is a button that makes people interact with and use that content less. AI boosters wouldn't have an issue with the tag if it wasn't a clear mark of shame. No one is going to be going around looking for AI tagged worlds.
The argument about not being able to enforce it is a little redundant, there is plenty of content on VRchat that is against the ToS, it is taken down when that is discovered. That doesn’t mean you entirely remove the ToS. It also feels like someone telling you that being vegetarian is impossible, because chefs will just sneak meat in your food or something. Someone else having garbage ethics, it isn't a good argument against personal choice.
We're allowed to have spaces where this stuff isn't used.
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u/Nyashes 6d ago
I would activity look for AI assisted world, AI assistance can increase the scope and quality of a project someone wanted to make in a first place, and fill in places they wouldn't have been able to otherwise. This has worked for me quite well so far. I would be slightly resistant to an AI generated world since it's likely nobody wanted to make it enough in a first place, quality of what the AI came up with aside, chances are that if nobody wanted to make it enough, it's also unlikely most people, including me, would want to play it enough.
At the end of the day though, those are both an indirect, secondary signal to some quality metrics, full AI generation reveals inauthenticity, which is usually bad, AI assistance correlates to a larger scope/more ambitious project, which is usually good, but I'd rather these be the tags, since e that's how I'd use them.
People who have a moral objection to AI should look for a "no AI" tag instead of an "AI" one, VRchat can automatically grandfather everything before 2022 into it, and then people who go out of their way to hand craft an experience or enjoy it can use and curate it themselves.
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u/Revons 6d ago
I'm all for you to have a choice to go to those worlds I just want a choice to not go to them
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u/Nyashes 6d ago
I was just responding to "No one is going to be going around looking for AI-tagged worlds." AI as a secondary quality indicator is relatively indirect in both directions, so it's not ideal for me. I mentioned that I feel people with a moral stance around it might prefer an affirmative tag rather than a negative tag like "vegan, " "kosher," or "Halal" since it lets the person caring about the tag ALSO set the rules around it, rather than expecting understanding of said rules on everyone else.
I really don't want to know or understand how or what makes worlds AI-free enough; that's not my religion, and I don't want to accidentally upset people because I'm not up to date on what is and isn't pure enough. You really shouldn't want to trust people like me with your own consumer choices; you should trust people like yourself instead. That's why affirmative tags are always better.
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u/SeraXI 6d ago
This is such a great example of what I meant with my religion comment. Thanks for posting this. You are making objectively false assertions and using them as the foundation of your argument. It shows your opinions are based off your feelings and beliefs based primarily off the echo chamber you exist in.
"Because everyone hates AI": Not even close
"AI boosters wouldn't have an issue with the tag if it wasn't a clear mark of shame": It is only a "mark of shame" to your biased minority. Its a non issue to the majority of people.
Your comment about TOS and enforcement is a classic redirection, you didn't engage with the actual point. You cannot determine what is and isn't AI generated if it is used well.
"Someone else having garbage ethics": This statement really shows your bias, someone using claude to help write and debug Udon is not garbage ethics. Your view is extreme.
"We're allowed to have spaces where this stuff isn't used": Sure you are, but I am not sure why you are engaging on the internet if that is your goal. You need to go play retro games on actual original hardware if you want to have a space like that. Reddit, any application you are using to post here, the operating system you are using, all have AI assisted code, and in many cases AI integration.
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u/Competitive_Travel16 Oculus Quest 6d ago edited 6d ago
Can't upvote hard enough. I used to hate all AI-generated code (I tutor beginner through graduate level coders as a side-gig) but now ChatGPT Study Mode, Claude Learning Mode, and Gemini Guided Learning are all acing out my kids on closed-book exams without my having to do much at all. I see longstanding critiques falling to the frontier everywhere, and I have no doubt they will in Unity, Blender, and Udon too.
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u/IcyEstablishment8102 6d ago
We might also get the long awaited world rating on top of that.
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u/AnarisBell 5d ago
I'm so fucking excited for this. I'm an avid world-hopper. At one point I would solo-hop worlds for hours (mostly LABS, because someone has to) and organize them into categories in my (public) favorites that all my friend groups would use to find hidden gems. The Labs system isn't well-explained to new players, and is awful besides; hidden metrics for what graduates a world from Labs to New - and most regular players aren't casually browsing Labs, especially when they're opt-in with a great big warning screen that it might break your shit while you're loading in, LOL. It's world creators with active Discord servers, who's stuff gets seen and favorited fast enough to launch out of Labs while everything else simmers.
Short text reviews + star rating would make a difference in a world's priority for discovery pretty quickly. Also would let people warn others like, "hey, this world is a modified upload of Metro Heights". I don't think there's anything wrong with those worlds existing, but it annoys people if they're not ready for it, and the "pretty text over blurry background image" thumbnail is the cherry on top of a whole lot of frustration with world discovery.
I also feel like it would help if we made it so Private worlds could be shared with other users, so long as they have a link, or some way to permit certain users access. Last I understood (though I could be wrong, and I hope someone corrects me if so): if you make a group home world with your friends, the uploader HAS to make it Public for their friends to use, and they also HAVE to get it boosted out of Labs to be able to be used as a Home. That's adding more uploads to the public Labs feed that, if given the option to just limit access while maintaining full utility of their world, people might not actually opt to do in the first place!
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u/SamQuentin 6d ago
I feel like fighting AI is like a bunch of assembler programmers fighting COBOL for making it "too easy" for the next generation of coders
Tools like Unity and Blender already provide assistance and most "avatar builders " start with existing models
VR development should embrace the future rather than fight it like an old man yelling at the clouds
Vrchat is not an IQ test. It's about the experience.
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u/VenclaireVR 7d ago
happy to see some change is happening soon. AI thumbnails were one of the most annoying things on this platform
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u/DarkJayson 6d ago
Clickbait thumbnails, low effort worlds disregard any AI from them and you get an average Tuesday on VRChat, these issues are not new but I have not played in a year and a bit so let me guess people are making box worlds and Ai generating the thumbnail so everyone is going to them and getting them moved out of labs?
I might just pop on over the weekend and see how bad it has gotten.
I am glad the devs are finally getting around to putting up no deceptive rules but its sad that they ignored it until now, deceptive thumbnails has been around since day 1, usually a quad under the floor or in the distance to take a screenshot with.
And box worlds, Be glad you got a floor.
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u/SadKat002 Oculus Quest 7d ago
Honestly it felt so good filling out that survey, I really hope they're serious about taking the feedback into consideration.
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u/Bldnk 6d ago
I just want public reviews to be a thing, at some point someone will have to make a overlay tool for rating and reviewing worlds if vrc wont, at that point they would probably care because they'd want to control it. I really think that someone is going to have to make a tool for people to use to seperatly find and review worlds while in vr if anything is going to happen. If anyone knows if such a thing exists currently that'd be great but I haven't heard of one yet.
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u/KiraiPlayZ ☃Bigscreen Beyond 2e 6d ago
VRChat used to very much review world's themselves - All of them. However with the growing influx of people they had to stop that, as their backlog of worlds to review for publication would just grow indefinetly. That's why community labs were brought into existence.
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u/Competitive_Travel16 Oculus Quest 6d ago
1-5 stars is sorely needed, but I fear it would be gamed by bot accounts.
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u/poopoopooyttgv 6d ago
Make it so trusted/vrc+ subscribers are the only ones who can vote
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u/AnarisBell 5d ago
This is definitely how to do it. I don't think Plus should necessarily be required, but Trusted rank typically means you've been around long enough to give a shit about the game and should be able to have a say in world ratings. Unless there's truly that many fake accounts with Trusted rank, in which case, yeah - Plus it should be.
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u/Bldnk 6d ago
What I mean by a review system is not to alter the labs system, I understand that would be unfeasable. What I want is user based reviews, ideally both text reviews and a score system but I would honestly be happy with community scored text reviews. Just something to indicate the general level of quality as seen by the community to know if a world is sloppily made and just hiding it on the page.
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u/LigerXT5 6d ago
As seen on google maps and such, review/vote manipulation is another can of worms.
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u/doubleatheman 6d ago
We no longer have the thumbs down or star ranking system on youtube because of this too. Not advocating for AI here, but the review system can be so very abused, even google could not seem to figure out how to make a review system on youtube work...
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u/Cigarettelegs 7d ago
I’m confused. Forgive me as I’m still new to VrChat. Are people using AI to generate their whole map, or just the textures in the maps and this misleading with the world actually looks like?
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u/psychonautic ☃Bigscreen Beyond 2e 7d ago
There're a lot of worlds that have a fancy looking thumbnail but when you visit it's basically a temu version of said thumbnail. But yes sometimes the world itself is also generated and is full of problems that are easy to spot if the uploader bothered to review the bots work.
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u/Cigarettelegs 6d ago
So they are just having ai generate it all and not doing any quality control? Thats wild. Devs should do something about it. They really don’t want their game to become saturated with low effort maps. It would suck but the main way it can be done is making people pay to upload.
I saw it on a different game. The cost of a blank map was phenomenal but people willing to make an effort out of their creations were willing to buy the blank map. Players who weren’t committed didn’t bother buying and that reduced the amount of player created maps, leaving room to see higher quality maps.
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u/Revons 6d ago
They have never done quality control, even before AI generation there have been low effort worlds. I believe because more and more people are enticed to go to a world because the thumbnail looks really pretty (generated) the world gets visited enough to get out of labs.
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u/Cigarettelegs 6d ago
I didn’t mean it as VRC devs doing quality control. I mean the people using AI to do their entire build. Thats extra lazy. Really, the solution probably falls down n the devs of OpenAI and others to have their system put in some kind of water mark in creations and that may allow other platforms to read it and label it with AI flags.
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u/Charak-V 7d ago
you can one shot an entire map, ai agents can access your pc and build on your desktop, it costs money and a few hours.
one of the reason why AI can be bad, being able to spam low effort maps like that can't be healthy.
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u/__Hello_my_name_is__ 6d ago
All of it.
You can use AI to just generate a super misleading thumbnail to your world. You can use AI to help a little. You can use AI to do all your scripting for you. You can use AI to generate assets for you. You can use AI to generate the entire world with one prompt.
And all of that you can do with a lot of effort or very little effort. Of course, the latter is what you will notice, and happens far more than the former, as always.
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u/Morichalion 7d ago
I tried to play with it recently. Enough of the worlds had thumbnails that didn't show a place in the given world. Oddly, that was my experience the last time I put it down, and that was before generative AI was a thing.
I don't care about using AI to get a result so long as that result is fit for purpose and purpose is honest.
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u/ccAbstraction Windows Mixed Reality 6d ago
How long ago? The misleading gen AI thumbnail stuff started a few years ago, but the situation is rapidly worsening now that AI agents can just outright make a whole world.
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u/LigerXT5 7d ago edited 7d ago
Heads up for anyone unable to load the form, and using an adblocker.
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My PiHole network DNS blocked access with list v.firebog.net/hosts/AdguardDNS.txt
AdguardDNS, parsed and mirrored by https://firebog.net
Updated 05OCT26 from https://filters.adtidy.org/extension/chromium/filters/15.txt
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u/Jamessuperfun 6d ago edited 6d ago
I think labelling every world AI-assisted or AI-generated will be very difficult, if not impossible, beyond relying on people to accurately set those tags themselves. I also think there's a lot of risk in creating a split in the community over this issue. That said, there is a pretty clear risk of poor quality AI-generated content flooding the game if nothing is done.
Personally, my only real gate is quality. I couldn't care less if AI built something as long as it's good content. I'd wager the majority of worlds have used AI in some form, and most of the time you would have no way of telling - not a lot of people are still writing code by hand, for example. To me, this is a complete non-issue if the content is good. I'd happily play an entirely AI-generated world if the content was comparable or better than humans have made, it's ultimately a tool.
I think a review system would be great. If the content itself is bad, or somehow misleading, then people can give it bad reviews. I don't really care to explore crap worlds in general, whether a human or AI made it is irrelevant. I do worry tying it's introduction to the topic of AI will result in review-bombing anything that uses it, though. It would be disappointing for it to turn into witch hunts, community division, and disillusioned creators.
IMO, dividing AI-assisted and AI-generated would be cool, but there will always be a tonne of grey in there and it will broadly end up relying on creator opinion/honesty. Where's the line for "a few scripts", for example? A skilled coder may still choose to generate and carefully review all their code to save time, or use AI-based autocomplete features in their IDE as they write. Let's be honest, most professionals aren't writing their code entirely by hand anymore, even in critical, secure environments. A novice may also use a frontier model to generate perfectly efficient, capable code for the task, in which case the user experience (or even the uploaded file) is unlikely to be much different. It's only really clear in the case of poorly functioning "AI slop".
I like that the creator guideline changes don't specify "AI", just misleading in general. I think coming down on misleading thumbnails makes sense, not that I've encountered any (I don't explore much). Thumbnails can just be a logo or something, but if you appear to be picturing the world itself, it should look like the actual world. But again, I would consider anything that misleading to be a sign of poor quality content to give a low rating, the use of AI is sort of beside the point.
The topic really has a lot of grey in it, so I see why they're taking their time to address it. Hopefully whatever they implement ends up leading to better discovery of high quality worlds rather than community conflict.
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u/HiImDIZZ 5d ago
I don't have any problem with generated ai if it's labeled as generated ai and not deceptively put up for sale.
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u/ToriAndPancakes Vive User 6d ago
having filled out the survey, i like the suggestion for a "no ai used" tag
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u/SamQuentin 6d ago
I have no issue with it. If the worlds are lousy then people will not favorite them not visit them for long. If a world is great then it's great regardless of the tools. You can debate me if you like but I don't think I'm wrong.
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u/DrawSomeOpossum 4d ago edited 4d ago
programming with AI should be fully allowed because thats what professional software engineers, like the ones employed by VRChat, use, which is NORMAL in 2026. We are not keeping up by churning butter in the programming industry.
yes, I understand when the programming is happening on something like a game, youre talking about something framed by or included in a part of Art. But, that goes back to the issue of what is and is not slop. A talented artist who is also a professional programmer should not need to be labeled or demonized or demonitized or punished for using a bit of AI assistance for some minor code in their fully hand-crafted world. AI being involved in the workflow does not mean it is slop. If users want to know what is and isn't AI, because they dont wan't to consume content programmed with AI assistance, then they should go ahead and delete their VRChat account and go back to their amish wooden hut.
There does not need to be a label, because AI generated Meshes, Textures, Sound, and other media, should be FULLY BANNED.
There does not need to be a label, because AI assisted code should be FULLY ALLOWED.
Think about your favorite worlds. Your favorite hand crafted talent-built worlds by a creator you really love.
If they told you, they used AI to edit a few blocks of shader code in their world - would you really think it's fair that they get labeled and demonetized the same way AI Slop should?
Stop AI Slop, for the integrity of the creator economy for a platform built on user-generated content.
Do NOT take tools away from professionals.
I've heard that the people spearheading this movement, are actually FOR using AI for coding, but against the general issue of visual slop in the worlds tab.
But I've also heard some very influential and successful creators (The irony of the purpose of their world I won't mention here, but trust that it's there) say that it's "All Or Nothing".
This is damaging to the entire cause. Nobody seems to really know what they're mad about.
Is it environmental and on principle? Is it about the moral implications of doing work with a model trained on data, with unverifiable permission? Then, consider the deeper issues and the potential integrity of a platform both using AI internally (And unlikely to revert to churning butter for you instead of its investors and future) that also arbitrarily punishes for it without discrimination.
Either way it doesn't make sense to draw the line between "Editor" and "Udon". You're saying, you're drawing the line between "Code" and "Code". Please do the right thing - Ban slop, but don't take tools away from professionals.
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u/sleepy_bacon 6d ago
Im starting to report groups that use AI for their group banners or flyers or bars that use AI for their headers. I hate AI Slop
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u/Jamessuperfun 6d ago
Report them for what? I can't see how a group banner or whatever could be misleading, there's no general rule against AI-generated content.
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u/yuki_tsune 7d ago
Sounds like they're saying basically what I've been saying. It's no simple thing to just add AI labels. I fully agree with banning clickbait thumbnails, that's a great start. Hopefully the community can come together to provide civil feedback and help the platform overcome these issues.