AI is a topic that comes up regularly, so we wanted to explain our position on AI and how it is used during the development of Project Mammut.
The Philosophy
We believe people should be able to make informed decisions about the software they use based on their own values and ethics.
We also want to acknowledge that the term AI has become incredibly broad and using the term AI as a general blanket terminology muddies the water when discussing it as a whole. It now describes everything from video game decision trees, coding assistants, and systems that generate artwork, music, writing whole cloth, and other creative content.
Our philosophy is simple:
- Computers should be tools that help people create, not replace the act of creating.
- Computers and their creations should NEVER unknowingly impersonate humans or human creations or be used to deceive.
Creative Content
Project Mammut contains no AI-generated creative content.
This includes:
- Artwork
- Images
- Music
- Sound effects
- Video
- Creative writing
- Dialogue
- Tutorials
We do not use generative AI to produce any of the creative content that makes up Project Mammut project, including any examples, tutorials, or assets provided with the engine, and will never knowingly do so.
We have a firm belief that these technologies have made almost every part of the modern internet worse in almost every metric and are not looking to add to it.
AI During Development
Many modern development tools now include AI-assisted features by default, and avoiding them entirely is becoming increasingly difficult.
The AI-assisted tools we make use of are limited to development tasks such as:
- Maintaining documentation.
- Automating repetitive development tasks.
- Assisting with project builds.
- Reporting or diagnosing errors.
- Identifying redundant or unused code.
- Searching documentation.
- Optimising
These are tasks we consider mechanical rather than creative, allowing our developers to spend more time designing, building, and improving the engine itself.
Accessibility
For accessibility of the project, some of the language options have been generated with Google translate. These translations are far from perfect and have been added to help non english speakers use the software. These translations are being replaced with human made translations over time. An effort will be made to indicate which are true translations and which aren't in the software.
Development Stack
Like every modern software project, Project Mammut is built on tools, libraries, frameworks, and platforms created by many different individuals and organisations.
Some of those third-party products may themselves make use of AI-assisted technologies. While we cannot reasonably audit every tool used throughout the software ecosystem, we do not intentionally choose dependencies because they include AI features.
Writing the Engine
The design of Project Mammut, its architecture, features, APIs, and implementation are created by humans.
AI does not design the engine, decide how systems should work, or replace the engineering decisions involved in building Project Mammut.
Like any other software project, we use tools that improve productivity, but the creative and technical direction of Project Mammut remains entirely human.
User created content
We hope that all stories that you tell by using our software comes entirely by humans, however we understand that once our tools are in other people's hands, we can not reasonably expect that this will be the case.
When publishing your game, there is an option to indicate that Generative AI tools have been used to produce your game, and doing so will tag the game as such to allow uses to filter out games that use AI if they wish to.
We hope to include other incentives for users who chose not to use these tools down the line also.
Final Thoughts
We know people have very different opinions about AI, and we respect that.
Our goal is to be transparent about how AI is used so that everyone can make their own informed decision.
If you decide Project Mammut isn't for you because of where you personally draw that line, we completely understand.
If you do decide to give it a try, we genuinely hope you enjoy telling your stories with it.