Epic Games Battles Racist AI Images in Fortnite

Epic Games Takes Action Against Racist AI Generated Images in Fortnite

In response to player outcry, Epic Games has taken steps to address the presence of racist AI generated images uploaded by users to its popular battle royale game Fortnite, as reported by Kotaku. The ability for users to create and share their own maps in Fortnite has been a key feature that contributed to its success, but it also opened the door for potentially problematic content to surface.

Key Points:

• Users noticed island maps with racist AI generated images perpetuating stereotypes, such as Middle Eastern men holding bombs and Black men eating fried chicken.
• Examples of maps included names like “Arab Zonewars,” “Nigerian Zonewars,” and “China Zonewars.”
• Despite small server populations on most maps, one map titled “Jamaica Zonewars” saw over 35,000 active players earlier this month.
• Epic Games has already removed many of the offending islands and taken action against the creators, stating that discriminatory content violates their island creator rules.
• The company emphasized that their human moderation team reviews all content before publication and is updating island creator rules and moderation training programs to prevent violating maps from reaching players.
• User-created islands are reviewed by moderators before publishing, but Epic Games takes a lenient approach to assume good intent, sometimes resulting in inadvertently published offensive content that is promptly removed.
• Creators found in violation of creator rules face enforcement actions, including permanent bans on publishing and monetization.
• Epic Games is working on enhancing its island creator rules and moderation training programs to address these issues effectively.

As the gaming industry embraces generative AI, Epic Games Store began allowing games with AI art submissions in September, in contrast to Steam’s initial stance against such content. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney emphasized the importance of not banning games for utilizing new technologies and highlighted the company’s commitment to self-publishing opportunities.

Despite efforts by AI developers to remove offensive images from their models, users have managed to exploit the technology, as seen with viral instances of AI generated images depicting characters like SpongeBob SquarePants and Nintendo’s Kirby engaged in troubling scenarios. Epic Games continues to navigate the complexities of moderating user-generated content while adapting to advancements in generative AI technology.