It's been some time since Neowiz made the controversial announcement that they're looking for an AI creator for their art department, and while they emphasized that the role won't be involved directly in the production of the Lies of P sequel, this entire controversy has brought some old, iffy feelings I had about certain pieces of LoP concept art back to the forefront of my mind.

The Bluesky thread that @thighsofp linked in their post about the use of AI-generated imagery in LoP actually prompted me to go through the entire art book again, so I took pictures of the concept art in question:

St. Frangelico Cathedral chapel (p. 98)

St. Frangelico Cathedral main hall (p. 99)

Estella Opera House staircase (p. 139)

Elysion Boulevard house interior (p. 52)

Upon my first flip through of the book, I already noticed that these images looked weirdly blurry in a few places (e.g. head of the statue in the chapel, top of destroyed pillar in the cathedral main hall), and upon giving them a closer look, some of the details do seem kinda nonsensical (e.g. light coming from above the statues on the pillars in the chapel, the beams in the house being partially transparent).

Back when I first saw them, I simply chose to believe that they were kinda badly photoshopped - however, with all the stuff that has surfaced now, I can't help but wonder if gen AI was used for them.

While the pieces above are those where you can see it most clearly, there are several others I have under suspicion:

Krat City Hall (p. 52)

Krat City Hall boss area (p. 65)

Venigni Works sewers (2x, p. 76)

St. Frangelico Cathedral boss area (p. 111)

Rosa Isabelle Street + Rosa Isabelle Street house interior (p. 140)

Grand Exhibition outdoor area (p. 152)

(Basically, what I'm talking about are all these pieces of weird-looking "photo-realistic" concept art.)

At the same time, I have to say I'm not an artist, and I'm not an expert for identifying AI-generated images, either. (Whenever I see something that looks suspicious, I usually give it a wide berth.) Therefore, I would be glad to hear other people's opinions on this!

However, if my suspicion is correct and Neowiz already used gen AI during the creation of Lies of P, their credibility would suffer immensely from this - because, well, if they already used AI for the concept art of Lies of P and put AI-generated images in the art book without labeling them as such, who is to prevent them from doing so again? And despite the assurance from Neowiz that "all final assets for the upcoming game will be created by experienced artists", it does appear as if gen AI assets were already used in LoP, judging by the images thighsofp shared - so, how believable is that statement, really? (See also: "A liar will not be believed even when they speak the truth.")

Be careful of anyone doing this shit. Not just pretending to be you but sending this message in particular. I did more research and this mother fucker completely copy and pasted this shit. I saw someone's Tumblr DMS screenshots from Facebook and this is exactly word for fucking word.

@hushnimbleprowler either might have been HACKED or is apart of it. Either way don't waste my fucking time.

I knew some shit was fucked when they wouldn't even TELL ME just WHO it could have been.

So anyway please watch out for this I'm just annoyed to have been bothered with this lol.

If you needed more to this LMAO

My main account got @-ed on this scam (no I won't say which one), and it occurred to me that some of the people here might not realize this is a scam.

Hello, I have already mentioned this on my Twitter and I will say this again on my Tumblr since I can have a better way to express my thoughts on this. As you know, Neowiz has been masking and hiding the dust under the rug, about the hiring of someone braindeadly being capable to generate AI pictures for the whole concept art of the game. With this, I do not feel supporting the company, even by making art of the game anymore ( unless there is a turn of events ). I am seriously sick and tired of a company that used to take feedback of their players so dearly to turn against the same artists that made the game great. Not only their usage of generative AI was not mentioned for the DLC — thing that still is not declared on the steam page after a whole year, but the whole ignoring their fans being loud about this thing seems to not make them care. So why should I care? Why do I need to still hold onto a false hope that this backlash will be useful?

THEY ARE TAGGING PEOPLE AND TRYING TO SCAM THEM

THEY TAGGED ME WHICH IS A BIG FUCKING MISTAKE

MOTHER FUCKING TURNED OFF REBLOGS SO HERE IS THE ACCOUNT TO REPORT

I REPORTED THEM

TUMBLR ADS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO AUTO-PLAY AUDIO! THAT IS A BUG AND YOU SHOULD REPORT IT!

"This ad is auto-playing audio" is literally on the drop down menu for reporting an ad. Tumblr isn't trying to implement this! Don't protest this "new policy", cause it's not one.

Report the broken ads.

crossposting from bsky - glad I stopped using spotify when I did and that I unlinked it from my discord, but still

If you get mentioned under ANY blog that says they're Tumblr staff. DON'T FALL FOR IT!!!!!!

Before all of this, i would always say it's one of my favorite games of all time, that I loved everything about it and recommended it to everyone I knew. I kept replaying it, consuming all the fanart with it I could find and in general I was really passionate about the game.

Now I feel some kind of distaste for the studio, even for the game itself. Still, I love it but it makes me wonder how much ai might have been used for tis creation that we have no idea about.