New month, new story, in this case, massive and unjustified bans on Steam for content created by generative AI algorithms. Anyone would say that if it continues at this rate, in a few years or so, its use for any purpose other than just personal recreation will end up being completely banned. Of course, for said future to be fulfilled, an important condition is that all of these prohibitions are real, which is why the use of AI is vetoed simply because… well, I don’t really know, right.

It is true that some regulations need to be put in place to prevent the spread of AI from being transferred to massive job destructionbut regulators on both sides of the Atlantic are already working on it, and in the case of the European Union, they intend to do it in record time for their standards, with the rule in place until the end of 2023 (although we hope that there will be an adaptation period for affected companies).

In the absence of such public regulations, more and more entities are creating their own standards in this regard. For example, we learned a few weeks ago that creations with artificial intelligence are not eligible for the Grammy Awards, although there is no problem with compositions that at some point used said technology to do so. Something that seems logical, after knowing that even “dinosaurs” (please understand that I say this in the best sense) like Paul McCartney have signed up to use AI, in this case to record what, in addition to surprises, will The last song by The Beatles.

So with the industry accepting the mild use of AI, this week reports began circulating that Steam would not approve games that have AI-generated content. Yes, the usual, another juicy headline. Like the one from early May that claimed Steam was removing AI-created tracks. And you, dear reader, surely already know what both news items have in common.

As we can read in The Verge, which asked Valve for an explanation, Steam does not ban AI-generated content. Or, more accurately, you’re not banning AI-generated content because of the AI’s origin, you’re actually preventing the publication of copyrighted content. Something that, on the other hand, has been doing for years, regardless of whether it was created by humans, artificial intelligence, or monkeys with typewriters and crossbows.

One of the problems with generative AIs is that they have a bad habit of reproducing the content received during learning, which is particularly problematic if such training data is protected. The only thing Valve is doing is preventing this type of content from getting on Steam because of the huge problem it can pose. But of course we go back to business as usual, that headline sells a lot less.