Here's the results of last week's Gen AI survey, which I took in the run-up to Second Life's official "AI & the Future of Our Virtual Community" town hall happening this Friday.
The results are pretty unambiguous: A massive majority of over 85% surveyed want some kind of regulation against gen AI-made content in the SL Marketplace, with a majority (54%) choosing this option as the one they agree with most: REQUIRE merchants tag their content as having "No AI" or "Contains AI". (Presumably this would be self-enforcing by the user community)
I reached out to Linden Lab for their commentary on these regulatory options, and they told me they'll include these survey results in their upcoming AI town hall. I'm told the event will probably not include any new announcements, and is more of a user feedback session -- and, well, this survey is that.
Given the heat and controversy over the topic, I'm actually somewhat surprised that was the most preferred option. By contrast, only 1 in 4 chose the most draconian option: BAN all Marketplace content that contains generative AI, enforced by Linden Lab staff (23.8% chose that). Maybe few chose this for technical reasons: my impression is it would be highly difficult if not an impractical lost cause to scan content for suspicious signs of gen AI, which is probably why few respondents chose this option.
It's also in keeping with the community's values around player choice. As an anonymous reader put it somewhat sardonically:
I absolutely hate the use of AI, but I still say let the consumer decide. They should be the ones to vote for AI generated stuff, with their money.
I have shown provenance many times in my [Marketplace] listings, and guess what? No one cares, or worse they look at you as a blowhard braggart - when all you want to do is say "hey I put hard work into this for YOU to enjoy!". You're hated by consumers if you charge more for your hard work, hated by your competitors who like to cheat their way to the $$$ with as many corner-cuttings as possible, and the end user doesn't care as long as it looks cool and is cheap.
Let the end user decide. This might mean the entire destruction of the industry as we see it today, but so be it. People don't deserve talent if they're not willing to support it, and they can choke on mediocre for all I care.
Then again, how many SL shoppers would choose products explicitly tagged as gen AI, and deal with any fallout for doing so? Still an open question.
Anyway, good background for the upcoming Town Hall. Whatever comes up there, I think the survey makes it clear doing nothing above the rise of gen AI in the Second Life economy is probably not a feasible option.
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