To the Santae Community,
In the interest of transparency and accountability, we are making an official statement about the use of artificial intelligence. The development of artificial intelligence and the range of application has been an incredibly fast moving area of knowledge and development, particularly in the last several years. Originally, prior to Santae's alpha launch, descriptions of characters were provided to the NPC artist, who used the descriptions to generate inspirational art pieces that they created the final piece from. At that point in time, Santae did not have an anti-AI stance, and did not object to the artist's use of AI to generate inspirational works. The artist provided line art, coloring, shading and final rendering of each NPC and was paid for their work. At the time, because the artist told us that the final pieces were entirely their work, we were under the impression that it did not constitute AI artwork. We have now learned that that impression was entirely wrong and recognize that prior statements about AI usage were therefore also wrong. The statement made last night on Discord sought to provide clarification and transparency given prior official statements and conflicting information.
After Santae's launch, we learned about the harms of generative AI and how it negatively impacts artists through how the programs are trained, amongst many other legitimate criticisms of AI as a whole. We listened to the feedback of the community and amended our stance on the use of AI. Specifically, during June of 2024, we put out a statement to our entire staff team, both artists and front end staff, that AI would no longer be tolerated in any capacity relating to the development and creative process of building Santae. We then amended our terms of service to reflect our new stance on AI to be applied to community members as well.
To further clarify, these decisions were made strictly by the management team and made without the involvement of our front end staff. The front end team was not provided with details of the art process when they should have been because they were providing information to the community. Management takes full responsibility for the lack of transparency within the team and apologizes to the team for putting them in such a position. Our front end staff is, first and foremost, the face of Santae and our biggest supporters. We appreciate all of the hard work they put into providing the community with the most accurate information available to them and ensuring that the community is a wonderful place for all.
We understand that there are continued concerns about some of the NPCs that are currently on site. We have already begun assigning our current artist team to reimagine each NPC so that they will reflect our current anti-AI stance. The driving purpose of our revised stance on AI is to make Santae a place of genuine creativity, human expression, and to center the magic of the creative process. To reflect these values, we will be entirely overhauling the NPCs that were drawn using inspiration images created by AI based off our original descriptions that was provided to the artist when the art was commissioned.
Thank you all again for the continued feedback and opportunity to learn from our mistakes. Thank you to our Discord community for the productive, informative and helpful conversation that was had following our announcement last night about the prior use of AI in the NPC art process. We understand that transparency is key, and we’ll make sure to address any similar matters proactively moving forward. We will take actionable steps to do better. Please continue to share your feedback with the Santae Team, particularly Management. We ask that the community continue to treat our front end team with kindness.
I want to close by sincerely apologizing to everyone for any disappointment or concern this situation has caused, and express understanding that many wanted these claims addressed sooner and I take full responsibility. Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to learn and receive the community's feedback. Your trust and support mean the world to myself and the entire team. The entire team and I recognize that trust is earned through actions, and we are committed to honoring your support by aligning Santae with our shared values. I want to thank you all for your patience, your feedback, your understanding, and for being part of this journey. I look forward to the future of continued growth together to ensure Santae is a place that we can all be proud of.
With Heartfelt Gratitude,
~CJ and The Santae Team
The NPCs being remade are below:
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Here is the reworked Glimmer NPC Sketch:
