Balatro developer LocalThunk has responded to a debate on AI art, stating “I think it does real harm to artists of all kinds”.
The debate raged on the Balatro subreddit after one of its moderators posted that AI art would not be banned in the community. Many fans believed both Localthunk and the game’s publisher Playstack supported AI art.
As such, Localthunk took to social media first to respond. “I learned about this a little bit earlier – this is not how I feel about AI ‘art’,” he wrote. “I normally wouldn’t say something about the r/balatro community but this doesn’t represent my beliefs nor do I believe it represents how Playstack feels about AI-generated imagery. I don’t condone AI generated ‘art’.”
Then, the developer took to reddit to address the situation once again.
“A mod recently changed the flair in this subreddit for AI generated art making it seem like Playstack condones AI art,” he wrote. “This was not due to a direct order from Playstack (a Playstack representative told me this) but from an interpretation of a message about enforcing the rules of the subreddit.