The way the incentives work for AI art in video games is that a single AI asset requires a disclosure, which will alienate some fraction of players. So if you use one AI asset, you might as well use ten thousand of them, because only the first one is penalized.

Just don't lie. The moment I realized AI was going to be useful, back in April 2025 (#38), it became clear I needed to log everything I was doing to comply with Steam's guidelines, which likely weren't going to change any time soon because gamers were mad that GPUs were expensive and weren't going to suddenly start liking AI unless that changed, which it hasn't and has only gotten worse. This goes back to the point I made in Marketing vs. skills about how often the middle ground is worse than both extremes. It is better to be 100% transparent or to just outright lie (but you shouldn't lie) than it is to have vague descriptions of how you used AI. People care about the fact that AI was used, that's why Steam makes developers disclose it, treat the customer's question as you would a question from a friend, would you lie to your friend? No. More importantly, you shouldn't lie for the very selfish reason that you should want to live a truthful life:

"Never lying" is an extremely difficult ideal but a great one to aim for. The payoff is very long term but very VERY worth it. Put as much effort as you can into not deceiving people. Develop a strong disdain for being pressured to lie. Put effort into orienting your life so that you aren't pressured to lie in the first place. For problems that require lying, put in 10x more time/energy to solve them without lying.

Most importantly never deceive/blind yourself.

Why? The payoff is a much clearer and functional understanding of the world. The payoff is increasing your ability to solve the root of problems instead of putting a bandaid on them. And to notice when there is the opportunity to do this in the first place (why would a solution designed around avoiding reality ever be better in the long run?) The payoff is reducing blindness and confusion in yourself and the people around you. The payoff is that life becomes more meaningful when your efforts go towards something real instead of toil/bullshit.

Expect to fail at this, because it's extremely difficult. But also expect to grow a ton and have a much more meaningful life.