Baldur’s Gate 3 Lead Blasts AI Art Hype as LinkedIn Copypasta, Says It’s Recycling Century-Old Ideas

Quick detour from movies and TV into the game world, because the creative fight is the same: Larian Studios (the Baldur's Gate 3 team) wants nothing to do with generative AI. And their publishing director, Michael Douse, is not exactly subtle about why.

Larian's stance: no generative AI, thanks

Douse jumped on X (formerly Twitter) on November 18, 2025 and went off on the idea that prompting bots equals creativity. He is firmly in the camp that generative AI adds no real value to making art, and says Larian does not use it.

"AI artists are insufferable. They think they're punk post-modernists but every intellectual point they make on Twitter was made by a man with a toilet in the 1910s. Yet to see a new idea that wasn't just LinkedIn copypasta."

If you are wondering, the "man with a toilet" bit is a jab at Marcel Duchamp's 1917 Fountain. He also compared AI evangelism to someone loudly praising a spanner (British for wrench) like it is revolutionary — and said people would treat that kind of hype with extreme skepticism, to put it mildly.

Where everyone else in games seems to land

Douse's take is on the hardline end. A lot of big names are trying to thread the needle — use some AI, but not all the way:

• Shams Jorjani, CEO of Arrowhead (Helldivers 2), argues for a middle approach: mix in certain tools without letting them run the show.
• Brendan Greene (the creator of PUBG) says he is happy the industry is wary, but he still uses AI in parts of the pipeline on his current project in what he considers a responsible way.
• Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid, Death Stranding) has described AI as a helper he would offload boring, repetitive tasks to.
• EA has reportedly made chatbots and similar tech a company-wide requirement — not just for creative teams, but for management workflows, too.
• Meanwhile, Arc Raiders and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 have already caught heat over alleged AI use in different parts of their processes.

The real friction: consent and value

It is easy to see the appeal of automating small or time-sucking jobs when you are building a game. The problem is the source: a lot of these systems are trained on artwork scraped without the artists' permission. That consent issue, and the broader question of what a human's craft is worth, sits at the center of this fight. Based on Douse's comments, Larian is not moving off its position anytime soon.

One more note from the Baldur's Gate corner

Separate but related: the Baldur's Gate 3 boss just praised this year's Game Awards slate, pointing to nominees like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as proof that the industry still recognizes passion regardless of budget or who is making the thing. That lines up neatly with Larian's whole humans-make-art viewpoint.