Epic’s EULA will be changing in the future as the company works to remove restrictions on training AI off the outputs from Unreal Engine and Metahuman, according to a post on X (formerly Twitter)from Epic CEO Tim Sweeney.
On October 26, video game outlet Kotaku published a piece in which the site called outthe potential hypocrisy of companies like Microsoft and Epicgoing all-in on AI coding and technology while simultaneously shutting down user-made AI-coded recreations of their games and software.
Sweeney responded to the article with a long post in defense of Epic’s accused hypocrisy on the subject, where he casually dropped news about the planned EULA update.
Epic’s EULA currently does not allow any output from Unreal Engine or Epic’s MetaHuman, Epic’s 3D animation software. According to Sweeney, Epic is working to change to allow this, but is leaving the results with individual games up to the developers’ discretion.
“Does Epic restrict AI training on outputs of Unreal Engine and MetaHuman?” Sweeney writes. “Yes currently but we are working to remove this restriction from EULA terms, though each game using these tools is released under terms of the developers’ choosing which can allow or restrict AI training.”
This is a marked change in the use of Unreal Engine, which had previously not allowed any use of the engine for AI to train itself.As Epic shifts to what the company calls an “AI-first” model, however, they seem to be blurring that once-bright line.
The article argues, using quotes from Sweeney, that there is not a functional difference between Epic pursuing an AI-first development model that presumably relies on stolen data and users doing the same thing by creating, say, a browser-based version of Epic’s own Fortnite.
“This conflates a number of different things. Here is a breakdown of the separate components of what is happening,” the post begins. “Does Epic let people use Fortnite IP without permission or compensation? No.”
In this, Sweeney is establishing that Epic’s litigious actions regarding Fortnite ports are based around copyright and licensing, thus trying to remove it from the hypocrisy framing entirely.
The latest tweet is another in a seeming recent accelerating trend for Sweeney, who has spent much of the last week on X responding to concerns about and evangelizing the use of AI in software development.
Epic Games’ CEO has been on an AI-first posting spree
The latest tweet is another in a seeming recent accelerating trend for Sweeney, who has spent much of the last week on X responding to concerns about and evangelizing the use of AI in software development. Most notably, Sweeney used the discussion around AIto take a swipe against online PC storefront competitor Valveand the company’s choice to require an AI disclosure on store pages for Steam.
“Forcing developers to write a political statement to be used against them by the hate mob they’re helping organize is abhorrent,” Sweeney wrote in response to a post chiding Valve for having the disclosure requirement at all. Separating software from political statements isa cause that Sweeney is well-known for championing, though Valve itself does not characterize its disclosure requirements as being political statements.
Social media is nothing new for the Epic CEO, who has been posting his thoughts on X for many years and sometimes makingmajor policy announcementson his own account. However, his frequency has jumped considerably in the last two weeks, with Sweeney posting 11 times in the last 24 hours, and over 50 times in the last week.
Game Developer has reached out to Epic for more information about the upcoming EULA changes but has not received comment as of this time.
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