Palworld CEO’s old tweets prove that Pals were AI-generated

Ludovic Quinson

❘ published: 27-01-2024T12:35:00 ❘ Update: 2024-01-27T12:35:20

Palworld is facing fresh accusations of using AI after old tweets resurfaced from the CEO wanting to create a Pokemon likeness while avoiding copyright infringement.

Palworld has shocked the world after its release. This new survival game has skyrocketed to the top of the Steam charts and has broken records by reaching over a million concurrent players in just a few days.

However, the game, which was quickly dubbed “Pokémon with Guns”, was hit by a wave of backlash with accusations of “plagiarism”. This doesn’t just apply to Pokemon, but similar games like Ark and Rust.

Palworld’s main and perhaps most dubious case of “plagiarism” concerns in-game companions.

These creatures have sent the internet into an absolute frenzy for their distinct resemblance to various Pokemon, and now many players believe they’ve found “proof” that shows they were created by AI.

Palworld Players Show Pals is built with AI

PocketPair CEO Takuro Mizobe recently came under fire after a series of old tweets dating back to 2021 resurfaced.

“The AI ​​has evolved so much that I can no longer tell which Pokemon it is” read a tweet from its official Twitter/X account, which accompanied various Pokemon and their AI-generated lookalikes.

Fast forward to November 28, 2022, he tweeted: “If you pass it through an AI filter, the image is often not the exact thing, so maybe the copyright issue is resolved?” before ending with: “In nearly 30 years, the general public’s perception of copyright may have changed significantly.“

Here Pocketpair’s CEO talks about using AI to bypass copyright, generate fakemons with it, calls AI: Art Imposter a real-time image generation game and is excited for games powered by GPT-4. pic.twitter.com/79xwZr0yEI

— Zaytri 🍉 (@imZaytri) January 19, 2024

Backlash has since poured in regarding the tweets, with one user commenting: “I was very excited to jump into Palworld, but all the evidence I see makes it very likely that the game uses AI to create their monster designs.“

So far, PocketPair and Takuro Mizobe have not addressed the claims that AI was used in Palworld.