Following the series’ toe-dipping into generative AI with Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops 6, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has gone all-in on machine-vomited “artwork”. As we reported last week, the game makes egregious use of AI artwork for icons and calling cards throughout the game with some assets during other sections also generated by machine learning software.
Since the game’s release, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has been lambasted for its use of generative so-called art in place of content made by real humans. As a billion-dollar annual franchise, many expected better of the series, especially as users are being charged a $70 fee to play the game.
In response to the game’s heavy use of artificial intelligence, United States Congressman Ro Khanna called for “regulations” to stop AI from replacing human workers. While not just targeted at the games industry, Khanna used CoD’s AI-generated calling cards as an example of workers being replaced by AI.
“We need regulations that prevent companies from using AI to eliminate jobs to extract greater profits,” the US congressman explained. “Artists at these companies need to have a say in how AI is deployed. They should share in the profits. And there should be a tax on mass displacement.”
In a follow-up post, the politician explained that “a company replacing artists with AI is not much different than one that replaces truck drivers. AI cannot just be for enriching tech billionaires,” explaining that “AI must be for us, not them.”
The US congressman isn’t entirely against AI, explaining that it “has the potential to improve medicine, production and provide services for the poor”, but the completely unregulated state of technologies like ChatGPT, Grok and more is widening the “economic divides that further rip us apart and prevent social cohesion”.
Khanna’s push against artificial intelligence isn’t a spur-of-the-moment reactionary take. The Californian Democrat has pushed for AI and tech regulation for a number of their eight years in Congress, largely targeting the big tech giants of Apple, Intel, Nvidia and Microsoft.
Alongside pushing for protections for workers in the face of AI, the Congressman has also pushed for regulation of misinformation and deepfakes that have been made possible and prominent due to the rapid rise of deregulated AI.
“We need to have some sense of regulation around that, that there has to be clear labeling or marking of AI-generated products,” the politician said in a discussion in 2024. “This doesn’t mean that it’s all bad. I mean, there was someone in India actually using AI to have a politician speak in 20 different dialects. That could be a positive use of AI; Ro Khanna speaking in Spanish and speaking in Tagalog and speaking in Hindi across my constituency. But people should know that’s AI generated and that’s not really me speaking. And so I think a lot of this is going to go toward proper disclosure.”
Khanna pushed that there needs to be “tax reforms to discourage excessive automation”, “guardrails for worker input before deployment” and “support unions and workers to bargain for workers benefitting for productivity gains”.
Right now, AI is a wild west, and there’s little being done about it. Call of Duty: Black Ops 7’s AI generated artwork is rarely touched up by real artists with glaring issues across the game’s sloppy calling cards. While games like Arc Raiders at least pay voice actors to generate lines based on their voice—which many also dislike—Black Ops 7 is seemingly just pumping out images to pad the game out instead of even trying to give human workers a shot.
