CODE
All EmpireMUD code is written and debugged by humans without AI tools. No vibe coding, no IDE auto-suggests, nothing more complicated than a regex search.
GAME CONTENT
Some content builders have chosen to use AI at various levels of the development process from brainstorming assistance to writing player-facing text. Most of the game's content, however, predates generative AI tools and was built on caffeine and dreams alone.
No game content currently uses live AI services; all apparent NPC behavior is managed by human-written C code and DG Scripts instead.
WEBSITE
EmpireMUD's official website includes artwork created by subscription-based generative AI tools such as Midjourney and ChatGPT. EmpireMUD is a free game developed by an unpaid team and has no budget for genuine human artwork; subscriptions for these generative tools were paid for out-of-pocket. EmpireMUD accepts donations of appropriately-licensed, human-created artwork for use on the website.
The purpose of AI artwork on the website is to beautify the site and to give a visual representation of each adventure in line with the original builders' vision. You are free to share these images or use them in other contexts so long as you include the original alt text so they continue to be accessible to blind users. We also appreciate if you attribute EmpireMUD as the source of these images.
The website itself was written by hand (and keyboard) without the use of AI tools or content management services.