CG Cookie AI Policy

This policy reflects how we’re currently thinking about AI in the context of supporting artists and fostering a creative community a http://cgcookie.com, a project of Autotroph, Inc.

This is a living document, and like the tech itself, it will evolve. We’re closely following the U.S. Copyright Office rulings surrounding AI and Copyright.

AI isn’t an easy topic in the creative world, but it’s one to explore together, with open minds and a shared sense of responsibility. As artists and educators, it’s on us to have the conversation, to understand it, and to help human creativity thrive.

Data & Content Privacy:

Data Protection: CG Cookie, LLC, a project of Autotroph, Inc., will never sell your personal information, nor will we ever sell your submitted content without your explicit consent. This promise reflects our dedication to protecting our members’ trust, creative work, and privacy.

We’ve added a meta tag to every page on CG Cookie that tells ethical AI crawlers not to use images on the site for training purposes. While we can’t control every bot on the internet, this is one step we’re taking to help protect the work you shared on CG Cookie.

Data Management: You can additionally review what data we’re collecting and remove your data/account through your account page - https://cgcookie.com/account/privacy.

AI Model Training: Content created by the CG Cookie team may be used to train AI models to enhance educational support and experience within the CG Cookie community. User content, ie, images, questions, and forum interactions, will not be used to train AI models.

Some potential examples of this may include course-specific coach bots or using a generated response to a question on the forum while fellow humans are asleep. 😴 .

How CG Cookie Uses AI:

If AI is used, we're committed to using AI wisely to amplify learning efficiency. The idea is to streamline education while ensuring true skill and creativity growth are part of our members’ journey.

AI can be a helpful sidekick, amplifying skills and sparking creativity. Though we believe real talent is built through practice and craftsmanship.

AI has permeated the various 3rd party services we use to run CG Cookie and in some of our production workflows. So let’s talk about it.

Translation & Captions: AI can translate educational content and generate pretty darn good captions in multiple languages. This helps us improve the reach of Blender education outside of the English-speaking world.
Content Planning & Structure: Team members may utilize AI to brainstorm and structure lesson plans, marketing materials, and content editing, with human oversight, ensuring that the default output of AI is not used as is.
Minimal Asset Creation: AI may assist in preliminary asset creation, but substantial human refinement is required before instructional use.When we say "minimal", we really mean it. How do we quantify that? We can't. But we're confident our gut knows where to draw the line (and so does yours).
Lesson Summarization: AI can do a decent job of summarizing video captions for lesson overview pages and SEO. It’s not always great, so this is why we also have a human-in-the-loop to make sure the summaries are representing the content and are helpful.
Customer Support: The services we use for support offer AI summaries, auto-reply suggestions, and auto-corrections that our team may lean on to improve efficiency and clarity.

Student and Member Use of AI:

It's worth emphasizing that building a strong foundation in 3D and pushing your skills takes more effort than typing a prompt. In our experience, it leads to becoming a more well-rounded artist, capable of using any tool more effectively in your creative process.

Your main goal as a student is to learn and improve; it's not just about that final render. The work you produce as a student is an artifact of your education, incidental to the learning process.

Gallery Submissions: AI contribution to gallery projects should be minimal and clearly described in the submission description.
Exercise Submissions: No AI contribution allowed unless stated otherwise in the exercise criteria. If AI is suspected without being allowed in the criteria, the submission will not pass.
Learning and Practice: Students are encouraged to directly engage with Blender's tools to ensure that foundational 3D skills are fully internalized.

If a submission is deemed to use AI more than minimally, we may remove it or ask you to revise it. Have questions or like to bring a render to our attention, please email support@cgcookie.com

This isn’t about being strict for the sake of it; it’s about making sure the focus stays on learning, not just showing off a polished render. We want you to grow as an artist, not as a prompt engineer.

A Note About Responsible AI Engagement:

Mindful Workflow Integration: If exploring AI tools independently, always prioritize understanding and applying core Blender principles first.The slippery slope with generative AI is letting the tool do too much of the work without understanding how it's getting there. We believe crossing that line will result in a dependency on the tool and skill atrophy. This is important to avoid when developing genuine skills and understanding.
Transparency & Integrity: Clearly disclose significant AI involvement in any personal or portfolio projects outside coursework. We understand that AI results can look convincing at times. So good that you may be tempted not to proclaim using AI, but… hiding the use of AI will lead to the dark side.

In conclusion

We aim to curate a safe environment where you can thrive as a Blender artist through human-led education, practice, and thoughtful community engagement. We feel that when certain types of AI are used responsibly, they can enhance your learning experience while enabling human creativity and expertise to remain central to our educational approach.

AI is a vast, rapidly evolving subject; a little caution, curiosity, and patience are encouraged.

In the end, our mission is to help you develop confidence and become a capable artist with Blender, while being open-minded to new tools.

We believe that art and the passion of loving what we do, transcends technology. We aim to enrich, not replace, the uniquely human creativity and skill at the heart of artists.

We still love getting lost in a model or 3D sculpture on a Saturday night. 😎 Wanna talk about AI in the 3D industry? Email at support@cgcookie.com