Generative AI isn't just encroaching on 2D art and video, but also in the 3D space, and user generated STL marketplace MyMiniFactory decided to do something about it! We chatted with Anjuli Smith about SoulCrafted, the initiative that MyMiniFactory started to combat the wave of incoming slop to the platform.
GamingTrend: Hey there, Mike Dunn with Gaming Trend and I'm here at PAX Unplugged 2025 and I've been sitting here chatting with Anjali Smith from MyMiniFactory and she's got something really cool that I really wanted to talk to her about and that is Soulcrafted.
Okay, Anjali, tell me a little bit about Soulcraft. Actually, first, how are you doing?
Anjuli Smith: I'm good, I'm really good, yeah. I'm enjoying the show, it's new for me, but yeah, it's lovely. It's really good fun.
GT: So tell us about Soulcrafted.
AS: So Soulcrafted is our initiative that we launched at the end of October. It's basically our way of saying no to AI. We have noticed in the last couple of months that there are a lot of AI generated STLs trying to slip their way into my mini factory. And obviously we don't like that. Our creators don't like that. And so we have been trying to work out ways that we can help protect our creators because
They work really hard and they have beautiful things being made and we don't want the AI slop on our site. We want to make sure that the people who are buying stuff are buying good quality things that print well and don't make you upset when you've paid a lot of money for them. And Soulcrafted is our initiative to help with that. Yeah, it's new and we're still working out the bugs, but it's basically...
It's our way of helping to protect the creators. we look through it's the ways that we look through all of the files as they come through, check in for telltale signs of AI. It's asking our creators to wear badges of honor on the sites that says, don't use AI. Yeah. you they tell us I'm AI free. We then look through their, all of their work and make sure that yes, it is.
GT: Like a, a certification system.
AS: Yes, then with that, when they become part of the Soulcrafted initiative, we offer things to help them. So grants and things if they need help with learning new skills, they want to level up like the use of Blender or they need like new equipment in order to, so they need a new PC or they need, you know, they need a new 3D printer. We have grants available and money that we can give to them to help them to level up and stay AI free and not feel that pressure. To use something that's easier to make art.
GT: Yeah, right. so yeah, AI and especially generative AI art is definitely a hot button topic at gaming trend and in the industry as a whole. we at gaming trend have taken a stance, against the current form of AI. and, and thus we now use the term "by humans for humans", because not only, is it affecting things like the STL space. But it is affecting things like our space. There's a lot of sites out there that now use generative AI text tools to generate the content that people are reading. And you know what? I don't think people are really enjoying that too much.
AS: And I'm, a marketing person who writes a lot of copy and enjoys writing for fun, it, that upsets me as well.
GT: Right, right. So now when you told me about this before, when we were emailing, I thought this was more of like a programmatic solution that you guys were doing, but it sounds like it's much more than that. I guess kind of walk us, like you did kind of do like a high level walkthrough, but like, how exactly are you going through the verification process and determining whether someone is doing using generative AI or whether it's by on purpose or on accident.
AS: Yeah, so we have a very small team. have a couple of people who basically will literally go through everything. So when we started talking to people, we went to our top creators first and sort of asked them, hey, is this a good idea? Are we on the right track with this? We had a lot of help from the community. So a lot of creators gave us ideas on how we should be trying to tackle it and what to look for as well. Like because they are all seasoned artists and they use these platforms all the time. whereas, you we're not, we don't make models ourselves.
So we weren't sure exactly what to look for, but we had for months, like three months, had creators saying, okay, this is something you need to look at. This is something that you need to look at. If you look in the back code of this, this is what you're going to see. you know, this is the shades of the hues that will be on, even on the renders. Like this is what it will look like. And you'll know it's like, it's AI generated. And they were so helpful with us, like, and so supportive of us trying to build this thing for them. And then we said we have two or three people now who just literally their job is every time something comes in, they're checking. And once we verified a creator enough, like we will then be like, okay, we're going to trust you now. So, you know, we've looked at 15 of your new uploads and we've done a demo AI. So we're going to trust you. However, you know, we still do spot inspections every once in a while and just to double check that someone hasn't gone, oh, well I'll just do now that they know that I'm fine. I've got the badge. I'll just slip back into bad habits. But you know, so far.
People are genuine, they're artists and they want to protect their art. we found that if they said, I don't do AI, there is a big trust that they won't be doing AI because it's not beneficial for them.
GT: So, so what you're telling me is it's not even it's there's no automation to your tool at all. It is purely human vetted. I like that. I like that a lot.
AS: So our slogan is "Dare to be human". And as such, everything that we do is human-based as well. We want to make sure that when we look at it and we're making those decisions, that we haven't just asked a program with some AI built into it to find the AI for us that doesn't resonate with us. So we want everything we do is human-based. All of our verifications on the website, regardless, are all human-made.
You know, we check everything by eye. check the... When we first started, we would check things by printing them out and checking that they printed out right. So every single file would be printed and checked. Okay, yeah, that works. That can go on the site. And it wouldn't be allowed to go on until it printed properly. Obviously, we don't do that so much now because the technology has moved on since 2013. Right. But that's how we started and that's how we continue to go.
GT: Right, right,
AS: And we will continue to just be checking everything by hand and to be building it all ourselves because that's what we believe in.
GT: I mean, that sounds like a daunting task. and frankly, I kind of feel for those three people, because I, I, I can't imagine that they like having to do that. I mean, I know, I know they are paid employees, like job satisfaction, you know, if you, if you, if you find a gotcha, like, I can't imagine that's, that's a fun thing. Having to have that conversation on the other end. Right. Okay. Wow.
And so I know you have a lot of partnerships like with Modiphius and Steamforged and the like. How have you coordinated any of this with them? Like how do they feel about
AS: I mean, they're all for what we're doing. The team at Modiphius especially, when we've been mentioning it talking about it, we involve them in those conversations because they're big brands. They have a reputation and we want to protect their reputation and their brand as well as our own. Modiphius especially have been really supportive and helping us understand the more this side of the industry rather than just our digital world that we live in, actually how people feel outside of just digital and our hope is that Soulcrafted will not just be for STL creators, we want to open up to any artist. So if you are a digital artist who paints digitally, we would like to be able to support you as well and offer you grants. want to... Yeah, or a game designer. If you're there making mechanics for your game, we want to be able to help protect your game in that way as well and offer, if we can train you or anything that you need in order to help them. That's the main goal of Soulcraft is that it's not just for our digital STL creators, it's for anyone who works in the creative arts, musicians, anyone, and help protect them and help them to grow their craft and be proud of the fact that they don't use this AI technology in that way.
GT: Now, I imagine that it's something that you're constantly improving upon and tweaking because it is a constantly evolving technology. in many ways, it's getting a lot harder to even detect in that particular situation. I'm curious, I'd be curious to see like what an AI generated STL even looks like now that I'm thinking about it.
AS: I mean, they normally the renders, you know, they look very bubbly, cute. They've got always got a yellowy hue to them for some reason. Normally, you know, there's still issues with hands and fingers still like when you're building something and normally the poses are very generic. It doesn't have a lot of character or life to it. Normally when you see someone who sculpted something and they put their soul into it, it shows in that model. But a lot of the AI stuff is very bland, you know, boring poses and just, yeah, they're not, they're not interested in that. the, you know, the supports aren't done right because the machine has just gone, that'll do. And they're not, they're not principle because they haven't, the person, the AI doesn't think about, how does that sit on a build plate? How is that going to move? How is that going to, where is an artist will sit there and go, okay, well, if I put it like that, that's far too skinny. That's going to break off. They have that thought process, whereas AI doesn't have that thought process.
GT: right right right so it is probably a high probability that a 3D or a generative AI designed model is just going to print like garbage anyway
AS: Yeah, and it's not going to be very detailed. And you can normally tell as well because they'll have like, you know, 5,000 things. So the reason it came about, someone just within an hour uploaded like 5,000 STLs and we were like, no, like that was a big flag for us. It's brand new onto the site and 5,000 things. And we were like, no, no, get all that down. And that was like two weeks of us constantly just taking all of this stuff down until we thought, okay, we need to come up with.
GT: It's like whack-a-mole, right? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So just to kind of bring it around from the other perspective, like in terms of what y'all are doing, have you gotten a lot of like really nasty feedback from pro-AI folks?
AS: Not really, mainly because most of the people in our circles are anti-AI. We've got a big Discord now that's just for Soulcrafted, so most of the people that join there are also anti-AI. And some more than others, there are levels, there are some people that are like, nothing can be done, and some people are like, well, "what if I use a mesh to design this bit first for me as my foundation? Am I still not Soulcrafted because I've used AI to, to build that mesh bit for me?" So there's some good debates going on like within the community as well as to.
GT: So you're having nuanced discussions about it.
AS: Right. Rather than... Because we have to be flexible with it, we have to make sure that we're not upsetting anyone. If we just said nothing ever, you know, no, no, no. We also, we don't want to put a stop to creativity if the community is OK with a certain level. Then there has to be that sort of flexibility there. And we're having those conversations on Discord. And everyone's very open and honest about how, you know, what is acceptable for them within the...
GT: Right, because ultimately you don't want to moralize a tool, right? But you do want to prohibit usage in the way the tool is used, right? And I think that's a lot of nuance that is lost in the discussion around right now. And it's a discussion we need to have.
GT: Soulcrafted sounds great. Definitely a big fan. And we definitely want to do some more coverage with you guys, especially around that and especially around just everything you guys are doing because, you know, we have a hobby team and we do have people, we do have to do a lot of 3D printing stuff, so.
AS: We do AMAs as well for also for the makers, so for consumers. So we've just had one. We're trying to do them every couple of months. They'll be announced. We have like on the Soulcrafted website, is soulcrafted.it. You can go there and we have monthly discussions basically where the creators and customers can come to us and ask us questions about what we're doing and how we're doing stuff, give us advice, things that they've seen, have discussions and AMAs with other creators as well. like we're trying to be very open about what we're doing and why we're doing it and also saying hey we're also humans and you know this is new for everyone, we're trying to work it out and we might make a couple of mistakes but if you are know cool with that and like and give us advice as well we will try and implement to the best of our ability. we're always very open for discussions with the public about their stance on it and how we can improve what we're doing because you know it's no we don't know all the answers.
GT: right right and again it's constantly changing. Thanks again Anjuli!
AS: Thank you!
Soulcrafted actually has a campaign going on right now for a royalty-free slicer
We're building a completely open-source resin slicer. A slicer where you can audit every line of code. One where the community decides what gets built. One where your content and workflow stays private. One that doesn’t have AI all over the place and absolutely does not use your data to train AI models.
A SoulCrafted slicer.
Stay tuned to GT for more coverage of MyMiniMarket and their SoulCrafted initiative!
