AIRS Has Removed 100,000+ Bad Inventions

Rec Room Official Announcements & News
1

Rec Room hosts millions of fun and inventive rooms and creations that we love exploring. This experience is built on the trust that it will be free of harmful content, but we also know that trust is fragile. One bad room or one bad invention - especially if it’s somewhere that lots of players can see it - can fracture that trust.

That’s why we launched AIRS (Automated Invention Review System) in April. It’s not just a moderation tool - it’s a trust-preserving system that helps ensure players see great creations, not harmful surprises.

Impact So Far

Since going live on April 29, AIRS has already:

  • Scanned over 5 million inventions;
  • Flagged and removed more than 100,000 violating inventions;
  • Reduced the prevalence of sexual and discriminatory content in inventions by over 50%

What’s the biggest takeaway?

AIRS reinforces what we’ve always known: the vast majority of creators in Rec Room are building fun, clever, and unique inventions that follow the Creator Code of Conduct. In fact, over 98% of inventions passed to AIRS so far were found to be compliant. Shout out to all of the creators who continue to make joyful, weird, and expressive stuff.

Why does one bad thing matter?

You might ask: Why are we putting so much work into these edge cases? That one bad thing that someone might see? Because even a single negative experience can ruin an entire experience for a player. There’s been a ton of studies into “negativity bias”, with some psychology research suggesting it can take 5-7 positive experiences to counteract the impact of a single bad one. In Rec Room, there’s so much to see and do, but it also means that one inappropriate invention can undo hours of positive experiences. AIRS helps reduce the risk of that happening.

What We’ve Improved Recently

A few weeks ago, we:

  • Lowered the threshold for action, allowing us to catch more violating content.
  • Added a safeguard: if a flagged invention is widely saved or used, it now triggers manual review before removal. This way, we add an extra layer of oversight for highly impactful actions.

What’s Next

We’ll keep improving AIRS, but we also want to apply the lessons we’ve learnt to other types of content. Watch this space for future updates.

AIRS FAQ:

We’ve compiled a list of common questions we’ve seen since this system went live. If you see players asking the same questions, you can share these answers!

Q: Why does AIRS action private content?
A: Inventions that are labeled “private” can still appear in public spaces if they are spawned in public rooms or shared in private rooms that later become public. That’s why our Creator Code of Conduct applies to both private and public content. AIRS is tuned to catch really harmful content before it can spread, especially sexual or discriminatory content, which has no place in Rec Room, regardless of visibility settings.

Q: Why not have moderators manually review flagged content?
A: With thousands of inventions created every day - and over 100,000 already flagged by AIRS - it’s not feasible for human moderators to keep pace with, and review, every item being made by our millions of creators. Any system we designed for this would create a very long queue of inventions waiting for approval. That isn’t fair, especially when we know that almost all of our creators are publishing great stuff.

That said, our moderation team does regularly audit AIRS’ decisions by reviewing large sample sets to ensure it’s only flagging violating content. So far, AIRS has performed really well in identifying serious violations.

Q: Can players be warned about inventions in their rooms before the room is closed? Why can’t you just close the invention?
A: We understand how frustrating it can be to lose access to your room. We only close rooms where the violating invention is present in the most recent save of the room. When a player adds an invention to a room, they can customize it by adding or removing parts. Sometimes, a creator may take apart the entire invention and build something completely new using its components. This makes it hard for us to automatically remove the violating invention because doing so might also delete important parts of the room that were built on top of it.

In our experience, warning players and asking them to remove content has not been effective, and it has created incentives to hide or spread the content further. Because AIRS is focused on the most severe violations, we have to act quickly to protect the community.

Q: What is the false positive rate?
A: So far, AIRS has reviewed over 4.8 million inventions and flagged over 100,000 for violations. Across all these, we’ve identified just a handful of false positives equal to a tiny fraction of a percent. In those cases, we restored the room and the invention. We continually monitor and audit AIRS to ensure it’s accurate and fair, and we’ll keep refining it as it scales further.

Q: Why is AIRS actioning so much content?
A: AIRS is currently catching up on a backlog of millions of past inventions. And when it detects a violation, it prioritizes scanning inventions that are similar to that one. That’s why you’re seeing a high volume of actions right now.

Once the backlog is reviewed, the daily moderation rate will decrease significantly. Most creators, who follow the rules, will see little to no impact going forward.

We Love Your Feedback

We appreciate all the comments, questions, and suggestions we’ve received about AIRS. Your feedback has helped us improve our systems. We will continue to iterate on our moderation systems to ensure we’re keeping Rec Room as safe as possible for our creators and players.

3 Likes
2

My room was deleted for an invention that, according to you, was taken down by this system, even though it never existed in the room. All of you have failed to disclose anything except the “rules.” This is unacceptable. I appealed and requested actual reasons and a human to investigate my situation, but you all immediately refused to respond. We only receive this nonsense, which doesn’t provide any information and Recroom refuses to listen once again.

6 Likes
3

I think overall this is a great system, but I’m a bit split on this to be honest. The only thing that I don’t agree with, is receiving harsh bans or restrictions for inventions that were made more than like 3 or 4 years ago. Sure, you shouldn’t have bad things in the first place. But as someone that’s been playing for many many years, I was young and made stupid stuff that I shouldn’t have; like most kids do. Not afraid to admit that, I’m human. But now having received multiple warnings and an invention restriction in a 2 day span, even after clearing all of my inventions after the very first warning… I now feel as though Rec Room believes that I’m a bad actor due to these automatic flags.

Which really sucks…
It seriously feels horrible knowing that even if you’re a “changed player” (I guess you would say), you’re still able to be punished, automatically, for stuff that you made before most of the player base was even born…

Not saying that older inventions that are bad should just be kept up, but I think that just taking them down and not sticking your entire account with moderation flags for the future, is a bit more reasonable.

6 Likes
4

I’d like to share my opinion on the first Q, banning private inventions. I believe the action you’re taking is important. Banning harmful content, whether it’s public or private, might not always be seen in a positive light, but as you mentioned, it’s necessary to keep players safe and ensure that one negative experience doesn’t shape their overall perception of Rec Room.

With that said, while I agree with the intention behind what you’re doing, I’m not entirely glad with how the bans are being applied. For example, if a player created a “bad” invention recently, say, within the last six months, and they receive an invention ban, then that’s understandable and totally on themselfs… However, it feels unfair when a long-time player like myself, who has been on Rec Room for over five years, gets banned for an invention created many years ago, especially ones we genuinely don’t remember creating. Many of us were younger, less mature, and didn’t fully understand the impact of what we were making at the time. It’s not just about being unable to create inventions for a given amountof time, the bigger issue is that the ban becomes part of our moderation history. This can reflect poorly on us, and for those hoping to apply to any creator program, it could make it significantly more difficult to be accepted.

To put it into perspective: imagine someone who stole something years ago but was never caught or charged. Over time, they reflect on their mistakes, turn their life around, and build a better future. Should they still be punished for something they did long ago, despite having changed?

3 Likes
5

This is completely fair feedback – thank you for sharing! We heard this feedback early on when AIRS launched. Shortly after, we made a change so that any inventions that are flagged and were created before March 2025 will not lead to an invention restriction.

For the warnings, we hear you. But, warnings are just that – a simple warning that you can acknowledge and continue on. When staff review an account for moderation purposes, we make sure to take into account when the violations occurred, so don’t worry about this leaving a bad “mark” on your account. We know a lot of our players grow and mature :smile:.

4 Likes
6

Hey, thanks for sharing! We hear ya. I replied to a similar comment here which I think may help address your concerns.

1 Like
8

Could there be a human approval in the future as my map, had nothing to my knowledge anywhere that used anything that could be any of the sorts. And maybe there could be a strike system instead of a straight up deletion of my hard work. (Because it’s annoying to get 0 notice or anything and just look at your account and all your hard work is gone.)

1 Like
9

I think this is a great idea, and I appreciate the system and Rec Room’s commitment to keep its players safe. Is there a formal and expedited process to appeal a decision by AIRS?

1 Like
11

From personal experience, I’ve encountered this issue. They provided a roundabout solution and kept sending me to these bots that wouldn’t give accurate answers. Finally, they simply copied and pasted the rules.

1 Like
12

That’s unfortunate, maybe it will get better as time goes on, hopefully.

2 Likes
13

Forgot this even existed :skull:

1 Like
14

Is there a way to request a manual review if my room was “closed” and I am not aware of what the violating invention was?

1 Like
15

Considering I lost 8 of my rooms due to an invention that I don’t even know what the violation was nor what the invention itself was as it was unnamed and was just called “051723 14:00:15” I think the system is flawed in the fact that it doesn’t explain to you what the offense was. I personally think having it just flat out close your rooms off is just flat out stupid.

What it SHOULD do is delete every save of the rooms that has the invention or parts of the invention added to new ones, that way you aren’t losing your rooms while also getting rid of the offensive content.

And some of you might say “well that’s unfeasible as the AI couldn’t POSSIBLY be able to monitor pieces of an invention in possible THOUSANDS of other separate inventions”. But I raise you this: if it’s that’s unfeasible maybe don’t use a system that inherently flawed, or better yet keep AI out of a creation driven game as these are the issues that arise when you get rid of human interactions in moderation.

This was the final nail in the coffin for me to leave this game, if you want your veteran players/ creators to stay make moderation and moderation actions more fair and easier to rectify should their be a violation. Going scorched earth is the best way to make your entire player base upset with you beyond the astoundingly stupid decisions being made as of recent, the biggest thing being classic bean.

Now I’m not like the others who are blindly asking for classic bean body back, but they should have already had options in place like the classic hand size that they added but with other features like swapping between the “classic” face system with parameters that mimic the classics positions and whatnot. If you would have done that the backlash probably wouldn’t have been as severe, albeit there still would have been some due to nostalgia but still.

Another issue is the pivot away from rooms 1, now I get it rooms 2 is a FAR more advanced creation system that could be used to make much more complicated game and mechanics previous not feasible in the rooms 1 system. But for most of us we joined the game due to the ease of creation rather than the power of the system to create, that’s why veteran creators are upset with the recent pivot towards only focusing on rooms 2 and it’s content. Again this alienates your most precious audience as they are the ones that are going to be making your platform the most content and most profit, thats why your guys’ profit has been by all accounts crap over the past few months.

I’m just gonna put this part here as a sort of manifesto of what needs to change to get your game back to its former glory:

  1. Appeal to your veteran audience:

These are your guys’ heart and soul of the game, without them you just have another generic UGC game like VR Chat or Roblox. Add features that appeal to their wants and needs

1A. Make a setting in rooms 2 that mimics the creation system of rooms 1 without the complications of the hierarchy system.

Now I realize that this isn’t as feasible as just disabling the hierarchy system, but I say rather than that you instead just keep the system in the background while restricting it to mimic the old clamping system.

  1. Do more Invasion styled events:

The only reason why this failed originally is because you kept releasing these events too close to the last event, once a year would be perfect for this while also changing the theming of the event.

  1. BRING. BACK. WEEKLIES:

This is a big thing that really sucked the fun out of getting on once a week, what you could do for new designs is host a contest on discord asking people to make up new designs for your weapons that could be used in a weekly, that or allow some of your avatar studio creators to make skins for you (while being paid in tokens of course).

4.Update your RRO’s:

The reason why your players aren’t going back to your RRO’s as often is because there’s nothing new to do in them. I’d say hire a team of like 2-3 people that work exclusively on your RRO’s and the development of new content for these rooms.

4a: The rooms best suited for some updates would be: Paintball, Laser tag and stunt runners. Adding new subrooms and new cosmetics to be earned would ABSOLUTELY attract some players, heck even locking these new experiences behind a 100 - 500 token paywall would be justifiable due to your financial issues.

  1. Add adult accounts:

This would allow you to only matchmake with adults and allow you to make more mature content without endangering your younger players safety.
You would obviously have to submit some kind of age verification like temporarily uploading your driver’s licence or any form of legal identification would work (as soon as it’s approved they would delete it from their systems).

I know that almost all of these points are going to be ignored and the game will keep going in this ruinous direction it’s been going in but I feel like it could have a generational return to glory if the list should be followed, that’s my opinion obviously but to each their own. I just hope that at least SOMEONE in RR’s staff sees this and that at least something from this list is brung into consideration.

I wish you all the best in your updates and hope you guys get the comeback you deserve!

4 Likes
16

I wanna speak my thoughts on the topic of AIRS from your message. The main goal of AIRS is to protect the broader player base from harmful or inappropriate inventions that could negatively affect their experience in Rec Room. While some of the actions taken by the system might seem harsh or unfair on an individual level, it’s important to remember that AIRS is designed to prioritize community safety and trust.

Using AI for reviewing inventions at the scale Rec Room operates is necessary. With millions of inventions and thousands being created daily, it’s simply not feasible for human moderators to keep up, manual review would cause unacceptable delays. Although AIRS isn’t perfect and may not seem completely fair in every single case, it plays a crucial role in ensuring that players can enjoy the game without encountering harmful content.

In some cases, tough decisions have to be made, such as removing content or closing rooms, because allowing even one serious violation to slip through can have a disproportionately negative impact on player trust. This kind of proactive moderation is what helps maintain a safe environment for all.

With all that said, I still agree that there are both minor and major flaws in the AIRS system. One of the issues you mentioned, and something I’ve personally raised concerns about, is the lack of clarity when it comes to ban actions. Players are not told what triggered a ban or warning pr ban, which makes it extremely difficult to understand what went wrong.

This lack of feedback prevents individuals from learning from their mistakes. Without clear communication, players have no reference point and may unintentionally repeat the same actions, not realizing they were in violation in the first place. That doesn’t just harm the individual, it weakens trust in the system as a whole.

I also think that immediately removing an entire room due to a flagged invention feels like an extreme measure, especially when the rest of the room may have nothing to do with the issue. A better solution could be to target only the specific versions that contain the invetion like you said. Rather than wiping out the whole room. This way, creators don’t lose all their hard work over a single flagged item, and it still allows moderation to do its job effectively.

1 Like
17

I love this. I agree with every single one of these and I too hope someone from RR sees this. I’ve been playing RR since 2020 and I would love for these changes to be made.

2 Likes
18

From someone having the same issues I agree! I hope RR will learn AI isn’t everything and that human appeal is 100% necessary.

1 Like
19

yet, no inventions by raider groups have been taken down.
iykyk..

1 Like