I support a broadening of the US government position that a work produced with AI should not be protected. Also, I support a greater examination of what defines a derived work and, we need to consider new legal structures to consider who is responsible for misrepresentations and derivations by and of AI.

The tech industry is all in on AI, and it is going to destroy a lot of jobs.

RPGs are a luxury. We may not be able to avoid a lot of AI use in the future for lack of alternatives, but I won't buy RPGs with AI art. I would much rather see less art, especially when it really isn't necessary for enhancing the 'event' of playing an RPG.

Well, the US Copyright Office already has policy in place similar to that.  The HUGE difference is between all and some.  If it is all AI, no copyright for you.  If it has some and that has been modified by a human, it can still be protected.  I consider that a sensible approach.  It restricts bots and push button bros while protecting humans who use AI tools as part of their workflow.  After all, stuff like Adobe's generative fill is already a thing.

Quote from: zircher on December 23, 2024, 04:59:07 PMWell, the US Copyright Office already has policy in place similar to that.  The HUGE difference is between all and some.  If it is all AI, no copyright for you.  If it has some and that has been modified by a human, it can still be protected.

Sure, and that's not new either. In the early 90s, Corel tried to establish copyright of photos that depicted a straight up copy of many historical (and out of copyright) images. That didn't end well for them.

Quote from: zircher on December 23, 2024, 04:59:07 PMI consider that a sensible approach.  It restricts bots and push button bros while protecting humans who use AI tools as part of their workflow.  After all, stuff like Adobe's generative fill is already a thing.

I think that's where the line has yet to be  completely drawn. Automated systems and even the classic 'fuzzy logic' isn't AI. But where does one end and the other begin? A lot of original content within an image seems to be a factor, but how much?

Quote from: jeff37923 on December 22, 2024, 05:11:35 AMAI art is lazy and lacks the creative spark of a human soul. On the sole reason that your product uses AI art, I will not buy it or even consider buying it. AI LLM programs produce the least common denominator of media material and are definitely not the "next big thing"

I agree with all that. I have no hostility towards ai art, but like cgi movie effects, it doesn't matter how good it is, it illicts no emotional or visceral response from me like actual art (or practical/stop motion effects to continue the analogy).

For an RPG I'm  directly judging it based on it's ability to immerse me in a secondary world. Art can do this. AI art directly impedes it for me.

Quote from: jeff37923 on December 23, 2024, 12:11:38 PMOneBookShelf didn't want products with AI art sold on its site last time I checked.

I don't think that's true anymore. They have a toggle to allow you to show/hide content with AI content. From the site:

QuoteWhat do the different filters mean?
Handcrafted → Artwork was made by an artist practicing their craft, without the use of AI-generation programs.
Contains AI-Generated Content → AI-Generation Programs such as Midjourney were used in creating some or all of the art in the title.
Creation Method Not Chosen by Publisher → The Publisher has not yet selected one of the above options.

Article is dated October 28, 2024.
https://help.drivethrurpg.com/hc/en-us/articles/26794784634007-Customer-Experience-with-AI-Generated-Content-Within-Titles#h_01J97G88WDYDR5K4EXEH739R99

Quote from: Ruprecht on December 24, 2024, 10:47:59 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on December 23, 2024, 12:11:38 PMOneBookShelf didn't want products with AI art sold on its site last time I checked.

I don't think that's true anymore. They have a toggle to allow you to show/hide content with AI content. From the site:

QuoteWhat do the different filters mean?
Handcrafted → Artwork was made by an artist practicing their craft, without the use of AI-generation programs.
Contains AI-Generated Content → AI-Generation Programs such as Midjourney were used in creating some or all of the art in the title.
Creation Method Not Chosen by Publisher → The Publisher has not yet selected one of the above options.

Article is dated October 28, 2024.
https://help.drivethrurpg.com/hc/en-us/articles/26794784634007-Customer-Experience-with-AI-Generated-Content-Within-Titles#h_01J97G88WDYDR5K4EXEH739R99

Hmmmm, I was wondering how they were going to get around WotC's plan to use AI for content creation when it clashes with their former policy.

I guess conservative artists are fucked then. Why pay them when you can ask Google to generate an image for free?

As long as the rpg is good. Either AI or drawn by a person is not the make or break for my purchasing an rpg.

Politically, I'm a traditionalist/postliberal/integralism-curious conservative, and I don't like AI art as anything more than a toy. It's not a dealbreaker for me on a product, but it's definitely a strike against it.

But I'm also inclined to the belief that a lot of stuff in this hobby is overproduced and too glossy. I started with TSR and ICE products in the late 80s/early 90s, so I both have high tolerance for underwhelming art and an awareness that you don't need full-color art to produce effective and attractive products.

Quote from: StoneDev on December 22, 2024, 03:52:05 AMI don't care if people use AI personally and I agree that being politically left for whatever that matters. I think more importantly AI art is leading to the death of trash art, which I love. MorkBorgs entire aesthetic is aping the art of a 16 year olds school notebook and it is applauded for its art. If you cant afford to pay for art I say just do your own and let it be terrible. It will be filled with soul and people will see it.

You know, "apeing the style of a 16-year old's notebook" doesn't make the art bad.  I can't afford an artist, either, so I made my own art.  I purposely chose an old-school fan-made RPG style, where the art was made by an enthusiastic teenager who has some skills, but lacks discipline.  I don't think that means that the art is axiomatically bad.

Quote from: Cathode Ray on December 24, 2024, 09:52:18 PMI made my own art.

This is exactly the sort of art I prefer to AI-generated.

"Soulless" is a good word, because art is all about soul. Without soul, it's just diagrams.

Quote from: Zalman on December 25, 2024, 06:51:31 AM

Quote from: Cathode Ray on December 24, 2024, 09:52:18 PMI made my own art.

This is exactly the sort of art I prefer to AI-generated.

"Soulless" is a good word, because art is all about soul. Without soul, it's just diagrams.

The one place I'd give as pass on AI art is the equipment catalogue. They're supposed to be diagrams or, at most, still lifes.

Now I am starting to wonder, how many of you can spot soulless AI vs warm and fuzzy human art.  Here's quick test, which ones are AI authored? (All images cropped/resized to 512x512 and meta data removed, no peeking.)

Yes, this is a hypocrite test.  Don't know, don't care, are valid answers, but that proves my point.  Fun fact, this image is copyright-able since it contains significant human generated art, editing, layout, etc.  Not that I care, but I wanted to share that bit of trivia.

Quote from: zircher on December 25, 2024, 02:13:04 PMNow I am starting to wonder, how many of you can spot soulless AI vs warm and fuzzy human art.  Here's quick test, which ones are AI authored? (All images cropped/resized to 512x512 and meta data removed, no peeking.)

Yes, this is a hypocrite test.  Don't know, don't care, are valid answers, but that proves my point.  Fun fact, this image is copyright-able since it contains significant human generated art, editing, layout, etc.  Not that I care, but I wanted to share that bit of trivia.

Given thousands of curators and millions (billions?) of iterations, I'm sure some AI art will fool some people. Maybe even most people. But we're talking specifically about AI art used in commercial game products. That's why AI art is so easily picked out when WOTC uses it. They're not trying to fool anyone. They're just putting it in and hoping no one notices. An amateur putting out a low cost game is not going to have even that level of AI art.

Quote from: zircher on December 25, 2024, 02:13:04 PMNow I am starting to wonder, how many of you can spot soulless AI vs warm and fuzzy human art.  Here's quick test, which ones are AI authored? (All images cropped/resized to 512x512 and meta data removed, no peeking.)

Yes, this is a hypocrite test.  Don't know, don't care, are valid answers, but that proves my point.  Fun fact, this image is copyright-able since it contains significant human generated art, editing, layout, etc.  Not that I care, but I wanted to share that bit of trivia.

A is definitely AI. I've played a lot of the "one is real, one is AI" picture games and that one has all the tells to me (though to be fair I'm only right about 80% of the time).

I want to say B, but its just stupid enough and its textures so badly aligned to have been some rank amateur's first Blender project. I'm guess real, but not something to be proud of.

C is tricky because non-human geometric shapes are easiest for the AI to reproduce without obvious glitches. I'm going to go with real artist though, mainly due to the slight differences in the nacelles that I think AI would have attempted to make even more symmetrical.

D looks like it could be AI art, but its really not detailed enough to tell. The figure in white is definitely a 3d figure model in their neutral pose though so I'm I'm going to guess real.

E is another likely contender for "this is AI" because after porn, cute fuzzy animals is lion's share of internet pictures for AI to be trained on so it does them well, but there's a slight bit of jank with the puppy's right eye that makes me think it's likely to be AI.

F is impossible to tell because the real thing is basically the sort of layout I've seen hundreds of times from 3d modelers laying out their in-progress work and this clearly the mid-stages of a "these are the starships for faction X" type display. The reason its impossible to tell is because that's also something super easy for AI to create from prompts given the sheer number of similar images available.

* * * *

I'm sure I probably scored about 50% on the test above, but that's largely irrelevant because none of those except C would actually be found in a game book. They're just not the right sort of illustrations for such a test.