So I've finally got stuff online for my current D&D campaign, and it lets me show some of the illustrations that a player has made using the Midjourney app for AI-generated art. In our case, it was a struggle particularly for the nonhumans - because he's trying to make characters that have D&D types but in an Incan-inspired setting. The results were interesting. I vaguely recall we had discussed this before, but I thought new examples might be interesting.

I have some ethical qualms about using AI art as a replacement for commercial illustrations, because I believe it's reusing copyrighted art as data that wasn't licensed for this purpose. On the other hand, for non-commercial campaign art, it seems less of an issue.

So here's the human noble fighter Purix:



The human cleric Saya:



The dragonborn sorcerer Kawiil:



The half-elf warlock Sayani:



And the wood elf monk Isa Rabi:



I don't have the details about the prompts he used to get to these images yet.

How does this compare with others' experience?

Still can't do human hands, but Dragonborn hands are perfect.

This is like the tests in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. See if someone is a real human artist, ask them to draw hands.

Hands are getting better all the time.  MJ v5 is great and SD + depth fields/control net are pretty good.

Quote from: jhkim on March 22, 2023, 02:56:50 PM

I have some ethical qualms about using AI art as a replacement for commercial illustrations, because I believe it's reusing copyrighted art as data that wasn't licensed for this purpose. On the other hand, for non-commercial campaign art, it seems less of an issue.

Good man.

My wife is a professional artist. She and her coworkers are justifiably anxious about AI art and their professional online portfolios having been "scraped" to feed the AI databases.

I had considered using Google's new "Bard" AI just to throw some personal campaign notes in and see what it could cogitate. She asked me not to help any AI in any way, which was enough for me.

jhkim, love the Aztec vibe.  I've got a couple of back burner projects that I'm thinking about doing AI collaborations with (creating the initial poses and sketches and having AI make them presentable.)

Feratu, I'm interested in you and your wife's opinion on Adobe Firefly and Mitsua Diffusion One, both of these are ethical data models for AI Art.  Firefly leverage's Adobe's huge stock art library and Mitsua is only trained on a smaller data set of public domain and authorized images.  I tested it with 'wood cuts' and line drawings and I got it to more or less work for medieval images suitable for character portraits and the like, which is to be expected given the available historical sources.

Just for fun...

Quote from: zircher on March 22, 2023, 05:55:16 PM

Feratu, I'm interested in you and your wife's opinion on Adobe Firefly and Mitsua Diffusion One, both of these are ethical data models for AI Art.  Firefly leverage's Adobe's huge stock art library and Mitsua is only trained on a smaller data set of public domain and authorized images.  I tested it with 'wood cuts' and line drawings and I got it to more or less work for medieval images suitable for character portraits and the like, which is to be expected given the available historical sources.

zircher,

I have no personal beef with "ethical" AI and am mildly curious about its useful applications. My sweetie is unfortunately completely blackpilled and now wants nothing to do with any of it. It's unfortunate, too because we've both always enjoyed science fiction's speculative AI portrayals. Reality turned out to mostly be CRAPitalism rather than capitalism.

I also like the images. I think I'm primarily with jhkim. No issues with home games.

When it comes to commercial, if I were to release a game I would struggle to trust an unknown artist. There are too many stories of people taking money and running or running super late on deadlines.

So I'd probably reach out to Rob or somebody here. But assuming I couldn't find someone I trust, I might consider AI or go without like Whitehack.

I'm going to say something unpopular (nothing new on my end):

Unless you can prove a particular AI is plagiarizing artists IDGAFF if it's "ethical" or not.

Furthermore I am fully onboard, for someone like me who doesn't have the money to hire artists it's a valid option over using the same public domain art everybody else has already used. It's going to empower people to produce higher quality products.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 22, 2023, 06:38:09 PMFurthermore I am fully onboard, for someone like me who doesn't have the money to hire artists it's a valid option over using the same public domain art everybody else has already used. It's going to empower people to produce higher quality products.

I see it more as a way to DEVALUE people, but stuff like that has happened before. Shoe factories didn't empower the avarage person with the ability to make shoes. It did devalue the price of shoes and make them available for more people.
The people I see most excited for this technology are giant firms excited to fire all their art staff to reduce overhead.

But thats reality and the nature of technology and advancement. The invention of the care caused the loss of jobs for many well meaning horse breeders.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on March 22, 2023, 06:38:09 PM
I'm going to say something unpopular (nothing new on my end):

Unless you can prove a particular AI is plagiarizing artists IDGAFF if it's "ethical" or not.

Furthermore I am fully onboard, for someone like me who doesn't have the money to hire artists it's a valid option over using the same public domain art everybody else has already used. It's going to empower people to produce higher quality products.

I believe most stakeholders practically everywhere think the same and already care more about maximizing this quarter's profits over leaving any viable consumers in their wake. It reminds me of the cartoon where the robot college counselor can't help the human graduate student find a job, but points out that every company is desperately seeking a human to fill the role of consumer.

And to be clear Im not saying this is capitalisms fault. This would be hell under communism as well.
But the idea of AI art and its intended applications has me completly blackpilled on the future. People with no ethics developing technology with no ethics for people with no ethics primarily for the purpose of spewing out media we already have a glut of.

The best case scenario I can imagine is the future from Wall-E. And thats the nicest best case scenario.

Greetings!

I've read some Futurists, these kinds of visionary uber-futuristic people that have talked about the coming technological, Knowledge-revolution, and how it is going to be hugely transformative to all societies, everywhere, like the Industrial Revolution, but larger.

Robots, AI, computerized technologies are going to reach a threshold of breakthroughs that are going to be mind-boggling in scope, application, everything. While they often disagree when this huge transformation is to occur, they all agree it is a certainty. Then, there are some that have explained that it won't be a one-bang ind of event, but a series of transitions, coming in waves. Others then have pointed out that these changes are also likely to come about much faster and sooner than previous generations or analysts believed would be possible.

The implications of these changes are staggering, effecting every area of life, work, communities, politics, economics, even how relationships are viewed and defined.

For example, relatively soon here, our society will be facing unemployment rates of 40%, 50% or higher. Robotics and AI technologies will simply eliminate most jobs, and entirely transform what we think about "WORK" and "CAREERS". The economies of the near future are going to be far more streamlined, far more efficient, and require far less manpower. Your jobs in so many fields will be simply gone. There simply will be no need to employ 1,000 people to do "X" when that workload can be accomplished by 5 highly-trained specialists, overseeing a landscape of Robotic technologies and AI assistants. There may also be a specialized team of say, 10 people that are highly-trained technicians that can work on any required repairs, adjustments, or upgrades to the systems and structures involved. Thus, 1,000 jobs won't be needed. This huge descaling will be seen in virtually every kind of field. There are already high-tech factories in Japan that create tons of "X", while being operated by robots and AI. These giant technological factories are supervised by maybe a dozen actual human beings. That's it.

We are already seeing a foreshadowing of the changes that will sweep through professional education, with colleges and universities for example. People already have access to scholar-level work and data on their cell phones that far exceed what a scholar knew 100 years ago after a lifetime of study and work. Just wait until we have VR hook ups, and technologies that can interface with the human brain by putting on a helmet or some other thing that shares data. Much faster, more thorough, and available anywhere and everywhere. College and universities will largely be a thing of the past.

This also gets into an economic push for UBI--Universal Basic Income. It seems like something like it will be necessary, because there won't be jobs for 80% of the population. The jobs will simply not exist. This development will radically impact our entire societal view of work, and of careers. The whole concept of working your life away, and all that. These developments will hugely impact how we view families, and the nature of time. Some experts believe this will unleash an unprecedented growth further in technology, beauty, arts, and many other things, because millions of more people will be living lives of leisure, freedom, discovery, and enlightenment.

Work-place and a huge outgrowth of changes in industry, economics, and technologies, will generate greater mass efficiencies in work, so that for millions of people, daily essentials will no longer be of any concern. These developments will proceed with medical enhancements that will extend people's lives, which will also have an impact on human relationships and families.

The military is already talking NOW--about how within the next 15 years, the vast majority of the entire military--land, air, and naval forces--will be robotic. Likewise, we are already seeing huge changes in retail and food industry technology. Macdonald's have been transformed into robotic kiosks, robot workers, all run and supervised by only a handful of actual people. Truck drivers? Gone. They will be replaced by robot trucks. Uber drivers, Taxi drivers? Bus drivers? All gone. Manufacturing is increasingly industrialized with more machines, more robots, and more computers--and a need for far less human workers.

I think we will see the market for human artists also undergo huge changes. Sad, for sure. But the inescapable reality will rapidly be here--a computer program will be able to create more artwork, better artwork--or at least comparable to what 85% of actual human artists are doing--and such will be produced also in a fraction amount of time. Thus, no need for 85% of human artists, everywhere. There will only be a market for the absolute top 10% or 15%, the artists that can simply reach and maintain levels of excellence and detail that, as of yet--the computers and robots and AI won't yet be at quite that same level of excellence.

These same dynamics in efficiency, scale, ease of maintenance, quality production and output, vast financial savings, will effect virtually every industry and line of work.

I'm of course disturbed by other implications going on, but just by looking at the very basic kinds of transformations being brought in--and very quickly!--the immediate changes to society at all levels is most certainly going to be profound.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

RPG industry will be completely different (& glutted). Anyone will be able to create whatever they want, and there won't be a significant production quality difference between "D&D" and "Fantasy Heartbreaker."

Quote from: SHARK on March 22, 2023, 07:31:02 PMI'm of course disturbed by other implications going on, but just by looking at the very basic kinds of transformations being brought in--and very quickly!--the immediate changes to society at all levels is most certainly going to be profound.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Agreed, but I mostly see them as negative. Scarcity is a source of pain, but its also a source of meaning. I see only a hellscape in the future because humans may be motivated by fear, but are motivated by comforts so much more.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 22, 2023, 07:43:40 PM

Quote from: SHARK on March 22, 2023, 07:31:02 PMI'm of course disturbed by other implications going on, but just by looking at the very basic kinds of transformations being brought in--and very quickly!--the immediate changes to society at all levels is most certainly going to be profound.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Agreed, but I mostly see them as negative. Scarcity is a source of pain, but its also a source of meaning. I see only a hellscape in the future because humans may be motivated by fear, but are motivated by comforts so much more.

Greetings!

Oh yeah, Shrieking Banshee! I agree, there are like two or three *bad* things, for each 1 good thing. I'm pretty convinced we are doomed to clown-world.

I was reading an article earlier--maybe a video--about how Facebook and TikTok and Instagram, have *already* created actual, measurable, changes in people's lifestyles, attitudes, politics, and relationships--all from being programed, and addicted, and influenced by Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

I've also believed that 50% of the human population are brutish, simple apes that are only focused on food, shelter, clothing, fucking, and basic entertainment. Fulfill those basic necessities, and half the population could care less about anything or anyone else in society.

I also think that number of basic morons is growing, year by year.

The studies also recently show how here in America, our total average vocabulary has significantly decreased for people under 35. The US population on a whole is two standard deviations lower in IQ than 30 years ago. We are literally getting stupider as a population. Less educated, speaking simpler, gibberish English, functionally illiterate, naïve, and easily manipulated on a mass scale, like a gigantic herd of stupid animals.

AI technologies are going to further make people more dependent, more brainwashed, and more easily controlled. Nice, stupid, domesticated animals.

The future is bright indeed!

I think it is pretty obvious that more and more people are eager to be slaves. Give them the essentials--food, sex, entertainment--and they don't care about "Rights". That requires too much work, responsibilities, obligations, and duties. Let a handful of uber elites, the crème of society, rule over everything. It's good to be controlled by the super-state. More morons are convinced they *deserve* free handouts and goodies, so they will keep voting for leaders and elites that give them more, and more, and more. Our society is distracted, and also obsessed with decadence, with debauchery and pleasure of every kind. It is quite literally destroying our entire population, by eating away at their functionality from within. Their lives become focused on consumption, on pleasure, on basic needs, on selfish hedonism--meanwhile their minds and their actual education and ability to think rots away, degrades away and is so corrupted, that we have an increasingly helpless society.

I read a comment somewhere where someone said..."The giant Asteroid can't come soon enough!" *Laughing*

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK