Quote from: GhostNinja on May 03, 2023, 09:29:04 AM

Quote from: Hixanthrope on May 03, 2023, 03:21:42 AM
If you are opposed to it, do you understand how it works?

Being condescending on this forum isn't going to make you friends.

I don't find that condescending.  In fact, I find it to be a relevant question.  There are so many claims concerning out there based on a misunderstanding of how AI generates the art that I think a preliminary discussion on that subject is almost a necessity.

Quote from: GhostNinja on May 03, 2023, 09:29:04 AM

Quote from: Hixanthrope on May 03, 2023, 03:21:42 AM
If you are opposed to it, do you understand how it works?

Being condescending on this forum isn't going to make you friends.

This is an opportunity for someone who really knows how it works (I read into it a lot, but i'm no programmer) to make a case. Don't be so sensitive, we're all crusty grogs here. There are people who literally think AI art traces reference images. So if you have something to add instead of just being offended, I'm all ears.

Quotenk AI Art, like an AI GM, is a long ways away from producing anything satisfying

10 years is generous. it's actually a lot farther along than most people realize. Open a random book from your shelf, do it look this good? And to muddy the waters further, there are already artists who use ai or just parts of ai tools to help create parts of images, produce variations, finish a sketch, or any other combination of computer and human endeavors. Is that AI art?

Quote from: rkhigdon on May 03, 2023, 11:54:16 AM
I don't find that condescending.  In fact, I find it to be a relevant question.  There are so many claims concerning out there based on a misunderstanding of how AI generates the art that I think a preliminary discussion on that subject is almost a necessity.

I guess you have a point.

Quote from: Hixanthrope on May 03, 2023, 11:57:11 AM
This is an opportunity for someone who really knows how it works (I read into it a lot, but i'm no programmer) to make a case. Don't be so sensitive, we're all crusty grogs here. There are people who literally think AI art traces reference images. So if you have something to add instead of just being offended, I'm all ears.

I found this to be a good article on AI art:

https://magazine.artland.com/ai-art/#:~:text=To%20create%20AI%2Dgenerated%20art,a%20specific%20style%20or%20aesthetic.

I expect more AI art.  A LOT more. 

I give you Praetor Emma Watson, of the XX legion. 

This was made in 5 minutes using Mage.Space, using Stable Diffusion with the DucHaitenJourney option by just typing in "Emma Watson Roman Legionary" and got a good one on the third try. 

Is it ethical?  In this case, no, but that's entirely due to the recognizable actress.  The picture subject material is fine. 

AI is a tool.

It is inevitable, as most of technology.

Still, this hobby was created with the helps of artists such as Jeff Easley and I feel bad seeing their signatures erased, metaphorically speaking.

So, I won't use AI art in my books while I can do otherwise. I prefer to give at least some credit to actual artists - and there is plenty of good stock art available for reasonable prices.

Realistically, DTRPG will be filled with AI art (say, 70% of best-sellers - IF we are able to tell the difference) within a year or two, then Chaosium, D&D, etc. Also YouTube and so on.

Nobody could compete with AI art by this point.

AI text is coming right after; our random tables will be written by bots, and people will publish 500+ pages setting written in a weekend.

The amount of trash will rise exponentially - although I'm sure there are 500+ page setting written by humans that are almost as trashy.

Eventually, Game Masters and players will be replaced by AI. Psychologists, lawyers too. Tinder will be replaced by relationship bots and dolls.

There will always be those who still prefer vinil records, however, and physical books, and "electronic fasting" etc.

Inevitable.

EDIT: sounds like dystopia, but could be utopia. If only we used it for good...

Is it ethical?

As I've said, it is a tool, it can be used for good or evil;

For me, a monopoly on AI is far more dangerous than free AI anyone can use in their indie games.

Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them. - Frank Herbert, Dune.

I've been writing about this in my blog.

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2023/02/nick-cave-roald-dahl-and-colonel-some.html

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2022/12/condensed-information-in-ocean-of-trash.html

"I found this to be a good article on AI art:"
This is cool. The more I learn about AI art, the more its opposers look like the people who threw fruit at Dylan for playing electric.

[/quote]

Quote from: weirdguy564 on May 03, 2023, 12:54:39 PM
Is it ethical?  In this case, no, but that's entirely due to the recognizable actress.

Is it unethical to draw a celebrity? Is it even illegal to draw a picture of a real person and use it as trade dress? How close does it have to be to be unethical/illegal? Not even trolling, I don't know.

Quote from: Hixanthrope on May 03, 2023, 01:01:33 PM
"I found this to be a good article on AI art:"
This is cool. The more I learn about AI art, the more its opposers look like the people who threw fruit at Dylan for playing electric.

Well the issue still lies that AI art does take from already published art so there are questions about copyright infringement. 

Quote from: Eric Diaz on May 03, 2023, 12:58:19 PM
Is it ethical?

As I've said, it is a tool, it can be used for good or evil;

Yep. Any kind of intelligence also allows for the possibility of stupidity.  AI is not immune. For some activities, it may be refined to the point where it's particular kind of stupidity is worth the trade for its particular kind of intelligence.  The machine can do a lot of things faster than people can, sometimes even things so fast that a human can't productively do them.  When it makes a mistake, it makes a lot of mistakes, in a hurry.   

In the virtual world, this doesn't matter so much.  You can have the AI generate a thousand images, do a quick scan to narrow down to some of the better ones.  And then if a human who knows what they are doing alters it, you might even put a little soul back into it on occasion. The 90 to 99.99 percent mistakes are just bytes that can be deleted. 

What an AI lacks is discernment.  To the extent you want that in your art, you'll still need a human for the foreseeable future. 

"Copyright infringement" is Law, not ethics, IMO - the same piece of work could be public domain or protected if you cross a border. I know my opinion on this isn't popular but I find copyright creates more harm than good.

Is it ethical to sue or threaten people that use Lovecraft and Howard material in their RPGs?

In theory, AI could get rid of my bureaucratic dayjob, allowing me to dedicate my life to writing.

In practice, it might steal my dayjob, and make publishing without AI impossible, so I'll spend the rest of my days doing whatever the owners of AI rights want me to do.

Quote from: GhostNinja on May 03, 2023, 01:03:33 PM

Quote from: Hixanthrope on May 03, 2023, 01:01:33 PM
"I found this to be a good article on AI art:"
This is cool. The more I learn about AI art, the more its opposers look like the people who threw fruit at Dylan for playing electric.

Well the issue still lies that AI art does take from already published art so there are questions about copyright infringement.

from what I understand, what's taken in 0.01% of an image. that's a shape, a line, a set of colors. If I tell the image generator to draw me a mushroom man in the style of Moebius, it looks at all the available reference material, and combines tiny parts of those images to emulate a style, in the process creating something entirely new. Reminds me of my own cerative process, when I'm writing a new adventure, a lot of times I'll watch an old sci-fi movie re-write the setup from memory. In the process I change enough and get enough things wrong to make it my own. Seems like AI art does the same thing.

AI art is fairly technically proficient and is getting better for sure. However, technique is only one aspect of art.

Art is a form of communication and, in my view, good art makes you feel something. The artist wants to say something and has an intention for the piece. The viewer views all that through the lens of their own experience and, hopefully, feels something.

AI art lacks that. It's superficial. I might respond to an AI piece, but once I find out it's AI art, I would feel tricked because it's empty of anything deeper.

I don't consider a text prompt to fill the role of the artist. Someone who writes a text prompt is more like a curator. They are selecting a piece of art from a vast repository. A human artist has all that other stuff in their mind while they are creating the piece.

Ultimately, I view AI art as closer to natural beauty than to art. You definitely feel something when looking at the Rocky Mountains or Grand Canyon, but the range is limited because natural beauty does not have human intention or the desire to express something. My response to both is usually amazement that something like this could exist. Searching for deeper meaning would be futile.

As far as RPG books that use AI art, the comparison holds. An RPG book chock full of AI art is pretty much the same as an RPG book that is filled with stock photos.