Quote from: Eric Diaz on May 09, 2023, 02:10:48 PM
Eh... it is all fun and games for us writers until next year, when artists can replace us for ChatGTP version X.

Fine by me, I think a lot of artists have enough writing talent that if they had a competent assistant they could make a go of it. Just like some of us writer know enough about drawing and composition to make a go of it if we had a competent art assistant.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on May 09, 2023, 02:10:48 PM
Technology is inevitable, but I don't think we should be too quick to do away with artists, they add a lot to our hobby.

As I stated far more verbosely in my previous post. For unskilled professions, these technologies tend to replace people doing the job. For skilled professions, these technologies keep humans in the loop allowing them to do more with the time they have.

I wouldn't count artist out yet. Also, there are still manuscript copyists doing their thing.

I certainly hope you're right

So, let me try to be clearer.

I don't mean to imply legislation is needed or desirable, on the contrary: any legislation on the matter will be used by Disney etc. against indies, as always.

I think my main concern (other than government) is that AI is great at generating drivel and there are enough people that will buy drivel to not only put artists into unemployment but also decreasing the amount of quality/taste in our products.

I am not sure what kind of artist you're looking for... OOH there are so many out there, I could give you a contact or two, OTOH I know AI is just cheaper and easier.

But an actual artist has talents that might influence the quality of your product - if not the number of sales.

Also, I agree there are artists that do not need writers (and they had an unfair advantage over us until now, lol... JK). But chatGPT + a decent writer would be better than ChatGPT alone, as MJ + artist, etc.

AI could bring utopia if we play our cards right, but I`m not very optimistic.

A big issue I see with the current generation of AI is an easy way of training them on a custom data set. I am continually frustrated when I use ChatGPT or Bard as uber random table by their inability to remember my own work that I copied in beyond a certain point.

More than my own convenience, I consider this a severe problem for allowing indies to compete on the same playing field as bigger outfits. Because the current methods of teaching AI are labor-intensive. This means folks who can marshal the labor like Disney, etc. will have an advantage in using these technologies.

Imagine a company with a catalog like Chaosium or Columbia Games could feed the corpus of Glorantha or Harn in and use it as the ultimate random table for each of these settings. Or use it as a tool to manage the vast amount of details found in these settings. Finding underlying patterns that in the hands of a skilled writer could lead to interesting supplements or adventures.

Dune increasingly looks like the best-case scenario for humanity.

Quote from: Summon666 on May 09, 2023, 09:42:13 AM
If you saw two books, and one had a sticker on it saying something like "No AI Inside" or something... would you buy that over a book with no declaration?

Yes.

Quote from: jeff37923 on May 09, 2023, 06:33:49 PM

Quote from: Summon666 on May 09, 2023, 09:42:13 AMIf you saw two books, and one had a sticker on it saying something like "No AI Inside" or something... would you buy that over a book with no declaration?

Yes.

I think so as well. It wouldn't surprise me if you start to see things like that on books. I suspect it would appeal. We might end up with something like the parent advisory label but about if it is AI or not.

Horrifying AI generated film. No input but a text prompt.
https://vimeo.com/824766880

This tech will eventually be like special effects in the 80s compared to 2023. Last Starfighter -> Avatar2

Quote from: Summon666 on May 10, 2023, 05:14:19 AM
Horrifying AI generated film. No input but a text prompt.
https://vimeo.com/824766880

This tech will eventually be like special effects in the 80s compared to 2023. Last Starfighter -> Avatar2

Dude, what do you expect? AI art and writing programs literally take their input and drop it into a blender before hitting puree. Getting an output that isn't the least common denominator of the subject matter would be a miracle. You want bland commercialized art or writing? This is how you get bland commercialized art or writing.

um.. I do not think you understood my post above... try reading it again.

Well, this is the bright side: everyone who wants to make a quick buck now will see their stuff become obsolete in a few months, when no one will want to by AI art with messed up hands and fingers.

AI art has gotten really advanced. It's now replacing artists in China. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/art/china-s-game-art-industry-reportedly-decimated-ai-art-use

I prefer real artists because of the back and forth. Unfortunately it's very tedious to find artists who match my parameters and have free commissions slots. There isn't any matchmaking services that automate this process. Sometimes they just flake on me without explanation.

Quote from: Tod13 on May 09, 2023, 02:16:02 PM
We're writers. We see it, dispassionately, as something that may someday be an issue. But not insanely as a mortal threat or something that needs to be handled by legislation.

Let's forget artists and writers for a minute and contemplate how this may in fact be a mortal threat to the hobby itself.

One of the main advantages that tabletop had over video games was the infinite flexibility of a GM compared to the likes of Skyrim and Witcher III. What happens to us when AI generation turbo-charges video game RPG content? It won't have to be infinitely flexible to lure away 90% of the player base, just close enough.

Who will buy these AI-written RPG books illustrated with AI art when everyone's in AI World of Warcraft?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked on May 11, 2023, 09:50:55 AM
Let's forget artists and writers for a minute and contemplate how this may in fact be a mortal threat to the hobby itself.

One of the main advantages that tabletop had over video games was the infinite flexibility of a GM compared to the likes of Skyrim and Witcher III. What happens to us when AI generation turbo-charges video game RPG content? It won't have to be infinitely flexible to lure away 90% of the player base, just close enough.

Who will buy these AI-written RPG books illustrated with AI art when everyone's in AI World of Warcraft?

It's the honeymoon phase so people are blind to the flaws of AI. The flaws are starting to show themselves and will become more and more apparent as people use these tools.

ChatGPT for example is a chat bot. How many people do you think are sitting there actually chatting with it? Three? Five? Nobody is using it for chat. Humans continue to chat with other humans. Chat bots have always been a novelty item and ChatGPT happens to be a very good chat bot. Will people suddenly want to talk with a chat bot when it's dressed up as an NPC? Initially for the novelty, yeah, but the novelty will wear off.

Chess is another example. AI is used by humans to practice and there are AI-vs-AI matches, but people tend to care about the human players nor the AIs. The human vs human game is still king, even 25+ years after Deep Blue beat Kasparov. And chess is more popular than ever.

If the TTPRG scene loses some casuals who prefer to talk to machines, okay bye!

Quote from: Shipyard Locked on May 11, 2023, 09:50:55 AM

Quote
a mortal threat to the hobby itself.

You can, right now, pay a published adventure writer to run a game on a virtual tabletop where you are largely a passive observer of a story.
There are games where you play pregnant waitresses on a smoke break.
Virtue-signaling games have made lots of money.

But there are still groups meeting in basements with pencil and paper and imagination, playing games in way that those guys always have.
Let em have their pixels, it'll never replace face to face, immersive, smell-your-farts gaming.