Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 03, 2023, 03:44:57 PM
We currently have a huge problem with soulless regurgitation anyway. I don't see creativity outside the indie scene, and even that is hugely held back by trend chasing and low budgets. It's gotten progressively worse over time. I feel like media illiteracy has resulted in people continually reinventing the wheel without learning anything. Remember when Jennifer Lawrence said she was the first female action hero? She and millions of others literally believed it because of they're media illiterate. I fear AI will just make all our current problems with idiocracy infinitely worse. I'm hugely privileged to have visited libraries and read a cross section of fiction spanning decades and centuries. Most other people seem to think the universe started last Tuesday. What makes this especially absurd is that streaming and ebook stores gives you tons of media classics at your fingertips. Yet people are getting more ignorant, not less!

Oh, I fully acknowledge that the signal to noise ratio is bad right now and has been for a while.  It's going to get worse.  Corporations in entertainment flat out have lost touch with any form of creativity.  When I talk about grift spam, I am fully adding Disney and WOTC in the list of places I expect it to come from.  Sadly, a lot of "independent" creators are just such spam as well.

I think if we can get tuned up to filter the spam now that when it comes as an avalanche we'll be able to handle it better.

WotC inherited loads of diverse IPs from TSR and freelancers invented plenty in Polyhedron during the d20 Modern era. By extension, Hasbro owns all of those. Star Frontiers, Star*Drive, Gamma World, Dark•Matter, Shadowchasers, Agents of Psi, Urban Arcana, Thunderball Rally, Iron Lords of Jupiter, DeathNet, BugHunters, Kromosome, GeneTech, etc. They're drowning in IPs that run the gamut of genres and could be turned into toys, video games, movies, tv shows, etc. But they're not exploiting any of it. In age when studios are snatching up IPs and driving them into the ground. Make it make sense! Do the executives just not know they own these IPs because nobody bothered to keep a list?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 03, 2023, 07:21:47 PM
WotC inherited loads of diverse IPs from TSR and freelancers invented plenty in Polyhedron during the d20 Modern era. By extension, Hasbro owns all of those. Star Frontiers, Star*Drive, Gamma World, Dark•Matter, Shadowchasers, Agents of Psi, Urban Arcana, Thunderball Rally, Iron Lords of Jupiter, DeathNet, BugHunters, Kromosome, GeneTech, etc. They're drowning in IPs that run the gamut of genres and could be turned into toys, video games, movies, tv shows, etc. But they're not exploiting any of it. In age when studios are snatching up IPs and driving them into the ground. Make it make sense! Do the executives just not know they own these IPs because nobody bothered to keep a list?

Most of those (Gamma World and the like) have no real value as names because they have been out of circulation so long.  One could recreate Gamma World using a different name and make as much money.

Quote from: Scooter on August 03, 2023, 08:34:51 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 03, 2023, 07:21:47 PM
WotC inherited loads of diverse IPs from TSR and freelancers invented plenty in Polyhedron during the d20 Modern era. By extension, Hasbro owns all of those. Star Frontiers, Star*Drive, Gamma World, Dark•Matter, Shadowchasers, Agents of Psi, Urban Arcana, Thunderball Rally, Iron Lords of Jupiter, DeathNet, BugHunters, Kromosome, GeneTech, etc. They're drowning in IPs that run the gamut of genres and could be turned into toys, video games, movies, tv shows, etc. But they're not exploiting any of it. In age when studios are snatching up IPs and driving them into the ground. Make it make sense! Do the executives just not know they own these IPs because nobody bothered to keep a list?

Most of those (Gamma World and the like) have no real value as names because they have been out of circulation so long.  One could recreate Gamma World using a different name and make as much money.

And people should!

Trademarks expire. Has Hasbro been keeping their trademarks up to date just to hedge out any imaginary competition for properties they don't market? Or have they truly forgotten they actually own them? Either one will look bad in a court of law if Hasbro challenged a trademark suit. It would stink of anti-competitive shenannigans.

Quote from: BadApple on August 03, 2023, 04:06:05 PM
I think if we can get tuned up to filter the spam now that when it comes as an avalanche we'll be able to handle it better.

You keep alluding to this supposed "consumer review board." What do you propose this would look like? Because it sounds like bureaucratic swamp-shit to me. How would this panel of "reviewers" be selected? What would be the criteria? What incentive would be provided for them to (presumably) purchase and review the alleged thousands of garbage rpgs that you claim will hit the market. And how would you ensure objectivity? What would prevent the whole thing from either devolving into a echo chamber or getting bogged down with in-fighting?

Besides, DTRPG already allows customers to leave reviews on products. Have you not found them helpful?

Quote from: Effete on August 03, 2023, 09:05:19 PM

Quote from: BadApple on August 03, 2023, 04:06:05 PM
I think if we can get tuned up to filter the spam now that when it comes as an avalanche we'll be able to handle it better.

You keep alluding to this supposed "consumer review board." What do you propose this would look like? Because it sounds like bureaucratic swamp-shit to me. How would this panel of "reviewers" be selected? What would be the criteria? What incentive would be provided for them to (presumably) purchase and review the alleged thousands of garbage rpgs that you claim will hit the market. And how would you ensure objectivity? What would prevent the whole thing from either devolving into a echo chamber or getting bogged down with in-fighting?

Besides, DTRPG already allows customers to leave reviews on products. Have you not found them helpful?

I do find reviews useful but it's hit or miss.  Many things I look at have very scant write-ups at best and at times I will go through a product and see that some of the reviews were clearly dishonest.

So what would it look like?  Honestly, something akin to Underwriter's Laboratories, Motorcycle Consumer News, or Consumer Reports.  Products being read and play tested by multiple parties with parallel reporting.  Shut Up and Sit Down actually does a great job reviewing board games and I would definitely look to them for a review when deciding on a product.

One of the things going on in the world is that corporations are doing their level best to control how a product is reported on.  Disney went so far as to buy Rotten Tomatoes and has definitely skewed reporting and reviews of their movies.  They block reviewers and journalists for negative reports and reward positive support.  Hasbro has been doing similar things. 

A simple organization of players that review and publish honest opinions is all I want.  Not a government board, not a foundation to make things happen, just clean information to the consumer for them to decide where to spend their money so they don't have to drop $3k on books trying to find a game that suites them.  Also, a little bit of education about how to see if a product is suitable to you and how scamming in the gaming industry works so that grifters get flushed out.

Quote from: BadApple on August 03, 2023, 09:34:33 PM

Quote from: Effete on August 03, 2023, 09:05:19 PM

Quote from: BadApple on August 03, 2023, 04:06:05 PM
I think if we can get tuned up to filter the spam now that when it comes as an avalanche we'll be able to handle it better.

You keep alluding to this supposed "consumer review board." What do you propose this would look like? Because it sounds like bureaucratic swamp-shit to me. How would this panel of "reviewers" be selected? What would be the criteria? What incentive would be provided for them to (presumably) purchase and review the alleged thousands of garbage rpgs that you claim will hit the market. And how would you ensure objectivity? What would prevent the whole thing from either devolving into a echo chamber or getting bogged down with in-fighting?

Besides, DTRPG already allows customers to leave reviews on products. Have you not found them helpful?

I do find reviews useful but it's hit or miss.  Many things I look at have very scant write-ups at best and at times I will go through a product and see that some of the reviews were clearly dishonest.

So what would it look like?  Honestly, something akin to Underwriter's Laboratories, Motorcycle Consumer News, or Consumer Reports.  Products being read and play tested by multiple parties with parallel reporting.  Shut Up and Sit Down actually does a great job reviewing board games and I would definitely look to them for a review when deciding on a product.

One of the things going on in the world is that corporations are doing their level best to control how a product is reported on.  Disney went so far as to buy Rotten Tomatoes and has definitely skewed reporting and reviews of their movies.  They block reviewers and journalists for negative reports and reward positive support.  Hasbro has been doing similar things. 

A simple organization of players that review and publish honest opinions is all I want.  Not a government board, not a foundation to make things happen, just clean information to the consumer for them to decide where to spend their money so they don't have to drop $3k on books trying to find a game that suites them.  Also, a little bit of education about how to see if a product is suitable to you and how scamming in the gaming industry works so that grifters get flushed out.

What we need is fan made reviews, the problem is NOBODY has the money to buy and review all the games, supplements, etc.

Plus websites also cost money, and then the time to read and maybe playtest the stuff...

Who is funding the operation? Because until you get some renoun traffic will be low, subscriptions the same.

Quote from: Fheredin on August 03, 2023, 08:19:53 AM
I am not saying that AI will suddenly become human-level, but I think that most artists and authors interested in pulling their work are making a silent ceteris paribus assumption which is dead wrong.

No doubt, it pains me to say this because they are my friends, but their case is doomed to failure. At best they can hope for is an out of court settlement. This juggernaut is not stopping for anything. All fields of art are going to be dramatically affected. I do believe brilliant creatives will take these tools and make amazing things. Perhaps everything: music, art, books, games, movies will all dramatically increase in quality before the apocalypse.

Quote from: BadApple on August 03, 2023, 09:34:33 PM
One of the things going on in the world is that corporations are doing their level best to control how a product is reported on.  Disney went so far as to buy Rotten Tomatoes and has definitely skewed reporting and reviews of their movies.  They block reviewers and journalists for negative reports and reward positive support.  Hasbro has been doing similar things.

Right!
This was the reasoning for my questions. I've found it increasing more difficult to get objective reporting from "main stream" sources, as well as several independent ones, over the last few years. On the one side, you have people who are all in on the DEI/ESG agenda, and then you have knee-jerk response from the other side. I've found I can only really rely on a small group of independent (and often unrelated) voices from people who I know share my tastes and opinions on certain things. That doesn't mean I don't listen to other opinions, but when put to the test, I've consistently found myself saying, "yeah, X person was right."

Granted, this is mostly in the realm of TV shows and movies ( the most disposible type of media), but books and comics have their place in there too. I do agree with you that finding something similar for rpgs is very scant, but it is a very small market compared to the others. I mean, motorcycle enthusiasts probably outnumber TT-gamers 10 to 1, and unless I heard it from a motorcycle enthusiast himself, I wouldn't know which reviews were trustworthy.

QuoteA simple organization of players that review and publish honest opinions is all I want.  Not a government board, not a foundation to make things happen, just clean information to the consumer for them to decide where to spend their money so they don't have to drop $3k on books trying to find a game that suites them.  Also, a little bit of education about how to see if a product is suitable to you and how scamming in the gaming industry works so that grifters get flushed out.

Well, I didn't think you wanted a government board for reviewing rpgs. LOL. But from the way you said it, it DID sound like you wanted some form of democratized collective tasked with agreeing on which games were "human-made" and which were "AI drival." A weird dicotomy, since there is plenty of human-made drival already on the market, and I'm not yet convinced that AI-assisted or even AI-produced games are inherently unplayable.

But if you desire a forum for game reviews, you're on one right now. Why not start a thread similar to The Woke List for which games are playable versus unplayable? I think the majority of users here are vastly knowledgeable on games, and vocal enough with their opinions to make such a thread a lively discussion.

On the supply-side of things, I think publishers would greatly benefit by releasing a Freeware version of their games so players can give it a testdrive. Some do, but the majority seem to rely on blind faith or word-of-mouth to sell their products. There's a reason why groceries continue to offer free-samples of products. It's a proven marketing tactic. Sure, most people will either walk by or eat the thing and move on, but the point is to get eyes on the product. And a significant percentage of people who would have never puchased the product otherwise will buy it due to that exposure.

Quote from: Effete on August 03, 2023, 08:54:49 PM

Quote from: Scooter on August 03, 2023, 08:34:51 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 03, 2023, 07:21:47 PM
WotC inherited loads of diverse IPs from TSR and freelancers invented plenty in Polyhedron during the d20 Modern era. By extension, Hasbro owns all of those. Star Frontiers, Star*Drive, Gamma World, Dark•Matter, Shadowchasers, Agents of Psi, Urban Arcana, Thunderball Rally, Iron Lords of Jupiter, DeathNet, BugHunters, Kromosome, GeneTech, etc. They're drowning in IPs that run the gamut of genres and could be turned into toys, video games, movies, tv shows, etc. But they're not exploiting any of it. In age when studios are snatching up IPs and driving them into the ground. Make it make sense! Do the executives just not know they own these IPs because nobody bothered to keep a list?

Most of those (Gamma World and the like) have no real value as names because they have been out of circulation so long.  One could recreate Gamma World using a different name and make as much money.

And people should!

Trademarks expire. Has Hasbro been keeping their trademarks up to date just to hedge out any imaginary competition for properties they don't market? Or have they truly forgotten they actually own them? Either one will look bad in a court of law if Hasbro challenged a trademark suit. It would stink of anti-competitive shenannigans.

Well, there's Mutant Future, I guess. But not much else. Is there anything that actually satisfies a fan of those IPs? I haven't found anything that gets me excited. The original Alternity authors snatched up the trademark, then burned out once they realized they didn't have the rights to the IPs.

I once tried to make my own retroclones then gave up because it got too close to copyright infringement and I just wanted to play the originals anyway.

I don't think the circulation claim is really meaningful. Multiple franchises have been revived after decades of hiatus. Spelljammer and Planescape, for example.

But tbh I think copyright needs to be reformed so that out of print books enter the public domain after a decade or two. This would allow fans to reprint the original books for sharing with new generations and make their own hacks.

Quote from: BadApple on August 03, 2023, 02:40:40 PM
Is feeding images into an algorithm inspiring the program or stealing someone's art?  Adding to this whole thing is that AI art is a developing tech that's changing on a daily basis. 

So I read a good explanation of this. It won't tell you answer but you will understand what it is doing.


So imagine a map of the world. Chicago is at 41.8781° N, 87.6298W, New York is at 40.7128° N, 74.0060° W and Miami is at 25.7617° N, 80.1918° W. Instead of storing a map image and trying to interpret the image. You can look at the map to figure out how latitude and longitude work on the map. Look at the labels and their market. Scan the maps and store a bunch of labels and their latitude and longitude.

Next, you hook up to a self-learning neural network and ask questions with known answers like "What are the three closest locations to Chicago"? The neural network will get it wrong at first. The training software will reorganize the network to try again. Eventually, it will start getting results that are close.

With something simplistic like a list of locations it is possible to train it to be accurate. However, when it comes to images and text, the latitude and longitude being stored are just not two coordinates but a dozen or more. When you get up that high then complete accuracy becomes a problem as I will explain in a minute. Instead, the neural network can get close enough. To close the remaining gap is the subject of ongoing research.

Using a text-based AI as an example, the reason complete accuracy is a problem is that words and phrases can appear in multiple contexts for example the phrase "My sister was with two men last night" could be part of a comedian's joke, part of a crime story,  or another number of situations. And the coordinates that are stored for this phrase and its parts could wind up having a number of choices that are equal distance away from the different options.

As if asking what is the closest city to Chicago gives two random answers if there were two cities equal distance apart. While the problem of Chicago can be resolved easily. When you have a dozen or more coordinated associated with each item in the training base it becomes a challenge.

The same problem exists for images, a blog of color data associated with human ears could lead to several alternatives of equal distance away.

Some of this has been handled by greatly increasing the number of coordinates associated with each item in the training data thus exposing deeper inter-connections thus shorting the distance between items that we humans would consider closely related.

As a software engineer following this for decades, I think there will be a hard limit hit to this approach. That it will only be solved by layering in something else that will be developed by the next generation of AI software.  Something that will understand context as human do better.

Finally the issue of copyright. The elements books and images being trained on are being reduced to a series of coordinates. Even if we are talking about just one book or image, it would be near impossible to reconstruct the original image or book from the data. It is possible to recreate sections where the elements are so strongly associated with each other that they would naturally appear together.

However, they don't train on just one book or image. So various elements are associated with all kinds of works. As it turns out there are only so many letters and words. There is a limit to how color and form associate with each other in an image.  So the possibility of recreating a specific work from the data is very low.

Slightly higher would be the chance of creating a work that would be considered derivative, especially for text.

My position is that it should be treated like a human artist. If the outputted work is clearly not derivative or a copy then it is fine. If it is then the original artist or writer should be able to prevail to have the outputted work taken down.

I think work that is produced by AI generation should not enjoy copyright protection. However, keep in mind if somebody incorporates AI generated content then the resulting work probably is copyrightable. For example, a Traveller Sector where the world are created by the world generation procedure but the book itself about the details of the sectors and the writeups of the world are definitely human-produced.

And I think OpenAI and the others should be nailed for using pirated collections of books and images. That was stupid of them to do especially considering their dreams of commercial success.  If anything that is what will shut down the current generation as they will be enjoined from using their trained models based on the pirated works.

However, this will be a short hiccup as models trained on public domain sources will appear. Along with models trained on images and books that were legitimately acquired.

Hope that makes sense.

Side Note: I wonder if the model themselves are copyrightable. I think not because a list of facts can't be copyrighted. Plus the data that is stored in the neural network after training is not created by humans.

Quote from: estar on August 04, 2023, 08:29:33 AM

My position is that it should be treated like a human artist. If the outputted work is clearly not derivative or a copy then it is fine. If it is then the original artist or writer should be able to prevail to have the outputted work taken down.

This would conform to current statute and case law.  Anything more would be illegal currently.

Quote from: Effete on August 04, 2023, 04:09:50 AM
But if you desire a forum for game reviews, you're on one right now. Why not start a thread similar to The Woke List for which games are playable versus unplayable? I think the majority of users here are vastly knowledgeable on games, and vocal enough with their opinions to make such a thread a lively discussion.

I am aware.  In part, that's why I'm a member here.  I've even done two reviews here: https://www.therpgsite.com/reviews/1520hre-2d6-adventure-in-the-holy-roman-empire/msg1257292/#msg1257292  and  https://www.therpgsite.com/reviews/the-hardboiled-gmshoe-reviews-dark-stars/msg1258434/#msg1258434

The second review is actually a counter review.  In both cases, it's my attempt to give reviews that I would like to read.  I would be happy to do reviews like this for all the games I know well if there was an expressed interest.  I may not be the writer or reviewer people want to read though.

Quote from: Scooter on August 04, 2023, 09:45:43 AM

Quote from: estar on August 04, 2023, 08:29:33 AM

My position is that it should be treated like a human artist. If the outputted work is clearly not derivative or a copy then it is fine. If it is then the original artist or writer should be able to prevail to have the outputted work taken down.

This would conform to current statute and case law.  Anything more would be illegal currently.

Like Photoshop, or any digital creation software, the user can create images that infringe on copyrights. You could paint Spider-Man in a digital painting program for example. But the software also allows for creative freedom. So is the liability the user or the software maker in cases of copyright infringement?

Quote from: Thor's Nads on August 05, 2023, 12:01:05 AM

Quote from: Scooter on August 04, 2023, 09:45:43 AM

Quote from: estar on August 04, 2023, 08:29:33 AM

My position is that it should be treated like a human artist. If the outputted work is clearly not derivative or a copy then it is fine. If it is then the original artist or writer should be able to prevail to have the outputted work taken down.

This would conform to current statute and case law.  Anything more would be illegal currently.

Like Photoshop, or any digital creation software, the user can create images that infringe on copyrights. You could paint Spider-Man in a digital painting program for example. But the software also allows for creative freedom. So is the liability the user or the software maker in cases of copyright infringement?

The AI is just a mindless tool following a set of commands presented by the prompt. The onus lies with the person typing the prompts, who then becomes the "owner" of the produced image. Holding the software developers liable would be like holding the manufacturer of a paintbrush liable for someone reproducing the Mono Lisa.

Besides, mere reproductions of copyright works are not inherently illegal. This was established with the music industry. If you purchased a CD, you have the right to rip the songs onto your computer, or even make a burn disc. What you aren't allowed to do is share it. I can sit around and learn how to draw Bart Simpson all I want; I just can't share those drawings within a public forum. So the owner of an AI-produced art piece or manuscript also inherents the legal responsibility of that work.