I've been working on making AI art to fill a TTRPG book I wrote, given I cant afford to pay for art, and have been worried if people will hate my game for using it.

But then that train of thought got me thinking: I've only ever seen complaining about AI art coming from the extreme left crowd, and they already hate my game due to its subject matter. So, if we made a Venn diagram of the two groups, is it just a single circle?

I guess I'm just curious how widespread the violent anti-AI art sentiment is within the hobby, especially towards people who are genuinely too poor to afford buying art.

I don't hate AI art. But it does make cheap, uninspired results. I've used it in my personal projects but that's just for my own use, not for sale.
Stock art is pretty cheap on drivethrurpg. I've bought a few packs.
I won't get "violent" over a for-sale RPG using AI art, but I do think it's a turn-off, especially when the AI art is that samey hyper detailed but boring and slightly off pieces that distract from whatever they're supposed to represent.

Nah, there's a lot of right-leaning people that hate AI Art.

I think more and more people are coming around to the reality of the cost-effectiveness and taking the stance of "well its sub-optimal, but I'll accept it if the product is otherwise good". I know for me, I'm more good with AI art if the art is still basically good (which AI art often isn't) and if the producer puts enough work into their prompts to give it a consistent style that doesn't immediately look like AI Art. Two examples I would give are Elfking: The Immortal and Heroes of Adventure.

I've thought about this a bit and determined that the way I would do it would be to put out an initial edition of the book with the AI art, and then make it clear in the sales listing that if the book makes enough profit, I will use that profit to replace the AI art with real art, and then provide the new edition as a free pdf to people who bought the original.

I more or less used this strategy with my game, albeit a little differently. I released it with very little art, and said that 100% of the proceeds from my sales would go to paying for more art.

But there have been basically no sales, and thus no profit with which to fund more art with, so I've been fiddling with AI art instead to make up for the lack of sales.

I was planning on releasing the version with AI art free for anyone who buys the normal copy of my game.

Depends on the context for me:

• If it's for the games that I DM, they are unpaid games, I am happy to use AI art to highlight and accentuate my game.
• If it's for publication, my company has taken the oer stance of *only* using human produced art in our products.

Our artist contracts specifically include this clause:

• Human produced: BGP believes in the creative power of human artists and does not engage in the manufacture of AI created art for publication. Artist and BGP will both agree that Artist has personally created any/all commissioned art without knowingly engaging in the use of artificial intelligence, except those embedded in software tools (e.g. Adobe Photoshop) and/or other tools agreed upon by Artist and BGP.
 
-In certain instances, BGP reserves the right to ask to view previous draft versions of commissioned art to ensure that the Work(s) are completely the Work(s) of Artist.
 
-In certain instances, BGP reserves the right to provide reference materials that may be partially or entirely generated using artificial intelligence sources. These are for exemplary or inspirational use only and will in no part be used for publication.
 
-In the event that BGP believes, in its sole authority, that Work(s) have been created using unapproved AI tools, BGP reserves the right to reject the Work(s) and cancel this Agreement.

Many of my players and DM in my local community use AI to create a picture of a character or locations and no one criticizes it.

If we are talking about products for money - then in any case the most important thing is its content, rather than art. I do not particularly like AI art in books, since they most often look very similar to each other (different books). But I understand the reason for their use.

I think that the strategy of releasing books without art, and further proceeds for creating art is also one of the possible solutions. But probably the least popular.

I 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.

AI art is fine by me, but I agree that in many cases it's of lower quality and thus doesn't add much to the value proposition. if it's consistent and thematic, I really son't care.

I've also bought pdoducts with no art, but then it has to be REALLY good. 

I think I mentioned Heroes of Adventure somewhere before, it's a free game with all AI art and it's fine. BoF is on the other side of the scale for me, I like the art but as I understand it, it was a hassle to train it on specific pieces and style.

How about public domain art?

I am indifferent toward the use of AI art in a game book. 

I use AI art for personal projects, but I have not done so with any commercial products (yet.)

My take on it is similar to the US Copyright Office: AI can not hold a copyright, humans only.  So, significant effort in pre and post production of an image by a human (beyond prompt crafting) would be needed for a copyright.  I have done that as an experiment with various techniques.  If I can spoof several AI detection web sites, I have altered the image enough to call it my own.  :-)

Fun side note, the UK is different.  They give prompt crafters a 10 year copyright on AI generated images.  Something to consider if you are using raw AI images in your projects.

AI 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".

Quote from: StoneDev on Today at 03:52:05 AMIf 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.

This.

I don't hate AI art in published books from small presses, but stock art often is way better, and licences eg on drivethrurpg art packs are cheap.

I don't mind AI art.  Some of it looks really nice.

There's a free game called Heroes of Adventure that uses AI art, and I think the book looks a whole lot better than, say, the Basic Fantasy rulebook.  Basic Fantasy is full of "real" art, some of which is nice, but some of which is pretty awful.  I'll take good AI art over bad "real" art any day.

I personally would rather see AI art than DEI slop produced in major RPGs.

I personally backed a Kickstarter (having no need for another rpg) since the creator said heck yes I use AI art. The art was good too.

Do I think it can replace human art, no, like others have said it is missing something.

But if you give me a good fantasy art with AI vs. BIPOC wheelchair sideshave adventurers with no males, I will take AI 10 times out of 10.