AI in Gaming (a Poll) [+]

[Blue]

The thing is, most manufacturing jobs can be done more accurately and faster by automated processes already... but as yet, not at the same costs as a Chinese or Indian national in a sweatshop... even after defect rates.

When the machines' costs come down, Even the wage slaves of the most populous nations will be looking for new work... but little will be left, save feeding the materials into the machine. And even that can wind up automated.

This has been a common refrain since the 1800s. So far, the doom and gloom that there will be nothing left to do hasn't happened.

In SF, when humans no longer need to work, it's often called post-scarcity, and it considered closer to a utopia.

Remember also that the work week used to be 6 days and longer hours per day. And 40 hour work weeks were fought for with the assumption that there would be one person with their spouse not needing to work and taking care of family and house. If automation did reduce available work, it's time to revisit that again. Right now automation's benefits are kept by those at the top of the chain, needing to pay less workers for the same output. If workers push, they can pay the same for the same output, it will just be the same number of workers doing less hours.

 

[Ondath]

I was going to say using image generation for personal campaigns is fine, but the option was for commercial use of generative AI. That'd just be an excuse to put artists out of their business ASAP, so I didn't select that. But I feel like using generative AI to create character faces/room images that are tailor made for your table (provided the AI is trained on an ethical dataset) seems fine to me, and is a useful alternative to scraping Pinterest for images.

 

[Reynard]

(provided the AI is trained on an ethical dataset) seems fine to me, and is a useful alternative to scraping Pinterest for images.

What is the ethical difference between you using the AI versus you directly stealing other people's images?

 

[eyeheartawk]

If I'm paying for a product there should be no AI derived content in it.

I can just prompt AI tools myself, not going to pay you for it.

 

[Ondath]

What is the ethical difference between you using the AI versus you directly stealing other people's images?

I did add the caveat that the AI needs to be trained ethically, mind you. So in the case I'm talking about, there wouldn't be stealing.

Or are you saying that people scraping Pinterest to use the images in their personal campaigns is stealing?

 

[Reynard]

"no AI derived content"

What does that mean?

I imagine you mean an image or text created by generative AI. But AI tools already fill our world and they can be used for far more than creating questionable ilustrations and stilted prose. AI tools collate and arrange data in useful ways. If you found out that a creator used AI to gather information on a subject that they then turned into their own prose would you reject the thing? or are you just talking about the most base and obvious forms of AI tools?

because it seems to me that most people don't actually know what AI is, what it is used for, how it can be leveraged, aside from being mad at Midjourney and ChatGPT.

 

[eyeheartawk]

What does that mean?

I imagine you mean an image or text created by generative AI. But AI tools already fill our world and they can be used for far more than creating questionable ilustrations and stilted prose. AI tools collate and arrange data in useful ways. If you found out that a creator used AI to gather information on a subject that they then turned into their own prose would you reject the thing? or are you just talking about the most base and obvious forms of AI tools?

because it seems to me that most people don't actually know what AI is, what it is used for, how it can be leveraged, aside from being mad at Midjourney and ChatGPT.

That's a fair point.

I was referring to prose and images generated by AI directly.

But yeah, I mean, at this point you can basically just have Grammarly write for you, so

 

[Sparkle_cz]

I write RPG stuff for tiny little Czech market and budget for proper artwork is a HUGE issue here. The publishers barely sell enough books to pay for layout, grammar checks and basic administrative and graphics. Artwork is usually at loss and the publisher has to obtain it through volunteers or the writer has to co-fund it and he will never get that money back.

At the same time, unfortunately, our customers demand quality artwork. They are used to foreign sourcebooks with stunning artwork and judge very harshly our low-budget and amateurish artwork and give lower ratings because of it in reviews.
To make matters worse, there is one Czech project with a super-wealthy owner that pumped insane sums of money into a stunning artwork for his pet project (and he will never get that money back) but it gave the community unrealistic expectations.

So now, for me as a small writer, this situatiuon is difficult. Customers don't want the author to use AI artwork, but they will also be dismissive of his work when the artwork is sub-par, and refuse to buy the product.

So, my options are essentially:

• Use AI artwork and face the backlash of the community
• Take a loan and pay quality authors from it, I will never see that money back
• Spend a huge amount of energy trying to obtain volunteers who will do quality artwork for a fraction of a proper pay, out of friendship or pity
• Spend a huge amount of energy trying to find a rich sponsor (Tried. Didn't find one.)
• Go with really cheap artwork that will not be that good, and face the backlash and mockery and diminished sales.
• Try to combine artwork from public domain art and assets purchasable from photo banks. This will still require to pay some graphic designer who can combine it into something good looking, plus someone can still boycott it because he wouldn't appreciate the photobank assets even when they were legally purchased. Some anti-AI bot can still flag the picture as AI.

At this moment I am going with the last option. I will try to avoid AI. But you should know that it is exhausting that I have to deal with this issue instead of having more energy to write quality content. And I know writers from my social bubble that have given up this fight and use AI. Not because they are unethical stealing as*h*s but because they are desperate. They know that they don't have money to pay artists properly. If they are pushed too far, they will burn out and quit writing altogether.

So please, if you are against AI artwork (which is understandable), at least be benevolent towards low budget art in books from small publishers. Give the work a chance even if it doesn't look visually good. Don't consider artwork quality when you rate it in reviews.

I, as an author, will try to avoid AI, but I need to see some understanding and goodwill from the other side as well, or this is not sustainable.

 

[Umbran]

According to you, what are some acceptable uses of AI in the gaming industry? Check all that apply.

So, as usual, details matter.

"AI" is not one thing. It is lots of things. These days, the controversy is around "generative AI", which is a specific type of technology. The issue (that I have) with it isn't the tech itself, but the fact that the popularly available examples we have rest on a foundation of violation of copyright.

If you properly license and pay for your training data, I have no ethical issues with it's use. I might have artistic issues, but I think that's a different discussion.

 

[CleverNickName]

So, as usual, details matter.

"AI" is not one thing. It is lots of things. These days, the controversy is around "generative AI", which is a specific type of technology. The issue (that I have) with it isn't the tech itself, but the fact that the popularly available examples we have rest on a foundation of violation of copyright.

If you properly license and pay for your training data, I have no ethical issues with it's use. I might have artistic issues, but I think that's a different discussion.

You're not wrong. (And I whole-heartedly agree with you on the copyright issue. It's one of my biggest complaints about generative AI.) That's why I started this thread with:

I want to talk about the ethical, productive, and profitable ways that AI can be used in the gaming industry, if any. I believe that there is a theoretical "line in the sand" that AI cannot cross: some things are acceptable, others are not, and I'd like to find out where my peers would draw that line.

I'm hardly an expert on AI, but I understand that it's not just an ethics conversation: there are other concerns as well (like consumer expectation, productivity, and cost, which @Sparkle_cz mentioned in their excellent post above.) I'm interested in hearing all of those discussions, because this affects the industry in many ways.