WotC: 'We made a mistake when we said an image not AI'

It seems like AI art is going to be a recurring news theme this year. While this is Magic: the Gathering news rather than D&D or TTRPG news, WotC and AI art has been a hot topic a few times recently.

When MtG community members observed that a promotional image looked like it was made with AI, WotC denied that was the case, saying in a now-deleted tweet "We understand confusion by fans given the style being different than card art, but we stand by our previous statement. This art was created by humans and not AI."

However, they have just reversed their position and admitted that the art was, indeed, made with the help of AI tools.

Well, we made a mistake earlier when we said that a marketing image we posted was not created using AI. Read on for more.

As you, our diligent community pointed out, it looks like some AI components that are now popping up in industry standard tools like Photoshop crept into our marketing creative, even if a human did the work to create the overall image.

While the art came from a vendor, it’s on us to make sure that we are living up to our promise to support the amazing human ingenuity that makes Magic great.

We already made clear that we require artists, writers, and creatives contributing to the Magic TCG to refrain from using AI generative tools to create final Magic products.

Now we’re evaluating how we work with vendors on creative beyond our products – like these marketing images – to make sure that we are living up to those values.

This comes shortly after a different controversy when a YouTube accused them (falsely in this case) of using AI on a D&D promotional image, after which WotC reiterated that "We require artists, writers, and creatives contributing to the D&D TTRPG to refrain from using AI generative tools to create final D&D products."

The AI art tool Midjourney is being sued in California right now by three Magic: The Gathering artists who determined that theirs and nearly 6,000 other artists' work had been scraped without permission. That case is ongoing.

Various tools and online platforms are now incorporating AI into their processes. AI options are appearing on stock art sites like Shutterstock, and creative design platforms like Canva are now offering AI. Moreover, tools within applications like Photoshop are starting to draw on AI, with the software intelligently filling spaces where objects are removed and so on. As time goes on, AI is going to creep into more and more of the creative processes used by artists, writers, and video-makers.

 

[trappedslider]

Just to illustrate what I meant by the state of open, fully public domain/ open licensed models,

I'd like to know what you mean by this because https://civitai.com/ 1000s of models some admittedly behind a paywall (I think)

 

[Maxperson]

As usually happens, the eyes, background faces, and hands.

Pretty sure faces, eyes and mouths don't look like this most times.

And this Edward Munch masterpiece has some odd hands.

So again, what is art?

To be clear, I don't like artists and writers losing work to AI, just like I didn't like auto workers losing jobs to automation and service workers losing jobs to ordering kiosks. Time marches on, though, and I don't see why artists and writers should get protections when the others did not.

Please note that I'm talking about losing jobs to AI, not copyright/trademark stuff.

 

[Maxperson]

Sub-par because in your examples, the text is literally illegible, eyes don't match, hands in the third pic are mutant hands, I could go on and on...

You're describing Picasso.

 

[Maxperson]

And, obviously, we can get cases of, "Um, no. Canonically this character has six fingers on one hand,

 

[Art Waring]

You're describing Picasso.

And Picasso was born in 1881, and helped evolved the state of art so that it could become what we understand to be "modern art."

Furthermore, Picasso made art during a period of time where there was no internet, and no computers. Comparing Picasso's work to the work of a modern 21st century digital artist is like comparing a model one Ford to a Tesla supercar. There is no equitable comparison, and it does no justice to the work of a prolific artist.

Picasso's output, especially in his early career, is often periodized. While the names of many of his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1904–1906), the African-influenced Period (1907–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919), also referred to as the Crystal period. Much of Picasso's work of the late 1910s and early 1920s is in a neoclassical style, and his work in the mid-1920s often has characteristics of Surrealism. His later work often combines elements of his earlier styles.

Exceptionally prolific throughout the course of his long life, Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments, and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art.

 

[Maxperson]

And Picasso was born in 1881, and helped evolved the state of art so that it could become what we understand to be "modern art."

Furthermore, Picasso made art during a period of time where there was no internet, and no computers. Comparing Picasso's work to the work of a modern 21st century digital artist is like comparing a model one Ford to a Tesla supercar. There is no equitable comparison, and it does no justice to the work of a prolific artist.

This misses the point entirely. Art is so subjective that virtually anything can be considered art, especially if the creator is creating it as art. Just because AI art is creating details in a way that isn't entirely realistic, doesn't take it out of the realm of art. Artists have been exaggerating details in an unrealistic manner for thousands of years.

You're going to need something different than, "Look at the messed up faces and messed up hands" to show that AI art isn't art, and I'm not sure what that might be.

 

[Art Waring]

This misses the point entirely. Art is so subjective that virtually anything can be considered art, especially if the creator is creating it as art. Just because AI art is creating details in a way that isn't entirely realistic, doesn't take it out of the realm of art. Artists have been exaggerating details in an unrealistic manner for thousands of years.

You're going to need something different than, "Look at the messed up faces and messed up hands" to show that AI art isn't art, and I'm not sure what that might be.

Dude, I have extensively covered how to both detect ai images and the risks involved in using them in previous posts. I was responding directly to a poster who posted ai art, and I gave a quick response as to that subject. I have already provided some pretty extensive explanations on the subject.

Furthermore, the anthropomorphization of ai completely obscures the real issues. Debating the nature of "art" does nothing to address the real life issues facing working artists right now.

At this point, no one really cares what I think, and I am tired of talking about it with people that refuse to see it from the perspective of a working artist.

If you really like ai-generated slop, by all means, you do you.

 

[Maxperson]

Dude, I have extensively covered how to both detect ai images and the risks involved in using them in previous posts. I was responding directly to a poster who posted ai art, and I gave a quick response as to that subject. I have already provided some pretty extensive explanations on the subject.

Furthermore, the anthropomorphization of ai completely obscures the real issues. Debating the nature of "art" does nothing to address the real life issues facing working artists right now.

At this point, no one really cares what I think, and I am tired of talking about it with people that refuse to see it from the perspective of a working artist.

If you really like ai-generated slop, by all means, you do you.

I don't particularly care for it yet, but that could change in the future.

I've also posted how I don't like when people lose their jobs to advancing technology. It happened to scribes when the printing press arrived. It happened to factory workers when automation arrived. It's happening to service worked as more and more kiosks and self check out stations arrive. And now it's AI with writers, artists and more. Unfortunately, I don't see time doing anything but marching on and leaving job loss in its wake, just like every other time this has happened.

 

[Art Waring]

I don't particularly care for it yet, but that could change in the future.

I've also posted how I don't like when people lose their jobs to advancing technology. It happened to scribes when the printing press arrived. It happened to factory workers when automation arrived. It's happening to service worked as more and more kiosks and self check out stations arrive. And now it's AI with writers, artists and more. Unfortunately, I don't see time doing anything but marching on and leaving job loss in its wake, just like every other time this has happened.

We are indeed living in strange times.

Automation is nothing new, but what IS new is the rate of acceleration. Previous automation would phase in, taking time to phase out workers that are being replaced, giving them time to adapt to the changes.

The current pace is already faster than any human can compete with. It takes me about 1-2 years to finish a small-ish project, & several more for a major project like my current one. Ai could potentially make the same amount of material in seconds. Think about that for a second.

It doesn't matter how hard or fast humans work, ai will always outpace human productivity. Ai doesn't sleep, doesn't eat, and doesn't have to take time off to take care of children or the elderly, they simply exist to create more "things" for us.

Not to mention, the amount of "fakes" being released posing as the actual authors, but are in fact ai-generated, will eventually outpace our ability to sift through the detritus that will be the future of content creation (if ai keeps on its current path).

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I'd like to know what you mean by this because https://civitai.com/ 1000s of models some admittedly behind a paywall (I think)

I meant, trained on public domain or create common license allowing training, thus avoiding any suspicion of copyright infringement, or the hyperbolic term of theft. Civitai has many open source models, but there is no guarantee they weren't trained on data scraped over the Internet.

We might be finally reaching an optimal point:
1. Ethical models are starting to get common enough and powerful enough to allow SOTA generation.
2. The quality of the result is deemed unfit for professional use by real artists, so they are not risking yet to lose their job since the quality of their art is superior to the defective AI art that can't reliably maintain consistency, and have residual problems with hands and face, and vanishing point.

So, the main negatives are avoided, while

3. Casual person who is happy with "good enough" images for casual use gets increased access to art (character sheet, illustrating your campaign journal, creating props, colouring old photos, restoring an image of your passed-away grandma...)

So they get a net positive for society, with happiness of some increased without decreasing it for anyone.

It might change once AI art becomes equal in level or superior to human-made art, but we're not there yet. If and when we are, jobs being replaced by AI will be a thing that will need to receive the appropriate treatment from the P-word realm.