D&D General Would you buy an AI-generated Castle Greyhawk "by" Gary Gygax?" Should you?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Currently, wholly unedited AI generated written works tends towards garbage. However, give the project to a Castle Greyhawk aficionado like Grodog to oversee along with professional editors, include a properly trained AI and query engineering, and an AI assisted CG could be just fine, if not great.

In that case, why not just have him do it to begin with? Surely he can conjure up High Gygaxian as needed, as well as Gygax-based rooms and levels.

I think the appeal for businesses is to have as few humans -- who are expensive, slow and complain about things like being made to work all night on a holiday weekend -- involved in the process as possible. Other than the humans collecting the checks, of course. You can't make anything without them.

 

[the Jester]

First of all- super interesting thread topic, thanks!

This is probably not doable for EGG's work in 2024. (Although, how many podcast episodes did it take to recreate Esther Perel?) But I wouldn't bet against it being doable in 2025 or 2026.

So, would you buy such a work? Would you buy it if the proceeds went to his estate? Would you buy it if the proceeds went to just the people publishing it?

My desire for a published Castle Greyhawk is HUGE. I have never been more disappointed by a D&D product than by the 1e mockery module, and I have Sword and Fist, the 2e DMG, and several of the worst 4e books. So I don't know. I am opposed to the idea on principle, but would I be able to resist the sweet sweet lure of something that might be a decent interpretation of CG? I honestly don't know. I suppose the better the reviews and the more Gygaxian the product was, the more tempted I would be.

I really don't think it would matter, in the end, who got the money, as I would be acting against my own principles in buying it anyway.

I guess if an interview with Gygax came up where he had endorsed something like this idea, I might find it more palatable.

And what other works along these lines would you buy, once the technology was good enough that the quality was on par with a human author's below-average day? Would you buy The Winds of Winter by an AI-generated George R. R. Martin? Would you buy new Lord of the Rings works by an AI-generated Tolkien?

I think I'd be even less inclined to buy something that was imitating a living author. I might be interested in reading some AI novel or something, but not one that was aping a specific author; but I don't know that I would ever want to buy such a thing.

Once we have AI that isn't trained on the work of others, everything in my attitude will likely change.

 

[the Jester]

“Training AI on copyrighted works isn’t actually illegal. If the real Martin had wanted to block access to the fake one — a replica trained on his own thinking, using his own words, to produce all-new answers — it’s not clear he could have done anything about it.”

It absolutely should be illegal

There should be required opt-in for an AI to train on a person's material. If, for instance, Blake Crouch were to endorse AIs using his novels to train, I wouldn't mind that.

 

[the Jester]

You can’t keep moving the goalposts. You mentioned Gary Gygax and Greyhawk, not a music group with living members. I, and many others, have given you our responses. I don’t think many people are interested in arguing with you about this, or even discussing.

I mean... we're at 9 pages already.

 

[the Jester]

I do this.

1) There's zero chance the tech giants aren't keeping records of this, even if it was just some programmer being cute.

2) I've seen the Terminator movies and Black Mirror. The day will come when the machines will care about who has said "please" and "thank you" to them.

Are you familiar with Roko's basilisk?

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Currently, wholly unedited AI generated written works tends towards garbage. However, give the project to a Castle Greyhawk aficionado like Grodog to oversee along with professional editors, include a properly trained AI and query engineering, and an AI assisted CG could be just fine, if not great.

But basically that isn't AI-written, that's "Grodog" written.

 

[Lidgar]

But basically that isn't AI-written, that's "Grodog" written.

It’s AI assisted writing.

My company produces many written technical documents. And we would never send a document out that was wholly AI written with no oversight or technical review. It would be irresponsible and the quality would be questionable. Same in this case, I would not trust the quality of a product that was produced by AI with no oversight.

 

[Clint_L]

I think the appeal for businesses is to have as few humans -- who are expensive, slow and complain about things like being made to work all night on a holiday weekend -- involved in the process as possible. Other than the humans collecting the checks, of course. You can't make anything without them.

I think that is definitely a strong appeal for businesses. I am more interested in the appeal for artists and creatives. Every new technology has been immediately appropriated by people who immediately start using it in ways that were never intended, and thereby pushing the boundaries of creativity.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Are you familiar with Roko's basilisk?

Not before now, but it certainly would explain the last decade.

 

[Clint_L]

What we need to be asking is not, "is AI art good or bad quality?" since that is both subjective and rapidly changing. Nor is it worth arguing about whether or not it is going to happen or should happen. It has happened and isn't going to go away.

What we need to be exploring is what we can do with it to make our world better, and how we can ameliorate the harms that inevitably ensue with rapid change.