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.

 

[dragoner]

They will probably force a take down, I read an article of mastodon where they were advising publishers to not use AI images until the cases are settled. Those who own a lot of copyrights, such as WOTC, or Disney, will be able to enforce their copyrights, nothing is going to overturn 200+ years of law. The court will see "trained on" as copying, as that is the simplest way to satisfy the litigants, and enforce their rights. AI will remain as a tool, though mostly for the big companies, or artists with a large enough portfolio to train it on their own stuff, because rest assured, the AI generator companies are making art checkers too.

This is going to turn into a feeding frenzy for lawyers. Here is an article from today where they admit to copying: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/08/ai-tools-chatgpt-copyrighted-material-openai

 

[Parmandur]

Wizards ha srrleased a slightly more full statement of intent:

"Wizards of the Coast
Thanks to our diligent community who pointed out a series of recent marketing images may have included elements of generative AI, we are rethinking our process of how we work with vendors for our marketing creative."

"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. What’s now apparent is that we need to update the way we work with vendors on creative beyond our products—like marketing images we use on social media—to make sure that we’re supporting the amazing human ingenuity that is so important to Magic. Along with so many others, we also want to get better at understanding whether and how AI is used in the creative process. We believe everyone benefits from more transparency and better disclosure. We can’t promise to be perfect in such a fast-evolving space, especially with generative AI becoming standard in tools such as Photoshop, but our aim is to always come down on the side of human made art and artists."

An Update on Generative AI Tools and Magic

Thanks to our diligent community, we are rethinking our process of how we work with vendors for our marketing creative.

magic.wizards.com

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

When i coped what you typed it pointed out the following tip:
Tip: In long prompts, words toward the end of the prompt will have diminished effect.

First, I must say that I ma pleasantly surprised with the result images your provided ! It looks quite like the original in feeling, except the magic images would need to be inpainted. With regard to the order of the description, you're right. I didn't write the description specifically to look like a prompt but to be a description a human would do, not trying specfically to help AI. I think AI training is less dependant on the order than inferencing, but if it's the case then a captionning AI should be even more useful as it could weigh where to mention each element for maximum training impact.

 

[Mercador]

Mod Note:
Folks,
This thread is about WotC and an image. Not UBI. Please keep it on topic. Thanks.

Sorry, I disgress, my bad.

Trying to amend myself with that PA:

Terminarter - Penny Arcade

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

www.penny-arcade.com

 

[trappedslider]

First, I must say that I ma pleasantly surprised with the result images your provided ! It looks quite like the original in feeling, except the magic images would need to be inpainted. With regard to the order of the description, you're right. I didn't write the description specifically to look like a prompt but to be a description a human would do, not trying specfically to help AI. I think AI training is less dependant on the order than inferencing, but if it's the case then a captionning AI should be even more useful as it could weigh where to mention each element for maximum training impact.

you can use () or [] to give words weight for prompts the more you put around a word the more weight it has in the prompt

 

[Scribe]

Sorry, I disgress, my bad.

Trying to amend myself with that PA:

Terminarter - Penny Arcade

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

www.penny-arcade.com

No matter what it is, no matter how rude, egregious, or illegal, there is always going to be some creature crouched at the periphery ready to materialize downthread to prostrate themselves before arbitrary corporate dominion.

Yeah, that checks out.

 

[Dire Bare]

Paizo was rightfully called out when the unionization happened. It's just that Hasbro WotC is now beyond the point of giving them the benefit of the doubt. Companies like them can't leave this hobby soon enough.

It is right to "call out" WotC when they make worker or consumer unfriendly decisions. Like sending the Pinkertons after a fan who unwittingly purchased a Magic set before release date, or trying to rescind the OGL.

This is not one of those situations.

All of WotC's troubles with AI art has been with their contracted artists and vendors. They have not been deliberately making the choice to use AI generated or enhanced art.

Does WotC need to improve their processes and policies to try and avoid these snafus? Yes. And they are.

 

[Parmandur]

It is right to "call out" WotC when they make worker or consumer unfriendly decisions. Like sending the Pinkertons after a fan who unwittingly purchased a Magic set before release date, or trying to rescind the OGL.

This is not one of those situations.

All of WotC's troubles with AI art has been with their contracted artists and vendors. They have not been deliberately making the choice to use AI generated or enhanced art.

Does WotC need to improve their processes and policies to try and avoid these snafus? Yes. And they are.

There have been four art scandals on the social media's about WotC this past year: two were outside contractors that used AI and lied to WotC about doing so, one was an outside contractor that committed plagiarism intentionally and lied to WotC about it, and one was an artist who did nothing wrong but had to provide receipts for work done because of a random public outcry.

None of those were WotC fault, exactly, but it does seem they need to ask for more proof of work from their contractors moving forwards.

 

[briggart]

No, it's the same technology behind it. It exists right now, called inpainting, and it's uses the same models and such. It is the same technology.

"Inpainting" is a general term, there are several different ways of doing it, many of which do not require AI.

 

[pukunui]

This is why I dumped Adobe suite for GIMP more than a year ago (i think its been almost two years now). Its free, and there is no chance of accidentally incorporating ai tools into your work.

I use Photoshop both for work and for personal use, and currently there's no way to accidentally incorporate AI into my work. I have to consciously choose to use the AI tools. If WotC is getting images with AI bits in them, it's because the artists chose to put them there.