WotC Would you buy WotC products produced or enhanced with AI?

[Lanefan]

Also "Do an imagination!" really highlights how you don't understand what the word means, and why you think it can be replicated.

Look, you don’t believe that imagination exists. I get it. It makes me sad, as I know you’re not alone. And I fear that this is why human creativity is in danger right now—because people won’t recognise what they’ve lost until they’ve lost it.

I hope that my viewpoint wins out in the long run. Knowing what I know about the reality of commerce, I’m sure that yours will. And that will be a sad day for humanity.

But there's no room for a meaningful discussion here if you don't fundamentally believe in the concept of imagination. It's like trying to discuss sandwiches with somebody who doesn't believe in bread. It's pointless.

Not the person to whom you posted this, but:

I believe that imagination exists. I use mine all the time. Gotta say I'd be a pretty poor RPG-er if I didn't.

I also believe the day is coming - and much sooner than some would like - when computers will be able to replicate imagination closely enough to be able to create to very near the same degree as can actual humans.

This doesn't by any means suggest human creativity will be lost. My ability to imagine and create isn't going anywhere, and nor is anyone else's. But we will have new and better tools to help us make our creative ideas real and then expand on those ideas.

 

[CleverNickName]

Well I just downloaded a Chrome extension that annoying "AI Overview" from Google searches, and removes AI-generated images from my image search results.

So no, I won't spend money on a product that uses "AI" generated anything. I don't even want the free stuff.

 

[Lanefan]

Not ageism. I think it is reasonable to guess that many of the people who have been playing 100% human made D&D for 30+ years would be resistant to having AI make it instead.

As a member of that demographic I'd love to see AI try its hand at making D&D adventures or settings or art or maps.

Then, just like I've done for the past 40+ years with human-generated stuff, I'll decide what if any of it is in my view any good. If none of it is then so be it, the humans win. But if some of it is any good, then why wouldn't I adopt and use it for my game?

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I know people are running with the subject matter, but the only thing I want to know here is people will pay their own money on a WotC product similar to what they make now, only with “AI” generated content.

This is an important distinction to be made. Lots of people expressed concern that AI work would be unimaginative and inferior in quality to a human-made product, and answered based on that. Saying that the product would be similar to what it is now means that the quality argument can be discarded from this conversation. Which is entirely logical: if the question is "would you pay money for a bad product', I'd expect the poll to be 100% no, irrespective of the production method.

My answer would still be no, as I think the point of AI is that I'd be running an AI at home and just tell it "please write me a quick frame from an adventure I'd like to run" or paying an AI service online, rather than paying WotC to basically do the same thing and ask a generative AI for me. My vote firmly in the "no" side to the question on buying WotC AI product is clearly unrelated to my opinion on whether AI is bad in general.

 

[Nicholas Reed]

Honestly yes. "Generative" AI is here to stay forever, and the time to debate its existence was before it's birth. But it's here now, and being used already in pretty much every entertainment field, whether it's disclosed to the public or not. To try and police that will drive a person insane. I just hope it is used ethically by most and accept the machine spirit is here to stay.

 

[Horwath]

I think that 3rd party publishers, especially the smaller one will use AI art first.
They run on really low budget and having AI means that if you are doing house rules or some homebrew for DMs guild, you can do it all yourself if you are tech savvy for editing and clearing AI nonsense in artwork.

AI still need lots of clearing up and selection from many images to find what you have imagined when your wrote in that prompt for generation. And lots of frustration and yelling at the screen "how can AI be this dumb!?"...


and OFC, art is very subjective, personally, I think that new PHB art is horrible and would be better if complete PHB art was made with AI(maybe with edited out 6 fingers and 4 legs and similar AI stupidity)

 

[BookTenTiger]

Well I just downloaded a Chrome extension that annoying "AI Overview" from Google searches, and removes AI-generated images from my image search results.

So no, I won't spend money on a product that uses "AI" generated anything. I don't even want the free stuff.

Which are you using?

 

[Bae'zel]

I’d rather have AI as a tool for research and looking up terms.

Like: “hey can I get a detailed, consolidated description of the city of Waterdeep from all of D&D’s published material so far”?

Or “please give me a invitation letter from Strahd, with details x y and z, written in fancy cursive “

Stuff like that.

 

[Sulicius]

Thank you all for engaging with this subject! I can see we're getting into the weeds of personal preference, ethics and what AI means or societal adaptation to new technology. I don't think we can figure those out on our own.

The reason I made this poll is because I feel strongly that I prefer buying TTRPG books, or any art, that doesn't use what we know often refer to as AI. My worry is that with all of Chris Cocks's enthusiasm for AI, we might see it used in the supplements I tend to buy from WotC.

Now, if they make a tool that works like a LLM for supporting DM's, using their own content, I might use it. After all, I use ChatGPT now to make sense of Planescape's 2e material. Sometimes I use MidJourney to generate art for my sessions, but I have really struggled with it. Often it takes way too much time to make something that I want, and it is easier to find a piece of art on the internet. Especially women who don't look like supermodels has been an issue.

I am curious if WotC would change the way they make their books by using AI to generate art or writing. My gut feeling used to be that they might, since they might be able to make more stuff in less time with less costs. Looking at the answers in this poll, I feel confident to say that there would be a significant amount of consumers who they would lose out on.

This poll is obviously not representative of the entire consumerbase. We all know that, and I won't argue that fact. It is, however, better than nothing. I realize I should have been more specific. The question should make it clear this isn't about a DM Tool or an in-house LLM, but the same products we buy now. Funny that I had to add the option "I do not buy WotC products regardless", just to filter out the people who this question isn't for. They sure jump on every chance they get to let you know their convictions .

So using the unproven, unreliable data I have here, what could we try to conclude?

If I count everyone who said "yes, but..." as yes? Then ~30% of the people who filled in this poll could still buy WotC products if they started using AI in their final products. That's a pretty significant amount, but also tiny. If you are a company, and you know that making your products a certain way would lose out on 70% of its market? That's insanity. You'd have to be sure the product is very cheap to make. Worse yet, because this still seems to be a very ethical decision, maybe more people stop buying any of your products in the future!

Most interesting to me is the ~17% of people who said probably not. If WotC was able to convince these people to buy the product in some way, that makes 47% of their market who would still buy from them. That's getting close to 50%. IF WotC is a miracle worker and IF people are lenient somehow, they might still have a significant amount of their customer base who will still buy those products.

So why do I want these numbers? I believe that WotC is looking at AI to be a miracle worker. Cut their workforce in half, increase capacity, whatever. If they go through all that but lose their market, then why bother? This is, of course, believing that WotC will be honest about when they use AI in creating their products. For all we know Dragon Delves was 75% generated by an LLM.

My hope is the people's wish to buy products for humans made by humans will discourage WotC from going the AI path.

I can't predict how things will go, and at least I have art and TTRPG's made by humans to last me a lifetime.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I’d rather have AI as a tool for research and looking up terms.

Like: “hey can I get a detailed, consolidated description of the city of Waterdeep from all of D&D’s published material so far”?

Currently the issue is that the AI might insert facts from someone's Lady Silvehand/Elminster fan fiction to it, and then just hallucinate some other details.