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

[Scribe]

Fascinating. I don't see this. I guess the use of piracy is so routine, and so beneficial, in research environments that any qualms I had about it evaporated. It just doesn't register as something to be concerned with.

Sure. I just put myself in the shoes of someone who depends on that sale to put food on their kids plates.

 

[The Firebird]

Sure. I just put myself in the shoes of someone who depends on that sale to put food on their kids plates.

The alternative, in the vast majority of cases, is my not using the product. If it were a pdf of something I were using routinely, then I would feel obligated to buy a copy. But for incidental use?

 

[CleverNickName]

The alternative, in the vast majority of cases, is my not using the product. If it were a pdf of something I were using routinely, then I would feel obligated to buy a copy. But for incidental use?

...or any use at all?

I figure if you valued it enough to use it even incidentally, the creators should be paid for it. But I guess I'm old-fashioned that way.

 

[Faolyn]

I am firmly convinced that the ability for anyone to create, using AI, its own campaign book and distribute it for free (for the benefit of those who can't be bothered to ask an LLM to do so) will eventually lead the price to zero (or near zero, for those who'll want to support an innovative prompt), ending the problem of people profiting from it. There are people who sell AI books right now (and more power to them, because it's not forbidden) but I think it's a temporary thing, because their customers don't realize they can run an AI at home and get the same thing.

One could explain that the AI-book seller is selling his technical know-how for using AI at a currently higher price because the tech is quite new, much like one could certainly make a living by typing text in the past and stopped being able to sell this service as soon as every executive out there knew to type their memos themselves. The new generation (who is currently trying to pass AI work for their homework) will certainly scoff at buyers of AI novels.

No, this will not cause people to not charge for it. Lots of gaming material is already given away for free and that hasn't stopped other gaming material from being sold. Heck, the fact that the D&D SRD is legally free (and there's tons of legally free homebrew out there to support it) hasn't stopped the D&D books from being sold by the millions for $50 a pop. So you might want to rethink your position because it is factually wrong.

But from what I've been getting, you don't care if something is moral or ethical, only if it's legal or not. That's... not a good take.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

No, this will not cause people to not charge for it. Lots of gaming material is already given away for free and that hasn't stopped other gaming material from being sold. Heck, the fact that the D&D SRD is legally free (and there's tons of legally free homebrew out there to support it) hasn't stopped the D&D books from being sold by the millions for $50 a pop. So you might want to rethink your position because it is factually wrong.

I am pretty sure the buyers of the D&D books don't buy the SRD only. They're buying layout, non-SRD content, and maybe even art, or the comfort of having a printed item instead of an online document or (who knows) they actively want to support Hasbro for owning WotC and marginally the authors. If there are people who actually are buying the otherwise free SRD... it's sad, and probably they don't know about the SRD being otherwise available.

But from what I've been getting, you don't care if something is moral or ethical, only if it's legal or not. That's... not a good take.

Why? Do you think it would be better if I considered myself important enough to try and impose my personal ethical views on others and berate them for not adhering to my moral code?

 

[The Firebird]

...or any use at all?

I figure if you valued it enough to use it even incidentally, the creators should be paid for it. But I guess I'm old-fashioned that way.

One edge case here is, could I reasonably get the same benefit looking at the book on a shelf? Keeping that standard for physical books, but not digital, seems to generate so much unnecessary friction.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Aren't those trained on the same material.

I feel different about it when the model is released to the world instead of hidden in a tech bro company trying to scam investors.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

One edge case here is, could I reasonably get the same benefit looking at the book on a shelf? Keeping that standard for physical books, but not digital, seems to generate so much unnecessary friction.

One could make a case saying that reading the content before paying for it is copyright infringement, so just perusing the book would make you ethically wrong. I wouldn't.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I feel different about it when the model is released to the world instead of hidden in a tech bro company trying to scam investors.

Interestingly, we're reaching the (temporary) point where open-source models are strugging to compete with AI companies because most home users just don't have the necessary compute power (and notably, VRAM) to run the more powerful models. Would you mind a company that would release their model and yet offer the service of running it?

Also, not totally unrelated, would you mind a closed model run by a public agency, so no tech bro is profitting from it, only the People in general?

 

[mamba]

The text and datamining exception (in the EU at least, but other areas have adopted something similar) explicitly mentions AI and was designed to allow the development of AI. It's not a loophole, it's a conscious choice.

it’s lobbying by tech companies, that is how it got added