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

[Morrus]

Would you mind to elaborate?

I feel my statement was simple and clear enough.

 

[The Firebird]

Maybe you should.

Leaving the ethics (piracy) out of a discussion about LLM's aka "ai" is like discussing which deadly poisons taste the best.
Does it really matter how good they taste unless you (the general you, not you specifically) want to slip one in someone's pie, and if you do why shoud we be discussing it with someone that does?

These "ai" tools are based on bad faith and in many cases illegal methodology, ignoring that should end the discussion. The ends justify the means, and greater good arguments are a poor platform to debate topics like this.

This is for commercial products. I.e. the topic of this thread, what you do at your table is between you and your group.

Folks...I have made dozens of posts about ethics. You can read my ethical views in great detail if you want. If you have more questions about them, fire away.

The reason I split the ethical concern off was as I said:

there have been a lot of tangents about the quality of the material, with people who are opposed on ethical grounds also asserting that generative technologies are useless, provide no benefit or value, and so forth.

To state it another way: there are two separate questions here. 1) is generative AI ethical? and 2) does generative AI produce anything of value?

They're getting mixed.

The calculator example was targeted only at point (2). The map example I posted was meant specifically to isolate point (2). I don't think point (2) is getting a fair discussion.

I would be interested to hear thoughts that address point (2) in isolation. Certainly there have been many claims that it is false. But no one, iirc, has responded to counterarguments except by invoking (1).

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I would be interested to hear thoughts that address point (2) in isolation. Certainly there have been many claims that it is false. But no one, iirc, has responded to counterarguments except by invoking (1).

I'd say that demonstrating it provides value is quite easy: people are paying 20 USD monthly subscription to OpenAI. So unless each and everyone of them is irrational, they must find at least 20 USD's worth of value, for them, to keep their subscription. The nature of the value they derive from it is more difficult to determine -- that's true of every product being sold, is a litre of gas worth 1.5 €? -- but whether they find value in AI is self-evident.

Even with the free offerings, there are many people spending time to set up local AIs, so the value they find doing this obviously exceeds the value of their time doing other activities (or doing nothing).

 

[soviet]

I'd say that demonstrating it provides value is quite easy: people are paying 20 USD monthly subscription to OpenAI. So unless each and everyone of them is irrational, they must find at least 20 USD's worth of value, for them, to keep their subscription. The nature of the value they derive from it is more difficult to determine -- that's true of every product being sold, is a litre of gas worth 1.5 €? -- but whether they find value in AI is self-evident.

Even with the free offerings, there are many people spending time to set up local AIs, so the value they find doing this obviously exceeds the value of their time doing other activities.

People are perfectly rational, got it

 

[soviet]

To state it another way: there are two separate questions here. 1) is generative AI ethical? and 2) does generative AI produce anything of value?

If the answer to 1 is no then the answer to 2 doesn't matter

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

If the answer to 1 is no then the answer to 2 doesn't matter

Why? There many unethical things we collectively do (like directly or indirectly contributing to pollution) because we find more value in it than adhering strictly to our ethical code. I feel that the two questions are clearly separate. If anything, it's more the reverse : if there is no value in AI, then nobody would use it and the morality of it wouldn't really matter since you'd only have people occasionaly trying it and doing nothing significant with it, but even then the academic quuestion on ethics could still be explored.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

Folks...I have made dozens of posts about ethics. You can read my ethical views in great detail if you want. If you have more questions about them, fire away.

The reason I split the ethical concern off was as I said:

To state it another way: there are two separate questions here. 1) is generative AI ethical? and 2) does generative AI produce anything of value?

They're getting mixed.

The calculator example was targeted only at point (2). The map example I posted was meant specifically to isolate point (2). I don't think point (2) is getting a fair discussion.

I would be interested to hear thoughts that address point (2) in isolation. Certainly there have been many claims that it is false. But no one, iirc, has responded to counterarguments except by invoking (1).

Fair enough, but this ties back to the best tasting poison analogy, it is philosophical by nature and as such is more of an "eye of the beholder" discussion which comes down to what an individual can personally accept and self justify the theft vs any benefit gaind from it's use.

I.e. can generative "ai" be useful? It is both personal, and very case specific. Unless you care how it was trained, if you don't then I can see how one would embrace it. Though that speaks more about the individuals than the software.

Piracy by definition makes people's lives easier at it's basic reason for existence is taking advantage of another's hard work and or talents so you don't have to do the work to gain the benefits. So each of us has to balance that ledger on our own, for me it is a well that has been tainted since they started making the shovels to dig it.

 

[Faolyn]

There will be. In the form of lawsuits. There already is, and it will grow as the large entertainment companies feel their hold on IP is under threat. Wait until it's revealed that Star Wars has been scraped, and then watch the fireworks.

Going by what I saw on that link to see if your book was scraped, DC Comics definitely has been, and I imagine Marvel Comics also has been. (My dad's a writer, he writes comics, among other things, some of his comics were listed.) It's possible that Warner Bros. and Disney don't care that much about the comics side of things, since none of them are as big sellers as the movies are. Or maybe there's something going on behind the scenes we haven't heard about.

 

[The Firebird]

If the answer to 1 is no then the answer to 2 doesn't matter

Yes! So why is there so much insistence that (2) is false?

Fair enough, but this ties back to the best tasting poison analogy, it is philosophical by nature and as such is more of an "eye of the beholder" discussion which comes down to what an individual can personally accept and self justify the theft vs any benefit gaind from it's use.

I.e. can generative "ai" be useful? It is both personal, and very case specific. Unless you care how it was trained, if you don't then I can see how one would embrace it. Though that speaks more about the individuals than the software.

Piracy by definition makes people's lives easier at it's basic reason for existence is taking advantage of another's hard work and or talents so you don't have to do the work to gain the benefits. So each of us has to balance that ledger on our own, for me it is a well that has been tainted since they started making the shovels to dig it.

I don't think it is so much an eye of the beholder thing, because I know (and am one of) many people who are using it routinely and see benefits. It's staring me in the face.

As your statement about piracy says...wouldn't it be easy to say "yes geneative AI is useful, but it is useful in the same way piracy is...it is theft and therefore makes things easier for the user". That doesn't seem like a hard pill to swallow. It's intellectually consistent and ethically defensible.

But instead folks are circling the wagons around the "it's useless" idea.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

I don't think it is so much an eye of the beholder thing, because I know (and am one of) many people who are using it routinely and see benefits. It's staring me in the face.

As your statement about piracy says...wouldn't it be easy to say "yes geneative AI is useful, but it is useful in the same way piracy is...it is theft and therefore makes things easier for the user". That doesn't seem like a hard pill to swallow. It's intellectually consistent and ethically defensible.

But instead folks are circling the wagons around the "it's useless" idea.

I don't recall saying it is useless, if i did please show where and I will address it.

There are many many things that are useful that are illegal, immoral, and/or wrong in life most of which are inappropriate to discuss on a forum such as this for good reason. Generative "ai" is not in good company when it comes to having to ignore the bad to justify it being useful, I give you exhibits A: DDT, B: Asbestos, C: Leaded Fuel... need I go on? (I can).

The problem I have with generative "ai" is it causes harm to creators in much the same way, gonna show my age here lol, Napster did, and torrent sharing does only on a much larger and somewhat divorced scale. By that I mean since some obscure traing commands have filtered the stuff an end user wants and it was quick cheap and easy to get then they haven't harmed anyone, which is 100% false wheather it is for personal use, or especially when it comes to commercial use it harms the creators.

The fact that it is easy and beneficial is moo point, it like a cows opinion it doesn't matter! (to quote Joey from Friends), when it harms the creator/owner of the content.

Are their benefits, sure, but when is a shortcut really a shortcut in the grand scheme?

Stealing is wrong whether you can self justify it, divorce yourself from it, or just ignore it, or not, especially in the context of gaming.