AI/LLMs AI art bans are going to ruin small 3rd party creators

[doctorbadwolf]

Hi, I am a human who has yet to make a single dollar off of my game material, who paid a real human artist to have some art commissioned, and who has purchased a bunch of stock art that I am filling a book I'm writing with.

You do not need AI. The people you know do not need AI. They need to invest in their products, or...learn to draw.

Yeah i would rather keep working my 40 hour a week county job until i retire and never sell a copy of my life's work than put generative ai slop in it.

 

[Kannik]

I've been in the hobby for 35+ years. I both given away and sold fan-made supplements though magazine classified ads, usenet forums, personal website, and online marketplaces such as DTRPG and DMsguild. For 95% of that time, gen AI wasn't a thing, and so my works are light on imagery and what I used were public domain (graphic layout was all me, though). Never did I feel that was an issue or that I was losing out because of it. And though I've used gen AI for personal fun, I don't feel a need to pump my stuff full of illustration to have them perform any better.

I don't think limiting Gen AI output is going to hinder me as a small 3rd party creator. Nor do I think it will harm the greater community, as a) you can always put your stuff out there one way or another and b) there will be sites that will sell things with AI in them (if they don't already exist they will be created). If people want it, they will go there to purchase.

(And to get a bit philosophical-music here from my own experience, lack of AI gen also hasn't hampered people in the past from putting out their insufficiently developed or polished material. The D20 glutcrash was a point in our RPG community. Adding AI gen wouldn't help in this way either, and I would argue could lead to a second AI glutcrash that hurts serious and invested small 3rd party creators.)

 

[Bill Zebub]

So, I have a background in software development and more than a minor in psychology. I don't think the fact that our LLM tech isn't a real AGI is primarily a tech limitation.

That's one of the funnier appeals to authority I've seen.

I mean, I happen to agree with the conclusion, but my graduate degree in human development and and learning, and then a career in software, don't really make me an expert, either.

 

[SteveC]

It's been my experience that many restrictions that are meant to he helpful really help only established companies with deep pockets, rather than those it is meant to help. That's why large companies don't object to a lot of things that they know they can absorb, but will destroy their smaller competition.

I speak with a lot of small (typically one-person) game designers, and they are facing the problem that the cost of art is prohibitively high, and yet products without art sell far less, to the point that you wouldn't bother if you're actually looking for any sort of return. Or, as in these people's cases, if you're looking to break even so you can make more stuff.

In the case of Foundry, the Foundy shop has been a great resource for people looking to make some really incredible projects. I suspect that many of them will go back to entirely using things like Patreon and having the users update via something like Github, and entirely bypass the store and even the internal module locator.

And that will make it harder for people to find products they're looking for. And it will stifle the development of the software. Many people don't realize it, but a ton of the content people use in Foundry started with a one-person passion project.

I also know how decisions like this come about. In my RPG world outside of ENWorld, I discuss on a board where AI discussion is allowed. There are frequent flame wars over someone's posting where they used an "em dash", which AI likes to put into documents. And as someone who knows the difference between an em and an en dash, I use both. But a lot of people are scared off from even discussing ideas, or heaven help them if they share something!

I work in a job that will likely be gutted by AI in the next 10-15 years, but I believe I will be able to work that job until I'm ready to retire. I have Data Scientists who have lost their jobs. I say that because, even though I'm not pro-AI, the fact that I can discuss it, and understand why it's useful for small shops, makes me out to be a shill for it.

So a ton of people will be happy for this, but I also suspect they don't interact with small designers who are going to not create products they'd like to see.

Edited to add: now that I'm reading through the thread further, it is about what I expect. I'd just ask you to consider how negative the reaction to AI is, and how it has been consistently bad for the last two years. And yet, it is marching forward. I have a friend who wrote news for several small towns in a region. He is now out of a job, and the "paper" he worked for writes from AI from that region. And it is, as you might expect, garbage. But that didn't stop it from happening. He switched into the tech field and, like me, has found a niche where he's likely to be able to ride things ouy.

Much like everything else, AI is a tool. And it can be a tool that helps small publishers just as it can large ones. In the end, the large publishers will still be here, and likely fully using AI in two years. The little guy? Gone.

 

[VHawkwinter]

That's one of the funnier appeals to authority I've seen.

You can take it how you want, I guess. It was a basic statement that I have a sense of what I am talking about. It's not an appeal to authority if you're willing to back up the statement with an explanation. It is, however, a shorthand that is useful for context. Is this one of those things where a certain type of person cannot tell the difference between context and excuses?

but my graduate degree in human development and and learning, and then a career in software, don't really make me an expert, either.

And yet it is still entirely relevant. It gives you a foundation through which you can understand research and scientific articles you read. Someone who has no understanding of software, neural networks, LLMs, or psychology - could not make sense of various research papers or explanations of architectures. That context matters even if it doesn't make you "an expert". Especially if you're not providing an essay with a dozen citations, but just a brief summary overview on a web forum.

You're wrong to flippantly dismiss relevant context as one of "the funnier appeals to authority you've seen".

I mean, I happen to agree with the conclusion

Conclusions based on logic and evidence are good like that. Other people can independently come to the same ones based on logical deduction and the same or similar evidence. So long as they have a foundation from which to understand the evidence.

A GP who makes an effort to keep up with medical developments will also have a better understanding of cutting edge cancer treatments than some random elementary school English teacher, even though that GP is not an expert in cancer research. It's relevant to know theyre not a random grade 5 English teacher. I don't see how you think that context is irrelevant.

 

[Umbran]

This "humans and machines aren't the same" argument is how we eventually get killed by our robot overlords. There will be a day when we will have have forum arguments about whether or not some human created thing is alive.

Perhaps. Eventually, Star Trek's "Measure of a Man," may play out. But today is not that day.

And, that day has been "ten years from now" for decades, and is likely to remain "ten years from now" until well after I'm dead and gone.

I don't think there is something fundamental to humanity that means we will always and forever be the only spark of creativity.

I'm being a bit more general than "the spark of creativity", but whatever.

In my personal opinion Andy Warhols soup cans already have shown that stolen and reworked visuals can be considered proper art.

So, here's the basic difference:

When Andy Warhol played around with commercial imagery in his pop-art, he had a point. There was a reason why he did it, things he wanted to communicate and to have people think about.

The generative AI does not have a point to make when it reworks a visual. It has no intent of its own.

 

[Scribe]

And yet, it is marching forward.

So do you want to be the guy accelerating it, or pushing against it?

Do you want to hasten people losing their jobs, or commission some art and help your fellow man?

 

[SteveC]

So do you want to be the guy accelerating it, or pushing against it?

Do you want to hasten people losing their jobs, or commission some art and help your fellow man?

I'll just be direct: it doesn't matter what I want.

And what I have done is help artists who want to get started in the gaming industry get commissions. And help people who are just getting started writing for RPGs use the tools they need to express themselves.

And help my friends who have literally lost their jobs to get new ones. So I'm doing the work. I'm helping out people wherever I can, just as I've always done.

I have also helped a non-English speaker who was interested in RPGs after they were shouted down for AI posts when they had minimal English skills, so they used a translation app.

And I've helped Autistic students express themselves by responding to story prompts with AI. I've seen their creativity bloom because of it.

And I had a discussion with a brand new designer who used AI to write a summary of their game and ended up getting shouted at about it. I had to calm them down via Discord.

So yes, I think I am doing my part to help people in the AI world.

I'd ask people who are really upset about AI, what are you going to do beyond call for it to be banned?

 

[Kichwas]

There are people using AI workflows more sophisticatedly that that, combining it with sketches and posed models and Poseable stick figures and photos and character reference sheets and then a prompts, and then refining the image that was made. Those people are approaching an actual art workflow. Look up "ComfyUI" on YouTube. (I bet that's the sort of thing Hasbro is using these days). It's not 2021 when people are just typing prompts into a box and hoping for the best.

But people REALLY hate AI images. Even if you can make actual AI art with human intent now, it's still basically radioactive. I would not recommend it for anything you hope to sell.

That's me. A single image I make with Comfy UI / Gimp and other tools is a process of back and forth between prompts, hand drawing, references, and more.

What people think AI Art is and what it actually is are very different.

Anyone who is using a copy of Photoshop that is less than 10 years old is making AI Art.

It's baked into even the select tools there. I happen to use Gimp instead because I don't like subscribing to my applications. My last Photoshop upgrade was right before it went to a subscription. I don't know if Gimp has AI baked in - given the costs and difference in results most likely it does not. But it's hard to say.

That said, the concern about theft is not imagined.
Look at all the 'Gibli art' chatGPT does.

And for a very real example relating to an artist that is now a tRPG artist - the guy who does the art for the upcoming 'Pumpkin Spice' RPG. Goes by the handle Simz. He did a rather long stream with the Pumpkin Spice team recently talking about his human made art right before that backerkick finished. It was one of the things that got me to back it.

Well, the same place I get some of my tools for making figure references, upscaling, and so on - has multiple training LorAs of his work. The quality looks a little out of date though - that 2023 era stuff with the wrong number of fingers and such.

Some real artists who have more fluid styles, like Simz does, have been hounded out of work by people insisting their work is AI - even if they've been around, like Simz, since before the AI art era.
- It's going to be even worse if they were first actually copied, and people use those copies as an excuse to go after the real artist.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

As a small publisher who does not us generative AI, let me assure you that I'm doing fine.

Anecdotally, I think AI makes things worse for small publishers. I noticed recently that my Kickstarter campaigns weren't doing as well as in the past and at the same time as customer on Kickstarter noticed I was being inundated with AI slop.

For my latest campaign I switched to Backer Kit, which has stricter regulations on AI, and the campaign did much better. Could there be other factors? Of course, but I think the rise of AI slop is a problem for people who make TTRPGs the old fashion way (and for customers). And it's really not that tough to break even if you do it right.

AI bans are bad for AI slop farms, but I'm not going to cry about that.