How Does AI Affect Your Online Shopping?

[cbwjm]

Yes, it's very easy to use AI poorly. But, it's also possible to use it for RPGs in a useful and productive manner. Last week I was putting some finishing touches on a module I've been writing and asked Gemini what it could do to help me proof and edit it. It came back with a multi-step process using multiple Google AI tools with specific steps, prompts and things to look out for.

It included some simple grammar errors like it's vs its my editor missed. But it also caught (correctly) a misnamed NPC. i.e. one of the intro NPCs who gives the party a job is named Mr. Johnson, but it cited a paragraph and sentence much later in the story where I referred to the NPC as Mr. Smith.

When prompted to check for structure etc, it came up with a suggestion that one of the plot/location points in my adventure only had one clue leading to it and the party might miss that clue. It was right, I had meant that the path between points 10 and 11 where self-evident and effectively the same, but that wasn't clear in my adventure.

We all have seen adventures from the big publishers miss things like that. Yet in this specific case it made some trivial (but good) suggestions and even what I consider a fairly significant one.

And if I keep that plot improvement, do I list on DriveThru that I used AI to help? I probably should right, but then some segment of the market is closed to me even though I suspect many of those people who would just have AI content filtered out automatically would place me in the same group as those that the entire adventure is written by AI with just cut and paste into a document. Or, do I remove that fix from my module, and publish it with a known error, all becaue AI informed me of the flaw?

Assuming you just used that AI as an editor, I really don't think that counts as using AI for content. It's letting you know that you had an incorrect name, some minor grammatical errors, and only a single clue that might be missed leading to you, presumably, filling in the blanks. If that's all you used it for, then you aren't using AI to generate content. If you asked the AI to add in some clues, then I'd think you should disclose it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It's letting you know that you had an incorrect name, some minor grammatical errors, and only a single clue that might be missed leading to you, presumably, filling in the blanks.

Sorry if I’m being dense, but this mostly sounds like what decent word processors have been doing for ages without AI (at least, as the current discussion goes).

If so, isn’t using AI- and all the resources it requires- for this purpose kind of like hunting mosquitoes with B2 bombers?*



* narrowly avoided mentioning B-52’s.

 

[cbwjm]

Sorry if I’m being dense, but this mostly sounds like what decent word processors have been doing for ages without AI (at least, as the current discussion goes).

If so, isn’t using AI- and all the resources it requires- for this purpose kind of like hunting mosquitoes with B2 bombers?*



* narrowly avoided mentioning B-52’s.

A decent word processor should be able to pick up on grammatical mistakes, though I've found some are better than others.

I wouldn't have thought that a word processor would be able to pick up that the author called Mr Johnson Mr Smith at one point in the writing or be able to say that you only provided a single clue to an area.

 

[mamba]

Intangible assets such as content are only as valuable as society's intellectual property laws allow them to be. If intellectual property laws declare the creator of an AI-generated product isn't due any financial compensation if someone else distributes content they created for free, then the content in question has no inherent monetary value.

that would maybe be true if 1) the entire product were AI generated rather than, say, the pictures but not the text and 2) a free copy were easily available. So chances are this care rarely comes up

 

[GrimCo]

In this case, AI didn't really generate anything. It just did job content editor and proofreader usually do. For small indie teams or one-man-band game dev/writers, this is big money save. Hiring professional to do that job could cost 100-200 e easy (depending on size of text, is cost per word or per hour etc).

Now, when it comes to generating content, it can also help and speed up process. If you are artist and have nice thick portofolio, you can run Stable Diffusion locally, use your own art for light training, and generate new content in your own style. Is it AI generated? Sure. But it's derived on your own work.

I do something similar in my work, with local AI, but for engineering calculations and cad. I do mechanical engineering design in construction, mostly HVAC (family 1-2 story houses, small 6-10 apartment buildings). Most of the projects are pretty similar, with variations mostly being size of buildings. I used my own old projects as a live reference library and rule extractor. AI does most of legwork. For pretty standardized buildings/houses, using AI tools, it brings my workload from 3-3.5 work days to 1-1.5 work day.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A decent word processor should be able to pick up on grammatical mistakes, though I've found some are better than others.

Yes.

I wouldn't have thought that a word processor would be able to pick up that the author called Mr Johnson Mr Smith at one point in the writing or be able to say that you only provided a single clue to an area.

Hence the “mostly”.

FWIW, I’m a damn good proofreader & editor, tried by fire. But when it matters, I always try to find a second set of eyes to look at MY stuff.