D&D General Plagiarised D&D art

[Hussar]

And nothing of value would be lost.

Really? I’m headed back home to Japan in a few hours. I’m rather glad I know that there was a major accident at the airport I’m going to. The fact that I also knew that my family was unharmed by the massive earthquakes this past week in Japan was a pretty big relief.

But sure, we’re all better off not knowing what’s happening in other countries far away. What good could it possibly do to be informed of events?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Assuming you have the right number of words and the average word is 5 characters (inlcuding space or punctuation after it), it would be accomplished completely randomly once in approximately 30^3000000 tries without replacement.

Counting punctuation, there are far more than 30 characters (space, comma, period, semicolon, colon, double and single quotation marks, parentheses, question, exclamation, em dash, hyphen, potentially ampersand), and that's assuming we neglect capitalization. 26+17=43. If we're counting spaces and punctuation as part of word length, the average word is not only 5 characters long. In ordinary, non-novelized English, the average word is 4.7 letters long; I think we can safely bump that up to 6 characters, given many words will have more than one punctuation mark after them (e.g. period quotation mark space.)

43^(587287×6) is a number so mind-bogglingly huge, I can't properly represent it here in this text. It has over five million digits. Even if these hypothetical monkeys hammered out a new text every nanosecond since the Universe began, they would still need to re-attempt it a number of times with more than a million digits in it. Even if we allow for more than 10% of all characters to be wrong!

Random chance is too random, and AI only work by narrowing the field of random chance...through observing stuff that must, ultimately, be rooted in real data if it's going to be art. You can't fake art; folks know pretty quickly what faked art looks like, and if you could fake good art... you'd just use the fake-but-good art maker rather than training another art maker!

In a random process yes, in a machine learning process with a feedback loop no, because that will dramatically reduce the number of iterations.

Only if it can actually pick up enough statistical modeling of how good composition looks and sounds.

As it stands? The very best AIs available can make five paragraphs before they break down. If they have good prompting. Every new paragraph is not just exponential but factorial growth in complexity.

It ain't happening, Jack.

 

[J.Quondam]

AI can fight and quash propaganda as easily as it can forward it.

Citation please. A bold statement like that needs something back it up, because that's really, really big if true.

 

[Scribe]

Really? I’m headed back home to Japan in a few hours. I’m rather glad I know that there was a major accident at the airport I’m going to. The fact that I also knew that my family was unharmed by the massive earthquakes this past week in Japan was a pretty big relief.

But sure, we’re all better off not knowing what’s happening in other countries far away. What good could it possibly do to be informed of events?

The relevant information being, that is your community, your home.

I'm not suggesting local community news has no value.

What's going on in Greece? How about Mexico? Chile?

 

[ECMO3]

And nothing of value would be lost.

So knowing that police murderered a man in Aniapolis is nothing?

Because that is what enabled the image to reach the world. If Darnella Frazier had not posted that video on facebook those officers would still be walking free and the BLM movement would have never taken off.

That is one example of many and obfuscating that kind of thing is not in anyone's interest.

 

[ECMO3]

It very much is soulless. The AI generated art is imitation, it is not even art.

Sorry you don't get to decide what art is. That is a basic premise of the whole idea of art. Here is some art I created using AI and it is art and it is not "souless":

Maybe you don't like it, maybe you don't like it simply because it is AI generated. But that does not make it not art.

They are not going to be hurt, mostly because I wont buy products with AI generated content, but also because the AI generated art is already freely available.

If you don't buy their products specifically because there is AI art in them, then you are hurting those creators.

This is missing any number of factors. The programmers who learned machine languages just moved on to the next language.

No they didn't. I was a pretty good programmer in my day, using primarily Matlab and Simulink. I can't code in Python or Java and I don't use stack overflow at all, so I can't effectively code today. The industry moved on and left me behind.

Most of the people who used to write machine language back in the 80s and 90s did not move on to programming in higher level languages, they ended up going completely into other lines of work like chip design or designing CLPDs.

They still did the work. AI is doing the work in the future. I'm not going to learn "AI" and do the work. Are you kidding?

You do what you want, but your choices should not prevent stop other people from using AI, buying AI or producing AI artwork.

There are more IT jobs now? Well yes, because the IT industry is massive now. That is not what AI is doing. Its not going to promote industry growth, jobs growth, because its going to end up replacing jobs.

It IS promoting IT growth. I have a team of 5 specifically working on developing AI and ML tools. 6 years ago when I got my current position we had zero people working on AI.

It will continue to promote growth, just like happened when machines replaced people on the production lines.

Back in 1975 we heard the same lame arguments about losing jobs because automation was replacing workers. When that happened we had about 900,000 people working in the auto manufacturing in the US. Today we have 1.1 Million in the U.S. and millions more in other countries producing parts for US cars.

We didn't lose jobs!

Absolutely not. It is not a language, it is not a medium, it is not another way of doing work. It is the REPLACEMENT of labour.

It replaces labor with something more efficient which enables those resources to be used more effectively.

I am not saying artist jobs won't be replaced, but many, many more jobs will be created and those will be better, higher paying jobs.

I've been playing with Dalle-3 now for weeks. I have 1000's of images generated to see what it could do. For my dollar (if I was to spend on it) its already better than content which WotC sold at premium prices.

But I thought it was souless?

I now have people telling me that AI art is terrible and I have other people telling it is better than WOTC content sold at premium prices.

Which is it? Is AI art any good or not?

So if some untrained casual (myself) can take a free product, and generate images that to his casual eye is ALREADY better than an artist who has been paid by the largest employer in the space (WotC) how is that spawning more jobs? How is that helping actual artists?

It is enabling you to take that, put it in your own creative works and market them. As you noted you can generate 1000s of images and market them creating jobs for people at whatever publisher you use to publish them, providing roaylties to whatever online distributer you use. Jobs to advertise your images.

If you are doing this to earn a living it is helping you and you are the artist in this example!

It could, if it wasnt going to be under control of the major tech companies who have already demonstrated that they will control the narrative, build the algorithms to benefit themselves, and wield influence that dictators around the world could only dream about 10 years ago.

It is not under their control.

Do you honestly think 'the people' are going to control AI?

Yes, absolutely I do. The people that care to will.

I mean "the people" didn't control the printing presses, "the people" didn't control the broadcasters in the 20th century. It is far, far easier to counter propaganda today and AI tools are available to everyone.

 

[ECMO3]

Citation please. A bold statement like that needs something back it up, because that's really, really big if true.

How Internet Platforms Are Combating Disinformation and Misinformation in the Age of COVID-19

www.newamerica.org

I am sure that is all just propaganda though.

 

[Scribe]

Sorry you don't get to decide what art is. That is a basic premise of the whole idea of art. Here is some art I created using AI and it is art and it is not "souless":

True, I dont get to define art, but a computer has no soul. It can imitate, it can pretend, it can take someones face and then render it in a different format, but it is still without what anyone would call a 'soul' today.

If you don't buy their products specifically because there is AI art in them, then you are hurting those creators.

Then they shouldnt use AI generated images.

I was a pretty good programmer in my day

Then 100% you could learn any modern language you wish.

You do what you want, but your choices should not prevent stop other people from using AI, buying AI or producing AI artwork.

My choices cannot prevent people from using AI, buying AI, or producing AI. I'm just one guy in small community watching the world ruin itself.

Back in 1975 we heard the same lame arguments about losing jobs because automation was replacing workers. When that happened we had about 900,000 people working in the auto manufacturing in the US. Today we have 1.1 Million in the U.S. and millions more in other countries producing parts for US cars.

We didn't lose jobs!

US Population in 1975: 216 Million
US Population in 2023: 339 Million.

This is similar to your concept that we will somehow have growth in an industry, despite automation and AI replacement of labour. It doesnt work, because someone is DOING the jobs currently that will be replaced.

It replaces labor with something more efficient which enables those resources to be used more effectively.

I am not saying artist jobs won't be replaced, but many, many more jobs will be created and those will be better, higher paying jobs.

They are not used more effectively, they are replaced. What better, higher paying jobs will they do?

But I thought it was souless?

I now have people telling me that AI art is terrible and I have other people telling it is better than WOTC content sold at premium prices.

Which is it? Is AI art any good or not?

It is, its mass generated, stereotypical, and derivative.

It is enabling you to take that, put it in your own creative works and market them. As you noted you can generate 1000s of images and market them creating jobs for people at whatever publisher you use to publish them, providing roaylties to whatever online distributer you use. Jobs to advertise your images.

If you are doing this to earn a living it is helping you and you are the artist in this example!

I'm not an artist. I'm not trained. Not educated in art. Have no concept of the theory, of the mechanical skill, none of it.

I typed into a text box, and a computer spit out what it thought I wanted to see based on the weight of popular media today.

Yes, absolutely I do. The people that care to will.

I mean "the people" didn't control the printing presses, "the people" didn't control the broadcasters in the 20th century. It is far, far easier to counter propaganda today and AI tools are available to everyone.

Unless you are Microsoft, Google, Amazon, or one of the other major players, no you dont control AI, and you wont be taking control of it later. That would be whoever controls the code, the algorithms, and the servers.

If you ARE one of the few who control the development of AI, can you spot me a few million? I'm good for it, scouts honor.

People did have an ability to 'control' the printing press, but I agree, we certainly didnt control major broadcasters, and 'we' certainly lost the plot with social media, and the algorithms and censorship that are all part of the modern experience.

You are told, and shown, what the major corps choose for you to see.

 

[Hussar]

The relevant information being, that is your community, your home.

I'm not suggesting local community news has no value.

What's going on in Greece? How about Mexico? Chile?

But, you just said that we would be better off if we had now way of knowing any of that. While I’m not particularly interested personally in those countries, I do know that I’m seconds away from learning pretty much whatever I’d like to know if I was motivated to do so.

In 1982, how much could you find out about Chile? Compared to today?

And you’re saying that’s a bad thing?

My “community “ spans several countries and a few continents. I’ve lived abroad most of my adult life. My circle of friends and family are scattered all over.

The idea that “local community” is just what you can conveniently drive to isn’t true for some of us.

I mean heck, my gaming circle has included four continents. Never minding countries. How much would we have known about the whole OGL thing that so many find so important if it wasn’t for those larger communities that have no value as you claim?

 

[Umbran]

And nothing of value would be lost.

So knowing that police murderered a man in Aniapolis is nothing?

Mod Note:
Folks, this site is about D&D. This thread is about D&D art.

This thread is most notably NOT about the general value of social media to the world.

So, please let this exchange stop. Thanks.