D&D 5E Replacement art is up for Bigby's AI art on D&D Beyond!

[Clint_L]

To be clear they are not supposed to be "real" dinosaurs, by behemoth type dinosaurs. For example, the Ceratops is 200 feet long.

200 feet long...and has a CR rating of 9. Which is higher than a regular triceratops (CR 6) but not by much, especially considering it would be roughly 70 times as massive.

Honestly, the CR ratings on all these kaiju-style dinosaurs are WAY too low. Like, a regisaur has a CR of 14 and apparently "can swallow a giant whole"...there are giants with much higher CRs that would hand it its ass.

 

[Clint_L]

Of course, WotC are also behooved to do this because every piece that was AI-enhanced in the first printing is legally not theirs.

This is almost certainly not true, and there is a widespread misconception about this point. First, note that we are talking about US copyright law. Secondly, even within US law, AI work cannot be copyrighted ONLY if there is considered to be insufficient human creativity included in the process:
"a work containing AI-generated material may be copyrightable where there is sufficient human authorship, such as when a human selects or arranges AI-generated material in a creative way or modifies material originally generated by AI technology. Ultimately, copyright protection will depend on whether the AI’s contributions are “the result of mechanical reproduction,” or they reflect the author’s “own mental conception"...“The answer will depend on the circumstances, particularly how the AI tool operates and how it was used to create the final work.""

In this case, where an artist created original art and then used AI to "enhance it" there would almost certainly be "sufficient human authorship" and evidence of "the author's own mental conception." There is really no question that either they or WotC or both would have owned the work, depending on the terms of their contract. So copyright was likely not a motivating factor.

Which is obvious, when you think about it, as artists and other creatives have been using various types of AI to enhance work for decades now without losing ownership of their work.

 

[dave2008]

200 feet long...and has a CR rating of 9. Which is higher than a regular triceratops (CR 6) but not by much, especially considering it would be roughly 70 times as massive.

Honestly, the CR ratings on all these kaiju-style dinosaurs are WAY too low. Like, a regisaur has a CR of 14 and apparently "can swallow a giant whole"...there are giants with much higher CRs that would hand it its ass.

Yes. This thread inspired me to take a look a kaiju size monsters again for D&D. Here is my take on a redesigned kaiju size Regisaur

 

[Parmandur]

200 feet long...and has a CR rating of 9. Which is higher than a regular triceratops (CR 6) but not by much, especially considering it would be roughly 70 times as massive.

Honestly, the CR ratings on all these kaiju-style dinosaurs are WAY too low. Like, a regisaur has a CR of 14 and apparently "can swallow a giant whole"...there are giants with much higher CRs that would hand it its ass.

The point seems to be to supply a suitable mount for a higher Level Giant.

 

[pukunui]

The point seems to be to supply a suitable mount for a higher Level Giant.

Yeah, just because the dinosaur is physically capable of swallowing a giant whole doesn’t mean it would be easy for it to do so!

 

[LordEntrails]

The original art was by a real artist you does real art. They had done art for WotC since at least 2014, before AI art was really a thing. The just used AI to enhance their art. They even posted before and after photos for people to see if you're interested.

Thanks for making sure no one forgets this. The art was not created by an AI program. It was enhancing original art by the artist themselves. The artist chose to use a new tool/technology to adapt his own art in a way they wished to do so.

IMO it's stupid that people got upset about this. It's like telling a painter they can not use synthetic bristle brushes because it's darn fangled new technology and a real artist would only use natural fibers for their brushes. I view it as one more algorithm infused false hysteria based on misinformation, a lack of critical thinking, and simple laziness.

 

[J.Quondam]

Thanks for making sure no one forgets this. The art was not created by an AI program. It was enhancing original art by the artist themselves. The artist chose to use a new tool/technology to adapt his own art in a way they wished to do so.

IMO it's stupid that people got upset about this. It's like telling a painter they can not use synthetic bristle brushes because it's darn fangled new technology and a real artist would only use natural fibers for their brushes. I view it as one more algorithm infused false hysteria based on misinformation, a lack of critical thinking, and simple laziness.

Maybe I'm mis-remembering, but I thought the really big no-no in this particular case was that the artist ran another artist's concept art through the AI, and submitted that output for publication?

Someone please correct me if i'm wrong on that!

edit: Yep, I was wrong about that! See my next comment below.

 

[LordEntrails]

What are your thoughts?

Why would I care if an artist uses "AI" technology in their art? Is it original? Did they create it?

I don't care what tools an artist uses to create their art, why should I? Am I going to complain because they use a "blend" command in PSP? What about if they choose "sharpen"? These are all forms of "artificial intelligence" and have been in use for decades. I care if someone uses a Large Language Model to simulate creative writing, if they are pretending to be the original author. I care if someone uses generative adversarial network to create an image that they had no artistic input to and pass it off as something they created. But if a creator uses such as part of their creation process and it is original and distinct to them? Then no, I don't care.

 

[LordEntrails]

Maybe I'm mis-remembering, but I thought the really big no-no in this particular case was that the artist ran another artist's concept art through the AI, and submitted that output for publication?
Someone please correct me if i'm wrong on that!

Not that I've heard. As mentioned by @dave2008, my understanding is the artist used AI tools to add flavor (blends, sharpen, color enhancement, etc) to an original piece of art. Basically they used a very advanced filter to an image they had created.

 

[J.Quondam]

Not that I've heard. As mentioned by @dave2008, my understanding is the artist used AI tools to add flavor (blends, sharpen, color enhancement, etc) to an original piece of art. Basically they used a very advanced filter to an image they had created.

Right, but some people at the time claimed that the original art came from a different artist, and he then used the AI tools to enhance it directly and turn it into the published version, which would be bad. HOWEVER...

I've poked a round a bit, and it seems I was wrong about that! I am not misremembering hearing that, but it's not true apparently. If I understand correctly, he did in fact process his own material, it just looked similar to the concept art. Here's a recap of the controversy as of early July 2023.

I'm just posting this now in case other readers like me are still under the wrong impression from anything they heard back then. I've corrected my comment up above.