WotC: 'We made a mistake when we said an image not AI'

It seems like AI art is going to be a recurring news theme this year. While this is Magic: the Gathering news rather than D&D or TTRPG news, WotC and AI art has been a hot topic a few times recently.

When MtG community members observed that a promotional image looked like it was made with AI, WotC denied that was the case, saying in a now-deleted tweet "We understand confusion by fans given the style being different than card art, but we stand by our previous statement. This art was created by humans and not AI."

However, they have just reversed their position and admitted that the art was, indeed, made with the help of AI tools.

Well, we made a mistake earlier when we said that a marketing image we posted was not created using AI. Read on for more.

As you, our diligent community pointed out, it looks like some AI components that are now popping up in industry standard tools like Photoshop crept into our marketing creative, even if a human did the work to create the overall image.

While the art came from a vendor, it’s on us to make sure that we are living up to our promise to support the amazing human ingenuity that makes Magic great.

We already made clear that we require artists, writers, and creatives contributing to the Magic TCG to refrain from using AI generative tools to create final Magic products.

Now we’re evaluating how we work with vendors on creative beyond our products – like these marketing images – to make sure that we are living up to those values.

This comes shortly after a different controversy when a YouTube accused them (falsely in this case) of using AI on a D&D promotional image, after which WotC reiterated that "We require artists, writers, and creatives contributing to the D&D TTRPG to refrain from using AI generative tools to create final D&D products."

The AI art tool Midjourney is being sued in California right now by three Magic: The Gathering artists who determined that theirs and nearly 6,000 other artists' work had been scraped without permission. That case is ongoing.

Various tools and online platforms are now incorporating AI into their processes. AI options are appearing on stock art sites like Shutterstock, and creative design platforms like Canva are now offering AI. Moreover, tools within applications like Photoshop are starting to draw on AI, with the software intelligently filling spaces where objects are removed and so on. As time goes on, AI is going to creep into more and more of the creative processes used by artists, writers, and video-makers.

 

[doctorhook]

Butlerian Jihad when?

 

[Nylanfs]

Feels like this would be an excellent use case for blockchain tbh

Blockchain would only show the transportation of an image through the process. I couldn't imagine it showing the changes to an image between the transfers.

 

[trappedslider]

The real solution to this, of course, is to enforce that the AI companies pay (ongoing) licensing fees for each and every single piece of art or creative work that their tools are "trained on". Of course the side effect might be completely destroying these AI generaters as viable on a financial level but...

Let's not kid ourselves that's exactly the outcome a lot of folks want.

 

[trappedslider]

It is a big problem with dataset scraped from the Internet: they lack a good caption and using the alt tags isn't sufficent. Let's take an example: look at the image used in this board to illustrate the topic. What do you see? I'd say "a steampunk workshop, with lamp bulbs, a gauge from an unknown machine and a box on the table in front of the image, a window opening toward a drab street, a bookshelf in the background. At the center of the image are five colourful cards from Magic, leaning on cylindral box. The lighting is warm and comes both from the lamps and the viewer of the image".

So, I used nightcafe's SDXL 1.0 model and your description of the image and got :

Then I used dreamshaper XL

When i coped what you typed it pointed out the following tip:
Tip: In long prompts, words toward the end of the prompt will have diminished effect.

 

[Jer]

Blockchain would only show the transportation of an image through the process. I couldn't imagine it showing the changes to an image between the transfers.

A version control system with requirements to snapshot steps would be one approach, and git uses similar technology to blockchain (both of them are basically distributed Merkle trees), so if you squint there's a kind of blockchain-ish argument. But a checkpointed write-only version control system of any kind would be a way to approach it - there's no real need for it to be distributed if there's a trusted authority in charge of it.

 

[orial]

More fuel for the WotC/hasbro hate fire.

Indeed, the WOTC witchhunt is still going strong sadly.
I can’t imagine that also PAIZO and others don’t have this same problem.
It is almost not done to filter AI art nowadays. WOTC and others must rely on the honesty of their artists.

 

[Blue]

Feel like we are all fighting a loosing battle. AI and robots are coming for all of us. Automation will only further destroy the Middle Class.

The amount of man-hours "stolen" from workers if your wardrobe was made entirely by hand is ridiculous, from spinning the thread to weaving it to hand sewing the shapes. Yet somehow now people do other things.

(US-centric view upcoming, I know some other countries are recognizing this.) The issue is that the 40 hour week is so ingrained as the "proper" amount of work, which only benefits the people at top. If something takes ten people full time to do, after advancements it's just as affordable to still pay ten people the same amount, just that "full time" is now 36 hours instead of 40. But instead we accept that we should still work 40 hours, let the powers that be cut down form ten to eight people, and take the difference as profits. Having a 40 hour week (and a 5 day week) was something worker demanded and got in the past, and it will likely take that again for everyone to benefit from technological progress instead of just the richest. Technological progress belongs to all of mankind, not just those with the deepest pockets.

 

[dragoner]

The real solution to this, of course, is to enforce that the AI companies pay (ongoing) licensing fees for each and every single piece of art or creative work that their tools are "trained on".

They will probably force a take down, I read an article of mastodon where they were advising publishers to not use AI images until the cases are settled. Those who own a lot of copyrights, such as WOTC, or Disney, will be able to enforce their copyrights, nothing is going to overturn 200+ years of law. The court will see "trained on" as copying, as that is the simplest way to satisfy the litigants, and enforce their rights. AI will remain as a tool, though mostly for the big companies, or artists with a large enough portfolio to train it on their own stuff, because rest assured, the AI generator companies are making art checkers too.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't think you can stop companies from using it

Well, in this case we have a company that doesn't want to use it who hires people not to use AI who decide to wave tike by using AI.

 

[Jadeite]

Indeed, the WOTC witchhunt is still going strong sadly.
I can’t imagine that also PAIZO and others don’t have this same problem.
It is almost not done to filter AI art nowadays. WOTC and others must rely on the honesty of their artists.

Paizo was rightfully called out when the unionization happened. It's just that Hasbro WotC is now beyond the point of giving them the benefit of the doubt. Companies like them can't leave this hobby soon enough.