D&D General Would It Matter To You if D&D Books Were Illustrated by AI Instead of Humans?

[Bluebell]

You know, one of the things that motivates me to purchase an expensive hardcover guide rather than simply looking up its contents online is the artwork. I see physical guides as sort of coffee table artbooks as much as they are guides. Why would I pay money for AI-generated artwork rather than clicking around an AI website myself? Why should I place any value on a product that devalues artists so completely as to cut them out?

 

[the Jester]

Would it ruin the art? No. But I'd much rather see humans getting paid to do the art on my new dharculus entry in the Monster Manual, or on the new pic of the tabaxi pc write up.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yes, it would bother me.

Artists deserve to be paid for their work.

It would not bother me because it is AI, that's whatever. Some AI-generated art is quite interesting, even beautiful. But unless we turn "art AI" into a tool used by artists and thus a tool which enhances artists' ability to create art, rather than a tool which enhances tech companies' ability to milk money out of us, it will be a Problem and not a Solution.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It matters because it's essentially semi-legal theft and eventually, it'll be a matter of still needing actual human artists to create new styles, new approaches and so on. The AI can only replicate what already exists, and whilst it might get better at that, it's just emulation.

So personally I would not support any paid product using it, including small operations, because you're basically ensuring artists, who have a tenuous employment at best, have no employment at all.

As others have said, it doesn't bother me that it's AI. It bothers me that it's ensuring artists have even fewer employment prospects, and the exciting art is even less likely to be supported finanicially.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yeah, at this rate AI image generators will be able to outperform any human artist probably within the year, both in quality and speed.

Also no, no they won't, not in a year. In ten or twenty years? Maybe. Speed they'll obvious be ahead, but the "custom character portraits" I've seen using them so far have been pretty poor, and could in many cases be equalled or improved upon simply by going to Pinterest or er that big concept art site I'm forgetting the name of.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

AI images for photorealistic faces: thispersondoesnotexist.

Refresh the screen for a new face. Each face is unique. Make sure you save it if you want it, or it is gone.

Though, it's worth noting, it does secondary faces much, MUCH more poorly than primary faces. The face at the center of the frame will almost always look perfect. A face at the edge of frame will almost always look wrong.

And that's saying nothing about the surrealist backgrounds or clothing I've seen.

Yeah, at this rate AI image generators will be able to outperform any human artist probably within the year, both in quality and speed. I'm already seeing people use them to get custom character portraits of their D&D characters much faster and cheaper than they ever could have by commissioning a human artist.

The main issue with doing this is, you'd better hope you want stuff that's really common, even universal. "Old man wizard," for example, will be perfectly easy. If you like dragonborn, on the other hand? Good friggin' luck. AI-generated art of more overtly non-human figures is rarely any good. And if you want something more complex, like an actual dragon or a manticore or something? Don't even bother. Every AI I've used to try to get stuff like that spits out nothing but useless garbage.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Also no, no they won't, not in a year. In ten or twenty years? Maybe. Speed they'll obvious be ahead, but the "custom character portraits" I've seen using them so far have been pretty poor, and could in many cases be equalled or improved upon simply by going to Pinterest or er that big concept art site I'm forgetting the name of.

Most likely ArtStation. And yeah, completely agreed.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The main issue with doing this is, you'd better hope you want stuff that's really common, even universal.

This is exactly right and illustrates the major problem with AI-driven art. It can only operate by working from existing art which it has access to. This why some prompts work wildly better than others. And the more mainstream the prompt, the better the result. I kind of wonder if this'll eventually reactively shape the choices of designers and players, if it does get used heavily. I mean, will people not pick Aardlings because AI art won't have any clue what that is, and will be working off like three images, initially (and even when it's 300, it won't be much compared to most ideas)? I don't think they will straight away, but over time? Hmmm.

And yes ArtStation, that's the one. I often use it to nick stuff to show the players, but also just for inspiration, because whilst there's an awful lot of cheesecake and boredom (oh god so much cheesecake!), there's sometimes some really amazing stuff on there.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Artificial Intelligence will eventually replace the Game Master. I think 2023 is a safe prediction for when well see that, if it isn't already a thing now. Hasn't AIDungeon already been tasked with that?

This is all part of the Second Digitization.

 

[gnarlygninja]

It'd bother me quite a lot, it would almost definitely be done as a way to save money by not having to pay artists and I don't really care how much revenue each book generates for WotC. It's not like those savings would be passed along to us consumers anyway, and artists deserve to earn a living.

 

[Argyle King]

Artificial Intelligence will eventually replace the Game Master. I think 2023 is a safe prediction for when well see that, if it isn't already a thing now. Hasn't AIDungeon already been tasked with that?

This is all part of the Second Digitization.

How is that different from video games?

 

[D1Tremere]

I'm seeing a lot of "the artist deserves" arguments, but who really deserves anything? It's subjective. Either everyone deserves to be able to make a living doing the thing they love, or no one does. I say give everyone a universal income and let artists make are because they love it, let AIs make product because we want it, and everyone somewhat wins.

 

[gnarlygninja]

I'm not a lawyer but I don't think the people making my DnD books don't have the power to institute UBI

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

How is that different from video games?

Well, the First Great Digitization of the Hobby has already happened (not that it's over); and, one of the products of that process, video games, has become it's own thing separate from the Hobby.

The Second Digitization is similar. It is heavily dependent on computers and graphics, however it seems to be more of a social media development with tools built to help with that experience.

I'm curious to see what will come out of the Second Digitization. What will it be when/if it separates from the Hobby and becomes it's own thing.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

This morning I read the the post title, and dismissed it offhand, because the only AI generated art I had ever encountered was novelty things done by friends of mine.

Then today I read the NYTimes article about the fellow, James M. Allen, who won a State Fair art competition with a Midjourney submission, which got me to read up on the world of AI generated art (and playing around with generating a little). But particularly what sent me back here was the revelation that the reason Mr. Allen got into Midjourney was that he has a tabletop games studio (Incarnate Games, seems to be a board game start-up).

Even if resistance from the ttrpg buying public will keep big players like WotC away from AI generated or AI assisted art, many of the little indy players are going to go heavily to AI generated art real soon. Having dirt cheap art created instantly to order is an amazing thing for a small time creator, and sometimes having something presentable that fulfills your precise needs is more important than having something actually good.

I think pure AI art is going to be the province of small time players, but I think some AI art will find its way into most rpg releases in the not too distant future. I think it may ultimately end up being less a matter of expense and more a matter of needing things generated last minute to fit particular specifications.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

I like that AI generating is really exploding right now, because it actually feels magical and enables anyone to quickly visualize their concepts by rolling the neural network dice a few times... and of course there's heavy push by big companies to use it in order to pay creatives even less.

 

[J.Quondam]

Yes, it matters, not least because the legalities and ethics surrounding these AIs are nowhere near resolved. WotC won't go near it, and I wouldn't want them to for the sake of professional artists.

I think pure AI art is going to be the province of small time players, but I think some AI art will find its way into most rpg releases in the not too distant future. I think it may ultimately end up being less a matter of expense and more a matter of needing things generated last minute to fit particular specifications.

I think this is right. This sort of "AI" tool will be detrimental to freelance artists, but a boon for writers/creators with limited budget, time, and/or artistic ability. One group benefits at the expense of another. In that sense, it's just another chapter in the book of automation.

That said, there are certainly huge ethical question marks hanging over the issue. Using generic or "self-orchestrated" AI art is one thing, but using AI art to mimic the style of a specific artist is something else entirely, like if someone created a Planescape-y setting using AI art that looks deTerlizzi-esque. That would be a definite no-go for me.

I can see these tools going in so many directions with respect to monetization models; royalties; protections for artists and corporate IP; variant training data sets (eg, cheaper ones trained only on public domain, pricier ones include copyrighted imagery?); user interfaces; consent for models; and so forth.

It's certainly an intriguing development, with ramifications that go far beyond D&D books.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I answered "Yes" it will bother me, but that's probably just the human in me talking. To tell you (and myself) the truth, I probably won't pay that much attention. By the time such a publication is released I'll probably find myself surrounded and inundated by artificially generated art anyway.

 

[MNblockhead]

Can someone suggest links to some of the better, publicly available, AI art generators?

As for the OP, I'm in agreement with most of the posts. Unless we have a post-scarcity society with UBI, I think we need to be very careful about how we use AI. There certainly can be ethical applications, but I prefer humans get paid for the work rather than the AIs that are creating art for large samples of work by human artists.

 

[MNblockhead]

Though, it's worth noting, it does secondary faces much, MUCH more poorly than primary faces. The face at the center of the frame will almost always look perfect. A face at the edge of frame will almost always look wrong.

Argh! You're correct. Just tested with thisisnotaperson....

...well at least ONE of them is not a person.