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

[Hexmage-EN]

AI image generators such as Dall-E 2, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion allow anyone to enter in a prompt for an AI trained on potentially billions of images to have it produce artworks that would take human artists far longer to create. Though they currently have shortcomings such as difficulty getting hands right, the technology is advancing quickly enough that even now there are D&D DMs and players using AI image generators to quickly create reasonably good images for their characters, NPCs, and locations.

The recent Spelljammer book was full of art, with WotC noting the higher than normal art budget. However, reviewers have bemoaned the lack of other content even as they appreciate the visuals. If they cared to, WotC could one day soon utilize an AI image generator to produce nice looking images with a much, much lower art budget. For example, they could hypothetically use an AI art generator to create images in the style of DiTerlizzi for the upcoming Planescape book.

Professional artists are obviously worried about being replaced, but for the end consumer will it matter who or what made the illustrations in a D&D book? I'm curious to see where opinions lie on this here.

 

[overgeeked]

Professional artists are obviously worried about being replaced, but for the end consumer will it matter who or what made the illustrations in a D&D book? I'm curious to see where opinions lie on this here.

Yes, it matters. For one-person game companies, one-offs, or other small-time operations, it makes perfect sense to use free or cheap art. It's not really all that different than using public domain or stock art. But for bigger companies? No way. You have the money to pay an artist, pay an artist.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Professional artists are obviously worried about being replaced, but for the end consumer will it matter who or what made the illustrations in a D&D book? I'm curious to see where opinions lie on this here.

I mean .... what if it's Meta's BlenderBot3 making the illustrations?


Yeah ... be careful what you wish for.

 

[Yaarel]

I put, No, artificial intelligence images wouldnt matter to me.

However, I disagree with "instead of". I prefer AI "along with humans".

Even when a human selects an AI image, it is the human who is being the artist.

That said, the AI artwork is "real" art, with an astonishing mastery of artistic "composition", including the use of space, line, color, and so on.

 

[Mind of tempest]

look until they make an AI person I am against ai artists as it takes away a job the people honestly like doing and that is horrible.

 

[Malmuria]

For example, they could hypothetically use an AI art generator to create images in the style of DiTerlizzi for the upcoming Planescape book.

AI art depends on the work of illustrators. It needs large, free availability of images in order to generate artwork. I've seen people generate some cool, surreal images, but there is an ethics to actual creators--especially the one large corporation in this hobby--paying artists.

Plus, it might change as the technology gets better, but right now I don't think you can satisfyingly generate something in the style of DiTerlizzi, his art being very personal and expressive.

 

[Yaarel]

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.

 

[Yaarel]

For Dalle and other text-prompted images, it is known issue that the constructed images tend to be racist, sexist, antigay, and so on.

Any AI that relies on the internet for data ends up being somewhat evil.

Of course, this criticism is about the human source, the things people say on the internet and the images they post.

The AI is merely an echo of what humans are doing.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Would it matter to you if Dungeons and Dragons books were written by Artificial Intelligence instead of humans?

I've been playing around with GPT to help me get more work done. Now I'm going to go ask it to create some optional rules and see what I get.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Will it bother me? Depends on what they do with the AI.

Do they use it to dupe/ape another artist's style, to in effect get DiTerlizzi art without having to pay DiTerlizzi for it? Then yes, it bothers me.

Will they use it but still claim that increased costs are due to having more art? Then yes, it bothers me.

Will they use it in lieu of actual usable content, since clicking "refresh" on a website is way cheaper than paying writers, editors, etc.? Then yes, it bothers me.

Can I think of any reasons to use AI art aside from those listed above? No I can't, so yes, it bothers me.