D&D General Would you buy an AI-generated Castle Greyhawk "by" Gary Gygax?" Should you?

[Staffan]

They used technology to extract a up until now impossible to extact but genuine vocal track of John Lennon's, added it to a guitar track that Harrison had already recorded, and got McCartney and Starr to record new parts. No bit of that was "ai-generated". It would be akin to scanning in illegible notes that Gygax left behind and using "AI" powered OCR to extract the text and publish that.

That's quite a bit different from something "AI-generated". Still a bit ghoulish, but nowhere near as bad as using AI to fake Lennon's voice and/or Harrison's guitar.

 

[aco175]

Fundamentally, it IS John Lennon’s voice. The AI is used to extract his voice from the rest of the demo recording he made so it can be isolated, enhanced, and used as the vocal track for the rest of his band mates to finish the song around it.

If Tolkien made notes of all his stuff and something could extract his style, would not that be fundamentally his work? I'm finding that machines blur the lines more and more. Over the holiday, I heard someone tell Alexa, "Thank You" like they were having a conversation with a real person. Where is the line going to be when they look more like people and are more everyday? I guess I show thanks to the dog when they fetch the ball, the cat- never.

 

[Muso]

Today for sure my answer to the initial question is NO. I am not sure regarding my answer in the future, but at the present development level no AI is able to produce something as creative as we all deserve.

 

[DEFCON 1]

For me the answer is 'No' for an even simpler reason... I don't wish to buy a Castle Greyhawk module regardless of who or what writes it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So, would you buy such a work? Would you buy it if the proceeds went to his estate? Would you buy it if the proceeds went to just the people publishing it?

Even if I had the money, no, I would not do so. I believe it should be illegal to simply scrape someone's work without their permission. Further, I would rather that we write new laws on new tablets in general, rather than endlessly rehashing the favorites of yesteryear. Doesn't matter whether it's TV shows or movies or books or adventures.

 

[mamba]

If Tolkien made notes of all his stuff and something could extract his style, would not that be fundamentally his work?

depends on how much the machine has to do. If all it does is polish up a few sections or add an ending that was not completed, but for which detailed notes / drafts exist (<10%), then yes.

If it has a few pages of notes to go on to create the entire novel, then no.

 

[billd91]

If Tolkien made notes of all his stuff and something could extract his style, would not that be fundamentally his work?

No, the AI constructed parts wouldn't be his work. This is why, when an author dies and someone else completes the work, that editing gets identified and credited. Christopher Tolkien made a life out of compiling and editing his father's works and annotating the bejeezus out of them.

 

[DarkCrisis]

If his family signed off on it, sure.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If Tolkien made notes of all his stuff and something could extract his style, would not that be fundamentally his work?

No?

It would be the work of the person mining his notes with the help of his notes.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If his family signed off on it, sure.

'Do not digitally pick over my corpse' is going to have to become standard in will now isn't it?