D&D General Would You Buy an RPG Product Printed on a Gutenberg Press?

[Necropolitan]

Oh really? Maybe your history is different than mine. One of the core complaints was that it would put people out of work. But, as I said, this is not core to the discussion.

So every art school should be shut down because they don't pay the artists for the work they use to train other artists.

Only those who show intolerance and have zero good faith intention to enter into a productive discussion. Oh, and I paid good money for that advice.

You're making blatantly obvious strawman arguments.

AI is created using stolen intellectual property and then that stolen property is used to avoid paying artists.

 

[Lanefan]

Yes*, if only for the sheer "cool" factor of having something printed on an actual Gutenberg press (are there any still functional in the world?).

* - assuming the price wasn't totally out of line, of course; though I'd expect there to be a premium cost over the regular-press version of the same book

 

[Swanosaurus]

There's a lot too unpack here.
At the surface, the implicit analogy of the original has merit. Both are about the mechanized mass production of text and how it is going to put people out of jobs and radically change how we perceive creativity and the written word. So on the surface, it seems like you'd be correct to claim: "Look, AI is like every other technological advancement: It's here to stay, it will change things - on the long run probably for the better, though that is no consolation for the people who get under the wheels in the short run. Learn to live with it."
However, this piece of sarcasm gives me pause:

But it is not for the loss of my labours that I despair, but for the desecration of divine words by its casting before the untrained and untempered masses! What shall become of our schools, our scriptoria, our sacred order of knowledge, when every beggar and fishwife may hold the printed tome in their soiled hands and dare interpret them?

Because AI text production is not about "every beggar and fishwife" daring to interpret the written word ... it is about the majority of people to STOP interpreting the written word.

See, I'm a teacher. And already, a lot of my pupils don't get why they should bother to read something and think about it if they can make a foto of it and have ChatGPT or whatever spit out a perfectly okay essay about it within a few seconds that they don't even have to read. They can literally solve a task involving a text without either readig the task OR THEIR OWN ANSWER.

Somehow, I doubt that this is the same thing as giving them ressources. Instead, it robs them of intellectual ressources.

Now, I'm an old guy, and maybe I just don't get how it might be okay to externalize a major part of your thinking process like that. How it might you free up to do ... other stuff. Whatever. I honestly can't think of it, but I'm not claiming that the net result of text production by AI might not be positive after all. I just can't see it, but maybe I could if I had been born fifty years later.

The more fundamental thing: Arguing that new technology is here to stay, that it is going to be used, and that it always makes things better in the long run seems reasonable, but it's a fallacy. We don't use nuclear weapons on a regular basis, even though they exist. It is a good thing that technology like that is subject to EXTREME social control. Also, all new technology is always accompanied by social struggles about how and where it should be applied, and these struggles DO change things, often for the better. The existence of copyright laws is due to the ever-increasing technological means to reproduce all kinds of art. They are a social regulation of technological potential. The idea that technological progress will lead to beneficial results WITHOUT social struggle about its application is itself highly idealistic.

I don't know where the struggles surrounding AI text/art production will lead. But they sure as hell are important. Yes, AI will not go away. But that doesn't mean that we, as a society, should stop trying to make decisions about when to use it, and when not.

 

[John R Davis]

No idea why this is an issue
It is the year of saying yes, so I said yes.

 

[Queer Venger]

absolutely yes!! But I don't want any profits to go to the scribes, they should be under a vow of obedience and poverty; I want my money to go to better lighting conditions and heating in the winter so the scribes can keep scribing more tomes.

 

[NN]

...I'm not sure how to respond.
Are we seriously trying to compare AI to the Gutenberg press? somehow?
Or is this a statement about printing methods regressing because of the new import taxes?

yes a thing now is like a past thing because.

checkmate, luddites !

 

[NN]

I will happily hoist the black flag and pirate any AI created content.

No human creator: no copyright harm done.

 

[Umbran]

Only those who show intolerance and have zero good faith intention to enter into a productive discussion. Oh, and I paid good money for that advice.

Mod note:
If you are going to insult and abuse folks who disagree with you, we can just close the thread.