WotC Uses AI Art In Latest D&D Book...Should We Care?

The latest outrage hitting Wizards of the Coast is that they used AI artwork in their latest D&D book, Bigby's Glory of the Giants. I do not feel this is actually an AI issue. Let's take a look on whether WotC is wrong on this.

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[RIVERSRPGChannel]

My understanding is WotC changed artists pieces without telling them and they knew that one artist used AI and then denied it.
This seems to be the problem.
Yes I kinda look at for reasons to not trust WotC, but they seem to keep giving me reasons.

[tigriscallidus]

The problem with AI, as written in another comment, is the datasets the AI uses.


AI does not work like a regular tool where you just feed your image and apply an effect.


It uses normally huge datasets. And in these datasets are lots of images which the creators never gave the OK to be used.


If an artist feeds their own image to an AI and uses them as their dataset, then this is perfectly fine! And as you said just a technical advantage. There are artists who do exactly that (like Roman Lipski), but it is not what the AI tools which are available are doing.

Also the narrative "it became a lot cheaper to make illustrations" is not 100% correct. Artists still spends 10s of hours for high quality artworks. The process for printing and adding them to a book etc. Became cheaper, but even with dicom tablets photoshop etc. It is still lot of work. And nowadays more details are expected for art than in the past.

[carterevans]

While you do make valid point, it does kind of rub me the wrong way that I'm paying for something using AI, which requires much less effort, thats the same amount as something that artists put much more effort into. It kind of just devalues all the hard work that came before it.

[johnwhite]

AI art is not art. It’s theft. Reject it

[nutluck]

I pretty much agree with you, but I think and this is just my personal opinion here. Part of the issue is keep in mind WoTC just recently raised the price on their books stating increasing costs to make them, which means art. AI assisted art should be cheaper. Had they not raised the price recently and had the quality not been so bad(which I agree has nothing to do with AI it has to be with bad quality control) I think it would be less of a issue.

But instead they raised the prices, allowed a method to be used that should make the art cheaper and had worse quality control on these more expensive book.(least I think this book uses the new prices, but even if not it implies future more expensive books will have similar issues)

To me that is the bigger issue, but again this is just my own personal opinion.

[michaelelam]

If Wizardz cuts out artists to use AI art to save money, I have a problem with it. Otherwise, I don't care.

Also, I LIKED 4th ed. And I've played since AD&D. I've liked all editions, as well as Pathfinder, Traveler, and many more. Every game has something to enjoy. If you don't find the joy, just move on.

[nicklarocco]

At one point is using AI going to allow anyone to turn their 2 minute sketches into professional appearing art? AI isn't just a new brush, it's tracing paper.

[johnharrison]

WOTC hires artist known for using AI then feigns surprise when the artist uses AI? Hahaha, yeah, right...

[nevisysbryd]

AI does not take inspiration. AI converts images into numbers and statistical weights, runs through that an algorithm, and obscures what amounts to weighted averages through 'noise'. It is literall direct copy-paste through averages.

This is fundamentally different from how the human psyche operates, which interpets a perception into a biased representation-not copies it-and then creates of art, successfully reproducing it only if they understand the principles and techniques behind it, not directly tracing it.

AI can only interpolate. Humans can only extrapolate. These two are not equivalent. As a consequence, any art used in the training data that was not lifted with permission or citation constitutes plagiarism.

My concern is plagiarism, not AI; as AI currently stands, it almost always is predicated on plagiarism, however, by virtue of how the training data was collected. Insofar as the training data is clean, the product is clean.

Legality has no inherent connection to ethics.

[soloplayer]

AI isn't a new tool in the same way photoshop plugons are. AI is semirandom. There's no consistent way to generate a specific output. You can't make AI generate a certain image any more than you can make a die roll a specific number.
If i asked someone to play at my table but their version of roleplaying only consisted of rolling on response tables to do things instead of deciding what their character does manually, I think most would agree that's not the kind of roleplaying we think of when we say roleplaying, and that maybe the player would fit better where that is the expectation.

[rtfmtech]

Your argument was the same as mine has been. I understand why people may have issues with AI artwork, but at the end of the day, you can't stop progress.. my issue is where the heck was the QA? Did the art director not even look at what he was putting into the book? imo it's like a typo that no one caught.

[Drudenfusz]

My opinion on the subject is still not fully formed, but here are my current thoughts: I think that AI as a tool to enhance some work is fine, but of course the artist should know what they are doing and not just let the AI do the thing completely. So, as long as there are real artists involved it might not bad, like the intro sequence for the Secret Invasion show on Disney+, the weird artificial look even gave the whole theme more meaning. But I think lazy publishers who do the AI stuff themselves to get around paying an actual artist, or people who just use the AI without any understanding of what artistic expression entails are something that should be looked out for, and of course prevented, since that might not just hurt artist finding a job, but also lower the quality of the products.

[ludumpress]

Nice summary, I don't see an issue using AI as long as you acknowledge its use on the copyright page. As long as the arts cool who cares about the tool? What about written content in WOTC publications? How are they seriously going to police this stuff?

[crankysmurf]

Apparently April Prime was hired as a concept artist for the book and her approved concepts would be used by the other illustrators as a foundation for their own art. She has claimed that the artist in question had taken her concept art of her dinosaurs and run them through an AI to be "enhanced."

[Satori]

I think its this whole story is just an absolute moronic Wotc internet drama. AI is here to stay forever, people need to get used to it, especially in this case where it is used as a tool.

Having said that, I still think TSR artists from the second edition era are far superior than the artists we have now. Glory to Elmore, Fields, Parkinson and the whole bunch. :)