Greetings, true believers,

I have a question about AI. Recently I’ve gotten into about a year ok. Mainly with the website https://dreamlike.art/create. I can’t tell you how many pieces I made with it, but I was wondering, do you prefer just using face claims and such I know many people use their very own art, as well from permission, from the original artist themselves, but do you think AI makes it easier especially if you’re playing online or no just curious.

Quote from TheKittenofDon2545 >>

Greetings, true believers,

1. I have a question about AI.  I was wondering, do you prefer just using face claims and such?
2. Do you think AI makes it easier especially if you’re playing online or no?

Oh my...

Please forgive my creative editing of your post to get to the root questions.

First, it should be understood that AI was trained using existing art and creativity from people who did not give permission, whose work was essentially stolen, and whose ability to earn a living is going to be impacted by the rise of AI. Ethically and Morally, there is a lot of serious questions involved. The AI art could not exist if they had not used those materials, and most people have been using snags from google images and not crediting artists for years, so it doesn't "feel" like it is a wrong thing to most people.

Additionally, a lot of folks, such as myself, either do not have the talent or have not developed the skills and talents to create art -- this is no different than a lot of folks who love cultures dabbling in them while folks like I have made it our profession and learned a great deal. When you hire an artist, you are hiring them fo more than just "make a picture" -- yo are paying them for all the years of effort and learning and knowledge they have to achieve a certain end. The same thing you are doing when you hire a doctor or a mechanic. THey have knowledge and skills you do not, and you are paying for all of that, not merely the momentary act that brought you there.

Currently, AI art creations do not receive copyright protections. You cannot copyright an AI art product. This is very new (less than six weeks), and has a lot of folks reeling, but is still making its way through the courts.This is a big deal -- regardless of your thoughts on them, many digital currencies (crypto) have at their base an AI created art element, and the courts essentially just declared them worthless, costing people many thousands of dollars.

THis applies to both written work and visual work -- so an AI dungeon or story is just as not copyrighted as an AI image. THis is why actors and writers are on strike, and why more creative unions are getting together to oppose it, and also why a lot of art sites have blocked it while others have said sure.

Ok, there, I laid out the "issues". Now...

I have spent the last five years working on a new setting. Like AI, i used a bunch of art that I snagged of the internet to inspire and guide me along the way (around 1600 images). I do not have the artist name for any but a comparative few. I am not going to use them in any materials, and I shouldn't -- the artist isn't getting anything out of my posting their art ("exposure is not a gain), and I don't have permission to do so (license to do so).

But I do need art for the work. I need art to help me show others and to let them understand things that are not like other places. "MY elves are not like other elves" still doesn't mean that people will not imagine an elf with really long pointed ears and a super long life span and ethereal beauty blah blah blah.

I am also broke as all hell. I could try to do a kickstarter and other things, but those require a finished project, and I still need art now, and even then, I will want to have those images as a baseline to reduce the number of iterations (corrections, fixes, changes, whatever) to the art that I would get from an artist. But also?  This isn't for sale. This is stuff I am going to give out freely. Pouring more money into it is kinda iffy for me. I mean, I have a six foot wide poster of the primary continent map above my fireplace, That's kinda going overboard as it is.

Using AI effectively requires someone to understand the system they are working with, and how to create "prompts" for it. That takes skill -- not so much creativity in the sense of artistic endeavor, but definitely skill and knowledge. So the output will vary widely, even though that same output is based on existing work (and is why copyright matters here).

An art tool I have recently added in an AI feature for free. It did not cost me anything more to use it or to have it. So I played with it. A lot, lol. Like, way too much. But I have now a bunch of the images that I needed for my project -- not even close to all of the ones I needed, but a good chunk of them. Turns out the tool I have is not very good at monsters and anything that isn't bipedal, but meh.

So now I am at a crossroads. Do I use the art in my project?  For me -- and I stress, this is a decision I am only speaking about for me -- I chose to use the AI art in the project for now, and to use it on the website that accompanies the project, for now. As time, money, and need spurs me on, I will add in art that I commission, sometimes replacing the existing art. I do love Fivrr, lol.

I don't have the resources of a WotC or a Hasbro, so I cannot afford to commission artists like they do -- and my end results will never be as cool as what they have (because, really, they do have cool art). This is despite my knowing artists (including some that have worked for TSR and WotC) who could do it -- but I can't afford them and I don't ask people to work for free.

But I, as a single person, working mostly alone (alongside my huge group of friends who have playtested and suggested and are involved in the project), can now, because of AI art tools, have at least some of the unique imagery that is critical to this kind of effort. I can't copyright it, but that's ok. For my use, it is secondary or perhaps even tertiary -- still important, but only for certain reasons and not in the sense of the stuff I have done is dependent on it.

But also, it gives me the ability to create character portraits, for characters. I can do expression shots and cool poses and a big thing for me personally is that I can do landscapes and I am only a mediocre prompt engineer. at best. More practice, more knowledge, and I can likely do a lot more.

To the point where I may be tempted not to hire an artist down the road. Which is the reason it is such a big deal. 

I like 3/4 action shots with expression -- I don't need feet so much as I need something dynamic and interesting. I also need more landscapes and areas. And yes, Portrait shots are really nice to have when you are working with a character.

for me, AI makes it easier for online stuff because I can toss up an image of an NPC or a meadow or a room (if I really put effort in). I suspect that someone will make a D&D focused AI eventually to enable that -- and when they do it will likely be built into different VTT systems. Which I don't use -- I use Zoom and Teams, lol. but I am also an old lady and most folks are moving towards VTT systems unless like me they are running deeply customized games that make a VTT really hard to use.

There are concerns I have about AI art surrounding the inherent midline bias challenge that all things that take a bunch of stuff and blend it together have, and there are some major problems with the learning models and the way they were curated out having to do with things that stem from the real world and so get in the way of my fantasy efforts (like, most folks on my world have darker skin, and getting that tone right is really hard).

So, yes, I am using it. Yes, I am aware of its problems. Yes, I care. I really do hope that the courts keep the no copyright rule in place. I want the big media companies to not use it. Let it remain a pre-viz tool, an aid to folks like me, a way to iterate what I will eventually want an artist to make -- but may not need to, freeing up what little funds I have for the stuff that I do need them for.

And, being more than a bit cynical, I expect that most folks won't care at all about any of that -- they just want cool art for their stuff, and the morals and ethics of it will be skipped over or justified the same way I just did above.

But I don't want WotC to use it. I don't want to see it published works from them, or Paizo, or Kobold Press, or other companies -- it should be a tool for *us*, not them.