I find it surprising how many people on this site seem to fervently appose ai, and I think many are overstating the harm ai can cause (in the near future). I think this would be a very helpful tool. I can think of many applications, such as making characters or stat blocks quickly, reviewing third party content such as classes, and finding actually good magical items to use in a campaign. I say go for it, but (like always in product development) be prepared for it to flop.
I am currently a member of a lawsuit involving specific AI tools for plagiarism and copyright violation, and that I will not be using the tool regardless as long as that lawsuit continues.
All the public domain models are based on scraped data. Most of them were derived from collegiate research efforts that developed the sets to establish the baselines -- and they licensed those models to the big companies (who then violated the terms of those agreements), and those are the foundations of what became the "black box" that none of the current versions of them use any longer (because of lawsuits and the theft/plagiarism thing). If you can identify all the training material sources to be able to provide compensation for all the creators, or can prove that all of the data has a license (and it is important to note that if you use anything not in Creative Commons, that includes any and all D&D materials) that explicitly permits use in LL/LI/LA models (because otherwise you are already competing with the IP owners), you might be able to effectively use this. But that's a tall order. It is also important to note that the product of generative systems is not copyrightable at this time, even if significantly altered by an artist using digital tools (because digital tools, including photoshop, are caught up in this). The biggest concern is that you want to train it on data about D&D -- and you almost certainly have not acquired permission from Hasbro to do this. If you scrape DDB, you violate the terms of your agreement, and holy heckfire the legal risk there is not one I even want to consider, lol.
Ok, that's that.
Now, I'm not against the use of generative AI tools for the production of materials. I have no problem using it as a supplement and a small part of a process; I like being able to do a really rough sketch in my kindergarten level ability, plop it into a tool, and get an output that is significantly more pleasing to my eye.
Being able to take a costume design and give it a bit of life, or a patched together composite image and make it more uniform is all very, very ideal.
I wouldn't use it to create anything I am already competent at -- so there's nothing in my 650 page lore book where the tables, text, concepts, and ideas are generated, but there are a few images that are and derive from sketches i did with that aforementioned lack of any real ability.
Using them with D&D, though, requires awareness of a specific purpose and goal.
1 - GAI tools operate on a most common denominator basis. As a result, anyone using them to generate things that are outside those common denominator aspects will have to put more effort into them in order to achieve a result, and the more effort needed, the less likely it is to be used for that purpose. Bluntly, the most simple example of this is that if you want a Black Woman Lesbian Warrior with a sword, it is going to require a whole lot more effort to generate one of those.
2 - D&D is a series of complex systems that require an incredible number of potential options and tons of freedom of choice -- and with 60% of all games happening outside any standard official setting, the number of potential options is going to be far larger than one can effectively predict or model for.
3 - To use it to improve character generation, you will have to find a way to enable and disable options without invoking their use in a prompt, or you'll need a prompts space of probably around 30,000 characters.
4 - You might be thinking of doing so for Adventures or Campaigns -- well, that's cool, but you'll have to be able to develop web, linear, tree, and other styles of approach in order to approximate it, and the system is almost always going to generate defined result scenarios. That is, it will railroad the hell out of people because it will always default to the least common denominator. That's not even paying attention tot he lack of broader term awareness -- you can ask it to generate a full campaign and it will do outlines of adventures, and then you can ask it for those adventures singly and it will break them down -- but it will note link them together or be able to hold onto a commonality or basis among all of them, even with a prompt to do so, because that's a cognitive function outside the scope of its ability set.
5 - It will not be able to generate genuinely usable original monsters, Classes, sub classes, Species, or similar, because it does not understand archetypes. That specific tool.
So, that's my thoughts.
Thank you for your thoughts and candor. But do not confuse the Model which is just software code, and the training data, they are two separate things. Big companies with armies of lawyers are not the same as one individual who isn't seeking to profit . And any data the someone makes a claim against is easily resolved as they come to light. So copyright issues are unlikely. As for the Intellectual Property of WOTC, that is covered under their Open Gaming License and I most certainly have contacted them about it. I don't need to scrape the DnD Beyond Website, nor do I have a desire to. I am well aware of the limitations of AI and don't expect this model to be a digital all knowing oracle for D&D. Anyone that expects that are kidding themselves. And I would expect any potential user if any to understand this.
‘note: in copyright law, big companies who seek to make a profit and a lone person who does not ARE the same thing. Profit is not the basis for damages, nor a consideration of motive.
the points I raised about the models and data were from the case.
however, since you referenced the OGL, that means you are using the current SRD, and if so, be aware that it is now out of date, and not useful for current 2024 stuff — which does not have any SRD and is excluded from your set.
lastly, the makers of deep fake software say the same thing about their expectations of users in relation to not using it for things like revenge **** and other nefarious things. It is not cover.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Others have put it far more eloquently than me but I just want to second the idea that this is a horrible idea that will directly harm the planet in order to create a glorified spreadsheet of plagarised material. The OP has said they're aware of the enviromental impact of AI and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to look at AI developers who know this and carry on anyway as anything other than evil. They also totally brushed over Wagnarokkr's point that based on their own words "the vast majority of training data isn't stolen" which means some of it is stolen. If they don't even understand their own words or their implications I can't see how they'll avoid building an AI with exactly the sort of built in prejudice Caerwyn mentions
I have begun development and training on a GPT model , built from scratch. With the ultimate goal of it becoming and aid to players and Dungeon Masters. When ready it will be released under the Open Gaming License. as DnD-GPT. It will be fully open source.
What do you all think?
Have you read Dune yet? Imagine building a thinking machine. Then, imagine rediscovering the value of human minds. In that series of books the rediscovery entailed extreme violence. I suggest people today have an opportunity to accomplish the same goal without the same consequence. We could just value human minds in the first place. I think your creative input would be better received at a table where you engage with the emotional labor to build a community and a shared imaginary world.
Heya folk, locking this one down now as folk have already made their opinions clear and folk are beginning to focus on other users, rather than points being made. I don't think we'll all get much value from keeping this open.
I find it surprising how many people on this site seem to fervently appose ai, and I think many are overstating the harm ai can cause (in the near future). I think this would be a very helpful tool. I can think of many applications, such as making characters or stat blocks quickly, reviewing third party content such as classes, and finding actually good magical items to use in a campaign. I say go for it, but (like always in product development) be prepared for it to flop.
‘note: in copyright law, big companies who seek to make a profit and a lone person who does not ARE the same thing. Profit is not the basis for damages, nor a consideration of motive.
the points I raised about the models and data were from the case.
however, since you referenced the OGL, that means you are using the current SRD, and if so, be aware that it is now out of date, and not useful for current 2024 stuff — which does not have any SRD and is excluded from your set.
lastly, the makers of deep fake software say the same thing about their expectations of users in relation to not using it for things like revenge **** and other nefarious things. It is not cover.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Others have put it far more eloquently than me but I just want to second the idea that this is a horrible idea that will directly harm the planet in order to create a glorified spreadsheet of plagarised material. The OP has said they're aware of the enviromental impact of AI and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to look at AI developers who know this and carry on anyway as anything other than evil. They also totally brushed over Wagnarokkr's point that based on their own words "the vast majority of training data isn't stolen" which means some of it is stolen. If they don't even understand their own words or their implications I can't see how they'll avoid building an AI with exactly the sort of built in prejudice Caerwyn mentions
Have you read Dune yet? Imagine building a thinking machine. Then, imagine rediscovering the value of human minds. In that series of books the rediscovery entailed extreme violence. I suggest people today have an opportunity to accomplish the same goal without the same consequence. We could just value human minds in the first place. I think your creative input would be better received at a table where you engage with the emotional labor to build a community and a shared imaginary world.
Heya folk, locking this one down now as folk have already made their opinions clear and folk are beginning to focus on other users, rather than points being made. I don't think we'll all get much value from keeping this open.
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