Here’s the Gizmodo article by Lin Codega that lit the fuse on this controversy: https://gizmodo.com/dnd-ai-art-bigbys-giants-book-artist-generators-wotc-1850710496

The latest scandal to rock the Dungeons & Dragons Community is the use of AI art in the new Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants. Some had speculated over the reluctance of WotC to take a stand against AI art on the Dungeon Master’s Guild. We also knew Hasbro has begun implementing the use of AI with boardgames after an agreement with Xplored detailed better here.

Is it only a matter of time before we see AI Dungeon Masters on D&D Beyond? If WotC/Hasbro is willing to let AI art slide, how can we, as fans, trust them not to implement AI writers and AI DMs? The other question might be can anything be done to prevent it?

Sure, WotC denies they knew the “artist” was using AI artwork.

Okay, let’s be real here- The editors that work for WotC, probably some of the best paid, most experienced editors in the TTRPG business. They work for the largest company in the TTRPG business. How in the actual heck did someone not think, “Oh, it’s 2023. Maybe we should check to see if anyone is using AI art.”

It’s been on the lips of everyone in the TTRPG industry since January. Some indie DMsGuild content creators began using AI artwork and even AI writing to do some/all of the work for them. This raised a real stir with then Twitter users and others in the D&D/TTRPG communities.

The artist, Ilya Shkipin, has been with WotC since 2014, regularly uses AI to enhance his work, and operates his own NFT marketplace. But WotC still swears they didn’t know anything about it. The frost giant has six fingers on one hand. Seems normal enough, right? It went right by editors, art directors, and others trained to notice oddities.

Legal vs Ethical.

Is it legal? Vaguely. Most Artificial Intelligences crawl through the internet taking bits and pieces of art from all over to create an amalgam of pictures from a variety of other art pieces to create something based on a keyword or keywords. Do they ask permission from the original artists? Nope.

Is it ethical? Probably not. Think about what AI writers could do for academics at this point. Need a 20 page term paper due tomorrow. No sweat. I plug it into an AI and *POOF!* It’s done. Add a few personal touches to make it look like I did something, maybe throw a few footnotes at the bottom to look less sus.

In the strictest sense we’re talking about the dreaded plagiarism. In academic circles it’s certain doom. Out in the rest of the world it’s sketchy on a good day. Don’t do it. That’s the message we’ve had drilled into our human heads since elementary school when we were caught looking off of another child’s paper.

Copy off of someone else’s work in the TTRPG industry where people don’t check a search engine for similar works before they buy a product. There could literally be hundreds of AI driven dungeons, sourcebooks, zines, and blogs out there right now using AI created content.

Would a large corporation such as Wizards of the Coast take advantage of AI to cut costs? Would it cut production times and increase productivity? We have already seen multiple instances in 2023 where they clearly have no regard for the fans. I think they don’t give us enough credit for being intelligent human beings instead of walking dollar signs. I doubt it even crossed their minds not to use AI until they got called out on it by comicbook.com and Gizmodo among others. At least it was the art and not the text of the book (as far as anyone knows) this time.

It’s tempting if all you want to do is turn a fast profit.

Full disclosure time: This website takes advantage of art from Pexels, Openverse, and good old Bitmoji. I very rarely put one of my hand drawn pieces up and I take photos about half the time when I do reviews when I can screenshot a PDF just as easily. I leave the Pexels and Openverse credits on anything I use from them. My Bitmoji are pretty obvious that’s where they came from.

When it come to writing, though? AI does not technically “create” original works. As my experiment earlier this year proved, AI basically creates a word salad out of whatever it finds to match keywords and style. I would never in my right mind dream of doing something so slimy to my audience. EVER. Mark my words. Derpy as I might sound sometimes, there’s no AI in play here on this blog. (*It…it’s all written by me. For better or worse.)

When I was writing Crawler’s Armory for Shadowdark, I drew some pieces by hand that didn’t make the final draft. In fact, the entire product was pretty much all text. Why? Because I don’t like using stock art or any art that I didn’t pay for in a product I intend to sell. That’s just how I personally do things. It’s how I’ve been trained. Because I want to do the right thing.

Since late 2022 the message in the TTRPG industry has been pretty clear: Don’t do it.

If one wants to sell a TTRPG or similar work, it is ill advised to include any AI written content. But what about art? Yes, once a contract is signed and a piece is sold, theoretically the owner can do anything they want to it. (Same goes for written material.) But is it ethical? Is it okay to sell something that has been from scratch by an AI and pass it off as an “original” work?

By and large, the answer seems to be: DON’T sell products with AI art or writing. While there was no clear policy from OneBookShelf until recently, people had been doing it on DrivethuRPG.com and the DMsGuild.com websites. Now OBS has mandated disclosure of AI assets used in the creation of products on their sites. (Link to that Gizmodo article here.)

Where this will lead in terms of Wizards of the Coast and DMsGuild seems pretty clear to me, but we’ll get into the more controversial takes in Part 2 of this article. I’d also like to discuss my own take on whether or not I would use AI art. Lastly, we’ll talk about WotC and their editors, a subject that seems to be sorely lacking in coverage as of this post.

Thank you for stopping by. May your day be merciful. I appreciate you.