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The AI hypocrisy

steveh

steveh

Rune Priest
A nuanced article about what the ttrpg industry is saying about AI, and what they're actually doing.

hyperfictive.substack.com

The AI Hypocrisy

What the tabletop RPG industry is actually doing while saying it isn't
hyperfictive.substack.com hyperfictive.substack.com

TL;DR - game designers are using AI more than they like to admit publicly. (No surprise there, I think.)

The question I have is whether anti-AI sentiment is as prevalent in the general population as it appears to be among gamers. (Or at least, gamers that appear in my social media feeds.) I suspect not, but I have no idea.
 
It is a good read though I don’t really think it should be referenced as Shadow AI given there is an actual term used for it - . For relating to our hobby perhaps the behaviour should be something like ‘Sneak feet AI’ or, more articulate, Duplicity AI.

AI is gonna creep into the hobby - not a fan of it but the more we can keep the hobby analogue the better
 
I find the AI bubble deeply concerning for my own future and that of my family, and not always for the reasons that the survey/polling question when gauging public perception.

Hobby wise I have come to accept that some underpinning technologies will have been touched by AI generated code, but I no longer choose to buy any RPG products with AI generated art or writing. I have to accept on trust what I'm being told.

I prefer not to use AI art in my own games if I can manage. Instagram has become awash with slop, so the previously pleasurable activity of image hunting has become something of a chore.

I am not immune to using AI options, but I would rather not, and push back when I can.
 
I was absolutely lambasted by my daughter for using AI to generate some images for a home game. Not a published game, a private game. Her stance was pretty hardcore. If I want art, pay an artist. When I pointed out that the art would set me back over $2000 dollars at usual casual artist rates, she said 'Well, you can't afford it so go without.'

I'm not sure how to respond. I have curated a really cool Pinterest folder of images for my flavour of fantasy play (more Blades in the Dark than Lord of the Rings) and sadly, the content on Pinterest is so suffused with AI content and AI influenced content that I just don't have the spoons to resist anymore.

I also had a long conversation with my other daughters BF about this. He works in public sector IT and he makes a stark distinction between Gen AI (boo, hiss!) and 'automation' where AI is used to remove the tedium from certain tasks. We may see this in Teams transcription tools, or advanced spellchecking software already. Also the 'closed' AI usage of Notebook software is bound to have a positive use and neither of these 20-somethings had any qualms in using that.

I think its a far more complicated issue that the usual Good vs Evil struggle that we fall into, and in some areas the implentation is going at such a clap that avoiding it is increasingly difficult.
 
Neil Gow said:
I was absolutely lambasted by my daughter for using AI to generate some images for a home game. Not a published game, a private game. Her stance was pretty hardcore. If I want art, pay an artist. When I pointed out that the art would set me back over $2000 dollars at usual casual artist rates, she said 'Well, you can't afford it so go without.'
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Out of interest... how would she feel about you using photos of movie stars or stock images of landscapes... and not paying anyone for those? Because that's what we all did (and I still do) for home games long before AI art was A Thing.
 
Maddz said:
I used to clip pictures from magazines...
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I have a drawer full of postcards.
Hmm. Must have a look through that again and see if any are worth keeping...
 
Bollywood idols ;-)
 
I have a feeling that some of the more recently published RPG books I've been reading have been proofed using AI. The heavy use of Em dashes as punctuation points to that fact.
 
I'm less sure that em dashes are an AI indicator. About ten years ago we (Freeform Games) started changing our games to be more Americanized (spellings, adding periods after Dr. and Mr. and the like. And replacing our Bitish en dashes with more American em dashes.

So to me they mean US grammar (although depending on the style guide, of course - they are in the Chicago Manual), not necessarily AI..
 
d(sqrt(-1)) said:
Well also, presumably the potential artist wasn't going to get 2k off you either way...
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No, which is my point usually. It's a non-sale anyway. Even if the art was only $200 dollars, I wouldn't be buying it for a private game. Hell, even if it was $20 I'd have some thoughts about usefulness and value. Its one of those things thats a great add-on if free, but not lost if not free.


Stronty Girl said:
Out of interest... how would she feel about you using photos of movie stars or stock images of landscapes... and not paying anyone for those? Because that's what we all did (and I still do) for home games long before AI art was A Thing.
Click to expand...

And yes, this too. When AI art became a thing, I did raise an eyebrow at 'Photobash = Good, AI Art = Bad'

But then again, we have loads of little bits of hypocrisy and art in gaming. Famous artists can draw 'inspiration' from other art and are applauded, but amateur artists doing the same are called plagiarists.
 
steveh said:
I'm less sure that em dashes are an AI indicator. About ten years ago we (Freeform Games) started changing our games to be more Americanized (spellings, adding periods after Dr. and Mr. and the like. And replacing our Bitish en dashes with more American em dashes.

So to me they mean US grammar (although depending on the style guide, of course - they are in the Chicago Manual), not necessarily AI..
Click to expand...

Not when it's heavily overused. That's a fault I've seen with text produced by ChatGPT.
 
Nathan said:
Not when it's heavily overused. That's a fault I've seen with text produced by ChatGPT.
Click to expand...

As someone who has, over time, grown to use dashes as a means of punctuation - much to the annoyance of my proofreading daughter - AI and it's haters can ply my dashes from my cold dead hands...
 
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