Hey there, and welcome back to your seat at the Epic Table! Our post two weeks ago about OneBookShelf’s response to AI was met with good response, so I’m happy to report that there have been more developments on the “AI in gaming” front. Two more pillars of the industry have taken strong stances on AI, which when combined with OBS’s should lead to significant change in how AI is viewed on the production side.
Real Work Gets A Kickstart
First, Kickstarter announced earlier this week that they will be placing new restrictions on Kickstarter projects containing AI content or related to AI generation. According to the announcement, the following restrictions are going into effect as of August 29th:
- To be allowed on Kickstarter, projects utilizing AI tools for generating images, text, or any other output must disclose relevant details on their project page. This includes information about how the creator plans to use AI content in their project, as well as which elements of their project will be wholly original work and which elements will be created using AI outputs.
- Projects developing AI technology, tools, or software must disclose information about any databases and data the creator intends to use. The creator must also indicate how these sources handle consent and credit for the data they utilize. If the sources don’t have processes or safeguards in place to manage consent, such as through an opt-out or opt-in mechanism, then Kickstarter is unlikely to allow the project.
If any use of AI is not disclosed properly during the submission process, the project may be suspended. Attempts to skirt our guidelines or intentionally misrepresent a project will result in restrictions from submitting a Kickstarter project in the future.
The apparent enforcement mechanism is a new questionnaire included in the submission process. A user submitting a project will now be specifically asked if the project contains AI-generated content or is an AI program itself. These answers will then be prominently displayed on a “Use of AI” section on the project page, which will be easily available for those considering pledges to review. You can see mockups of both the questionnaire and the Use of AI section on the announcement page.
This represents a crucial change for the RPG community when considering just how much of our hobby now flows through Kickstarter. Even major projects such as Avatar Legends are getting their start there, and Kickstarter ensuring that all AI content is clearly labeled means that we as consumers will definitely know whether or not our products are being written and illustrated by actual human beings. On the other hand, Kickstarter isn’t banning anything outright—meaning that in some sense it’s just passing the buck along to the individual gamer. That’s kind of a spineless take when you get down to it.
A stronger take was issued a few days later by Wizards of the Coast. That was in response to the situation that has unfolded with artist Ilya Shkipin.
Il Y A Une IA (This Header Is Hilarious If You Speak French)
Ilya Shkipin, according to Wizards, has been working with them since 2014; his RPGGeek page lists credits on the 5th Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide, Monster Manual, Starter Set (according to the credits, he did art for the Lost Mines of Phandelver booklet), and Monsters of the Monsters of the Multiverse.
He also uses AI in his process.
A few days ago, a preview for Wizards’ upcoming 5E book Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants went live on D&D Beyond. Reddit immediately noticed that the art for the frostmourn on that page looked… well, wonky, in that “AI generated” sort of way we’ve all come to know and love. Arguments broke out, as they are wont to do on Reddit. Reddit user capsandnumbers messaged Ilya, the artist behind the piece, and according to his later post got the following reply:
Ai had been used in the process for some details, combined with a lot of editing and painting. Some details been enhanced with AI. I want to also note that at the time it was created AI had been way less developed than currently and it took a lot of work, editing, painting. I have literal process stages for the art, but honestly making something with good with AI art the time was harder than simply painting.
This aligns with a statement the artist later posted on his own Twitter (which I categorically refuse to call X, that’s stupid), which has since been deleted but can be found in a number of articles about this whole mess:
There is recent controversy on whether these illustrations I made were ai generated. AI was used in the process to generate certain details or polish and editing. To shine some light on the process I’m attaching earlier versions of the illustrations before ai had been applied to enhance details. As you can see a lot of painted elements were enhanced with ai rather than generated from ground up.
So basically, according to Ilya he did the basic painting and then filled the texture and/or details in with AI. (This doesn’t seem to line up with the process he describes in a December interview with AI Art Weekly that ENWorld found, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.) To some, this might sound better than him generating the AI art from scratch. Unfortunately for them, Wizards of the Coast doesn’t seem to view it the same way.
Wizards’ Reaction
On Saturday night, Wizards posted a statement via the D&D Beyond Twitter:
Today we became aware that an artist used AI to create artwork for the upcoming book, Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants. We have worked with this artist since 2014 and he’s put years of work into book we all love. While we weren’t aware of the artist’s choice to use AI in the creation process for these commissioned pieces, we have discussed with him, and he will not use AI for Wizards’ work moving forward. We are revising our process and updating our artist guidelines to make clear that artists must refrain from using AI art generation as part of their art creation process for developing D&D art.
Which sounds great and exactly like what we want them to be doing! Except for the fact that they’ve said this was already the case. This is a question and answer from ENWorld’s transcript of the Creator Summit Wizards held back in April:
I’d like to address the advent of AI. Do you know the current stance of AI inside of WotC
AI is completely incompatible with our process. We work with people. We can’t speak for other people but as far as Wizards is concerned, we work with people. Machine learning tools can raise the floor but not the ceiling and we’re about the raising the ceiling.
So in other words, Wizards was already supposed to be watching for this and preventing it. Which… is not a great look, considering their recent history of editorial and artistic screw-ups. Even so, it’s great to have them come out and say again that they’re opposed to it. With Wizards, Kickstarter, and OneBookShelf all aligned against AI-generated content, it looks as though the future of the industry is in human-produced works.
The contents of this post are © 2024 H. Tucker Cobey. All rights reserved.
