Publishers Who Use AI Art Are Scum
Publishers Who Use AI Art Are Scum
My open letter to Robin D. Laws
“However, I have found, and hope you will agree, that the narrow band [AI art] perfectly suits is a horror game about reality shifting, art history, and warped timelines.” -Robin D. Laws, Writer, Pelgrane Press
Robin,
If you haven’t heard enough about this yet, I’m here to provide you with more. I’m assuming that this registered as a “non-concern” for you, as the article is still up on Pelgrane Press’s website as of November 14th, 2023. Every designer, writer, or artist heard you slam the door shut behind yourself in this industry.
Because you are an accomplished individual in TTRPG, I find your decision to be all the more alarming and ego-centric. Forgotten is your past where you received an opportunity from someone to refine your craft. You have forgotten what it was to be a freelancer, a working person, and a decent human. You’ve completely ditched the pretense of ethics in favor of your own greed.
It’s already known in the industry amongst freelancers that Pelgrane Press’s pay is lower than basement fungi (read: substandard). Now this? Some publishers justify their low pay by expressing that they have to put forward money to “expensive IPs”, which I might understand. At least that’s an excuse and a bad one at that. You’ve abandoned all pretense.
In a way, I think that you’re brave. I’d even say that you’re a hero for corporate greed.
People like you make me sick.
signed,
Friday Strout
link:
https://pelgranepress.com/2023/03/07/legions-of-carcosa-ai-art/
In the interest of further dialog and clarification - I am not a troll, just trying to understand the issue more succinctly. What exactly is the problem with AI art? I ask this question because I see two (actually three issues) and I'm trying to clarify.
1) Is the issue with the manner in which the art was sourced? Because that was a clear violation and certainly worthy of scorn. At least the next generation of tools seem to be accounting for opt-in/opt-out technology (as far as I've heard)
2) Is the issue with the technology replacing traditional toolsets? I'm less inclined to support that because I've seen time again where technology has replaced the previous generation... Photoshop replaced painting, Computer Animation replaced hand drawn cell animation, computer colorists changed the comic book industry and even drum machines replacing drummers in music)
3) And what about this issue, that I don't hear many people discussing. Artist X trains an AI on all the artwork from past WotC publications, then uses that AI to generate artwork for a new WotC project (I know WotC is a bad example because of their new AI rules). Finally X redoes the work by hand (probably as a new layer in Photoshop). This scenario does two things, Increases likelihood of X's work being accepted because its based on past success, AND cuts down on preliminary sketch development time because the AI is doing all that work. For a while now, I've been seeing this as the most low-key issue because of unfair advantages between AI-savvy artists and non-savvy artists.
If you've read this far, thanks
Somewhere out there I can hear DM Dave screaming after reading that title.