Yeah let’s have AI make art, play our games, hell let’s have it fuck for us!
Let’s keep all the really fun stuff to ourselves, like cleaning shit.
The stuff generated by these things is always so generic anyway, like it seems superficially different because it’s inhuman but it’s all different in the same way.
You never get the cool stuff like the trolls that you’re fighting actually being anarcho-syndicalists struggling to raise protection money to pay off an evil wizard because someone was put on the spot while in a silly mood and started riffing.
Yeah, that’s sad. I don’t let AI touch my RPG sessions. As a DM, the imperfections and winging it are part of the fun.
Fully aggree TTRPGs are fun because of the friction that imperfect crafts produce
I once asked an LLM for suggestions about a character detail I was struggling with (a religious experience that led to joining a priory). The best thing I can say is that reading a bunch of completely terrible ideas made something much better spring to mind. Definitely not worth it.
I also played a game at a con once that used awful AI images as character portraits and scene setting. I don’t know that the plot was written by AI, but it literally ended with most of it being a dream/hallucination. Barf.
Ah, it pulled a Christopher Nolan!
How terrible am I if I use free AI image generators to make character portraits for use in VTT’s? It’s better than stealing human-generated artwork off the internet, right? It still feels cringe, though. :(
No, its worse.
When you steal human created art off the internet you aren’t actively harming the environment. You arguably dont even harm the artist because you would never pay them anyway.
When you use an ai image generator, you are actively harming the environment, and actively harming artists by supporting tools that are trained on their art without consent.
Just use the human art, or something like picrew where people make things specifically for folks to use to make their characters for stuff like vtt
I find the environmental argument is always a weak one to make, though. CO2 emissions for non-AI datacenters peaks currently around 210 million tons, with AI datacenters peaking currently around 100 million tons.
So why is more pollution from subject A acceptable, but less from subject B isn’t? I’ve seen people say because A gives “something of worth”, but then that just undermines the whole point of being harmful to the environment. Destruction of the environment is kinda an absolute in that instance, the source shouldn’t be the deciding factor in whether or not we accept it.
The same for the water usage thing (which was debunked). AI datacenters use 68 billions gallons annually (at least by 2028 projected). People are upset about that, but not about the 26 trillion gallons that US agriculture uses. All because “something of worth”, but if it’s that big of a deal why are people focusing on less than 1% of the total consumption? How is that 1% needing protected but the remaining 99% totally disposable?
I find the electric usage one to be strong. If you have a lot of data centers near, your electric will go up.
Similarly, if you have a data center near you, your water bill will go up, and your well may dry up.
Data centers are demanding incentives from governments across the country with promises of lots of jobs, but they just need the people to supplement their low usage of utilities.
That is a valid point, I think. That isn’t “but what about the environment” but only when convenient. That is local pricing issue which has a very direct and very trackable impact.
If a datacenter opens next door to you, the utility consumption goes up meaning your bill goes up. Unless the datacenter operators are somehow offsetting that increase financially (and that the money is actually be allocated by the city for that purpose), then there is the real impact of datacenters.
I contain multitudes. I can protest the mass growth of datacentres for other industries as well as for AI.
I hadn’t mentioned water usage, but since you bring it up, AI datacentres are being plopped down willy nilly and sucking up all the water from their local area, causing drought. Thats one stark difference between it and agriculture, which isn’t having the same kind of local effect.
However, the US (and other) agriculture+ industry (again, I contain multitudes) doesn’t get a pass. Estimates vary, but it looks like about 30-50% of US agriculture water usage goes to feed which is destined for livestock for the meat industry. I’d say that a person can be both against AI and an outspoken vegan against the meat industry, wouldn’t you?
AI datacenters do not cause drought. There is no evidence to support that claim. And if you think you do have evidence, I would love to see the source.
And you totally can contain multitudes. People should be like that. But they in practice aren’t. They follow what is trending. For example, if you look through your comment history how many comments will be pertaining to the US meat industry? How many to datacenters?
I would argue that you care a great deal more about one than the other. Which, going back to my original point, why is that 1% more important than the remaining 99% (or specifically the 50% that you care so much about)?
Before AI, people had been advocating against the meat industry, and had pushed for reduced water usage in agriculture and homes, which led to stricter rules against lawns in drought-prone areas. It being drowned out by the advocacy against AI doesn’t mean those voices disappeared, just that there are louder voices now.
I do enjoy the classic “they’re doing bad so I can too” fallacy, though.
“they’re doing bad so I can too”
I don’t think you understand that the “so I can” part implies you. By virtue of even posting, YOU are pushing datacenter demand. These comments don’t just live in the ether. The whole point is you are cherry picking what you are upset about based on what is trending (as you even mentioned). The point being you are MORE upset about the lesser evil, not that one is justified evil and the other isn’t.
If you enjoy the Two Wrongs Make Right fallacy, then I think you’ll love the Special Pleading fallacy.
By virtue of even posting, YOU are pushing datacenter demand. These comments don’t just live in the ether.
I write software for a living. There’s an enormous difference between a text-based service that functionally runs as a primitive CRUD and a compute-heavy service like LLM inferencing. The latter runs on servers that individually consume multiple kilowatts while the former can run on a raspberry pi but gains efficiency by sharing a server that consumes maybe 1kW with dozens of other people. Heck, Lemmy doesn’t even need to do video transcoding like all the toxic social media sites do.
The point being you are MORE upset about the lesser evil, not that one is justified evil and the other isn’t.
No, people are upset about all the evils. Being more or less upset about one or the other is irrelevant. You’re just choosing to cherry pick one thing that everyone who’s upset should ignore.
I’m confused, it seems we agree with eachother - did you mean to reply to the person I replied to, or were you just adding on to my point? :D
Just adding to your comment lol.
I’m hesitant to jump in here, seeing how far off the rails this went, but AI Data Centers have a plethora of problems. Potable water depletion (The Dalles, OR, USA), Exhaust (Boxtown near Memphis, TN, USA), Noise and lowering water tables (Sydney, Australia). The issues they present over “old school” data centers are amplified because of the speed they arise in communities, resources they use, and power (as in influence) disparities that are part of the package.
They are being built rapidly, with little oversight or research, and suck up enormous resources that “old school” data centers did not. Toss in the ethical concerns as wide ranging as stealing art styles to destroying books; to be normative, that tends to piss people off.
To get us back on rails, all of that contributes to me using theater of the mind rather than Gemini to draw me a portrait for goblin Yipyip in my campaigns.
I completely agree.
Also you could write down the artist’s name and that way there’s at least the possibility that someone might commission them or purchase art if they like the style.
Absolutely
Have you tried things like Heroforge? It’s pretty good overall, I just make my mini then take a screenshot for the character portrait.
This is actually a really great idea. At least until HeroForge figures out how many people are doing it, and then puts behind a paywall. ;)
I don’t think it’s hurtful for them. It doesn’t interfere with their business model, and I feel makes people more likely to turn to them in the case they want a mini printed for a home game.
I think that’s a logical way of looking at it.
I have done it. you quickly get something with the exact features you want. its one of its better uses. If I had the money and a long going campaign going I would have an artist do it up right though.
I will never, ever make enough money to be able to pay an artist to do custom character portraits for me every time I need one.
yeah and that is the case for 99% of gamers. using the llm is vs just finding something rando or whatever and folks want it to look like they want it.
Gen x and millennials are the leading buyers and target audience for any commercial success. You gotta convince them. Good luck. You’re up against white bearded guys who work in IT and are “apolitical” and their 401ks are invested in data centers and they use ai at work. they loved elon when he did the nazi salute twice but hated him when he it was popular after trump got elected and he ran doge for a bit. They love tesla and space x.
its either cater to them or it’s a cult of personality because gen z and younger are still impressionable. so be famous with some kind of preexisting following or cater to gen x white dudes. That’s ttrpgs right now. D&D. Daggerheart. Shadowdark. MCDM. Deathbringer. etc etc