AI Art Removed From Upcoming Terminator RPG Book

(this is not the art in question)​

AI rears its head yet again--this time it's an artist using Artificial Intelligence and then submitting it to Nightfall Games for its upcoming Terminator 2: Judgement Day sourcebook.

The artist in question initially claimed that the art was not generated by AI. Nightfall Games made a statement yesterday indicating that they had detected the AI art during the development phase of the product, and are already in the process of having it replaced for the book's release. The artist has not been named—but it’s probably not Skynet!

This is the second time AI art has hit the headlines, after WotC updated its AI art policy following false accusations by a YouTuber. It's clear that AI art is going to be a major topic in the months and years to come.

As I mentioned in my last update, we just need to do a few quick things over the weekend to finalise both T2 and RESIST. Jared who is our Indesign guru was working through the files when he noticed that one of the art pieces looked suspiciously AI-like. He pointed this out to Benn and Mark, who have led the production of the project. They both confirmed that the 'art-producer' had confirmed multiple times that he wasn't using AI art generators and instead was producing collages and then over painting and using Photoshop filters to make the art. Mark and Benn trusted this individual as both a long term collegue and friend.

The image was run through an AI art identifying program to discover a 99.9% match with the AI art generator 'Midjourney'. We then identified all other art produced by the individual to discover a 99.9% 'Midjourney' hit on 16 of them.

16x99.9% AI or a program that is 16x99.9% wrong?​

We hoped the identifier was wrong, but our art experts quickly noticed things the less experienced members of our team would never have know. Things like image resolution, go to AI filters etc.. We had been duped and paid out a significant amount of money in the duping.

But why does this matter?​

It matters because AI art is theft. It creates art from a massive, massive portfolio of art and images, that have been created by real people. It then splurges out poor mockeries of these arts without any consideration of the artists and can be done by any Tom, Dick or Hary.

We do not want to cheat artists (we are artists), we don't want to cheat you (our backers and customers). We are a small company, who focus on good and original art and pay well for it. We find this situation abhorrent, upsetting and depressing.

Purge or Die?​

A dilemma indeed. Although, as Data from Star Trek would say, we considered it for approximately 0.0002 milliseconds.

What we have done?​

We have great people in our team and Jared has sacrificed his long weekend to fix this. And he has. We need to get approval for the fixes from the IP owners but we will drive that now. Once given we will be back on track.

Watch this space...​

In the meantime, we as a company will be working with our external artists to ensure that all art is confirmed AI free and we will also be implementing a number of checks before payment is made and art is accepted.

 

[Gradine]

But is it probitive for people to.use tools to enhance their talent? Does that make it not art?

Gatekeepering art behind "craft and talent" is elitist nonsense. If it weren't, no digital photographer in the world would be an artist, or one who uses CNC machines or other technical aids. The only difference is that right now, people feel perfectly comfortable calling other people names because some techbro venture capitalists want to use the tool in a bad way.

Think of it this way: photoshop is a phenomenally useful tool that has allowed artists to create all kinds of things that simply weren't possible beforehand. It also let's propagandists damage democracy and let's the media and beauty industry harm people (mostly young women). Does that mean there are no legitimate artistic uses of Photoshop?

Another thing to consider I'd that AI can't do anything on its own. It requires human input and curating. Is there a metric buttload of low effort AI generated text and images? Of course there is. But that doesn't mean some people aren't using it for legitimate, interesting, innovative art right now.

You are comparing apples to oranges. Any tool can be used to create art when it is the human doing the creating. Something like a Photoshop tool or digital art app might be more sophisticated than a paintbrush or a chisel, but it is still being manually manipulated to translate conception into physical (or visual) art.

Typing a prompt to generate an image is not even remotely the same thing. Nothing in the image itself was put there by a human. Generative AI is not an artistic tool, it is a shortcut, dreamed up primarily by people who want to stop having to pay creatives and sold to people who've been convinced it's not worth it to put in the effort themselves. Which is absolutely a lie.

Let me put it this way. If I told my daughter to draw a picture of a dragon, and she draws it, do I get to say that I created that art? What if I gave her a really detailed prompt? Am I making art then? Thomas Kincaid, put your hand down. Obviously the answer is no. I'm not creating art at all. My daughter is, but she's also a human, utilizing imagination and craft. If I tell a program to make a picture of a dragon, it's going to follow its no doubt sophisticated algorithms to smash together visual elements into something that's as close as its programming can think of a dragon to be, and it will no doubt scan its databanks for visual elements to match every bit of detail I put into the prompt as possible. But it's not art.

 

[Reynard]

You are comparing apples to oranges. Any tool can be used to create art when it is the human doing the creating. Something like a Photoshop tool or digital art app might be more sophisticated than a paintbrush or a chisel, but it is still being manually manipulated to translate conception into physical (or visual) art.

Typing a prompt to generate an image is not even remotely the same thing. Nothing in the image itself was put there by a human. Generative AI is not an artistic tool, it is a shortcut, dreamed up primarily by people who want to stop having to pay creatives and sold to people who've been convinced it's not worth it to put in the effort themselves. Which is absolutely a lie.

Let me put it this way. If I told my daughter to draw a picture of a dragon, and she draws it, do I get to say that I created that art? What if I gave her a really detailed prompt? Am I making art then? Thomas Kincaid, put your hand down. Obviously the answer is no. I'm not creating art at all. My daughter is, but she's also a human, utilizing imagination and craft. If I tell a program to make a picture of a dragon, it's going to follow its no doubt sophisticated algorithms to smash together visual elements into something that's as close as its programming can think of a dragon to be, and it will no doubt scan its databanks for visual elements to match every bit of detail I put into the prompt as possible. But it's not art.

You are missing the point entirely by focusing on AI images. A human being developed the story and used an image generator-- taking not only time and effort, but actually curating to get the right thing -- to get the right images to tell that sequential art story. If that person isn't an artist, neither is the writer who hires an artist.

Frankly, the way people completely dismiss creatives who don't have a paintbrush in their hand is pretty gross.