WotC WotC: 'Artists Must Refrain From Using AI Art Generation'

After it was revealed this week that one of the artists for Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants used artificial intelligence as part of their process when creating some of the book's images, Wizards of the Coast has made a short statement via the D&D Beyond Twitter (X?) account.

The statement is in image format, so I've transcribed it below.

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.

-Wizards of the Coast​

Ilya Shkipin, the artist in question, talked about AI's part in his process during the week, but has since deleted those posts.

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.

-Ilya Shlipin​

​

 

[reemul]

AI art is fine for planning layout and something to hand to your artists to show what you are looking for, but it no replacement for those artists. Not even if the AI gets better and learns how to draw realistic eyes, hands, and feet. If you can afford the color ink, you can afford to hire a damn artist.

(With, maybe, the possible exception of art for a near future / cyberpunk game where a specific (and rare) image is supposed to be from an AI, and the quirky artifacts are desirable. But that should be limited to a single supplement and/or less than a cumulative 10 pieces over the life of the edition. And the remaining art should be lavish, a guaranteed Ennie nominee. If you’re so concerned about the setting lore and verisimilitude to use an AI generated image because it represents an image that was, in game, generated by an AI, then the rest of the book should be fabulously illustrated, a conscious choice thoughtfully considered and not because you’re effing cheap.)

 

[wicked cool]

I’m confused n why this is bad? This seems to be a tool . Is the art good?

 

[Retreater]

A kneejerk reaction against a bad publicity buzzword. This artist created the drawings and used AI as a tool - which as far as I can tell - did not steal from other artists. They used machine learning to improve their art, in the same way a writer might use a spellchecker.

 

[FoolishFrost]

It’s bad, because it’s the current hated buzzword. Just the term Ai creates controversy, and wotc is risk adverse.

I“m not saying if it was used in a bad way, just what i believe was the corporate motivation for preventing its use.

 

[FoolishFrost]

A kneejerk reaction against a bad publicity buzzword. This artist created the drawings and used AI as a tool - which as far as I can tell - did not steal from other artists. They used machine learning to improve their art, in the same way a writer might use a spellchecker.

JINX! You owe me a soda.

 

[R_J_K75]

Good luck with that WotC. Seems they would not have known that the art was AI enhanced if it wasn't brought to their attention, so where's the problem? This just makes them look bad....err even worse.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

AI art is fine for planning layout and something to hand to your artists to show what you are looking for, but it no replacement for those artists. Not even if the AI gets better and learns how to draw realistic eyes, hands, and feet. If you can afford the color ink, you can afford to hire a damn artist.

(With, maybe, the possible exception of art for a near future / cyberpunk game where a specific (and rare) image is supposed to be from an AI, and the quirky artifacts are desirable. But that should be limited to a single supplement and/or less than a cumulative 10 pieces over the life of the edition. And the remaining art should be lavish, a guaranteed Ennie nominee. If you’re so concerned about the setting lore and verisimilitude to use an AI generated image because it represents an image that was, in game, generated by an AI, then the rest of the book should be fabulously illustrated, a conscious choice thoughtfully considered and not because you’re effing cheap.)

They did hire an artist - and that artist used AI.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I’m confused n why this is bad? This seems to be a tool . Is the art good?

There are several reasons AI art can be bad. However most of the reasons do not apply in this case.

 

[EthanSental]

2 AI cases for bigby’s from the other thread. One artist drew his art and used AI to tweak it. In the other case, the concept artist submitted dinos for then a secondary artist is using that as a guide for their art…but one of those artist it’s just used AI on the concept artists original art instead of creating something new.