=][= INTERIM GUIDANCE: AI/LLM GENERATED CONTENT =][=

[HeadlessCross]

6 hours ago, Grotsmasha said:

 

Sure, plenty of slop. BUT, I've also heard some proper bang'in AI tunes too, one of my current top 10 listens is a genre-swap.

 

I'm not going to take anyone seriously that would unironically defend Skars songs being on every meme on Instagram. 

2 hours ago, Lord_Ikka said:

I've done that before. Is it worth it to attempt to track down an artist for permission to use a piece of art on a personal blog that less than a thousand people will see or care about? Maybe, maybe not. Some artists are cool with it, others don't want anyone using their art for anything other than what they created it for (not complaining, it is their talent that created the product and they're totally able to approve/disapprove usage). 

If they don't want you to use their art, you don't get to use it, simple as that. Yet the AI you're using doesn't even ask for that permission, yet you let it do that anyway. 

[Joe]

The other issue with permitting this is that the staff have genuinely thrown the doors open to art theft within the forum; there's genuinely nothing stopping a user poaching another users models, line art, etc and running it through software to achieve a result they desire then re-uploading that on Bolter and Chainsword. It's an appallingly bad decision.

 

Like, come on. The broader mood has never been in support of AI / LLMs in creative-based communities outside of contrarians. What on earth were the team thinking?

[Redboot Giddyman]

2 hours ago, phandaal said:

 

Yeah, I am neutral-to-positive on it myself. To me, it looks like a tool, and like any tool the quality of the final product depends on the user.

 

And on that, I would not be influenced by someone telling me it is all bad for whatever reasons, because I have already seen those arguments elsewhere and they were not persuasive to me at that time either. So it makes sense for people to feel strongly about the opposite viewpoint as well.

 

This is one of those things where most people have already made up their minds, and opinions might only change (in either direction) through direct experience rather than just talking about it.

Me personally, my philosophy is this: if I have to pay for it, I don't want AI involved. But for content shared freely on a website like this, I am more accepting. I still prefer things done entirely by humans (obviously), but I am more accepting of AI-generated content if it is freely available and I am not expected to spend money on it. But if I have to pay for it, or if I expect other people to spend good money on it, then I definitely don't want to see AI doing it. That's where I'm at anyway. 

 

2 hours ago, Antarius said:

On the one hand, do whatever you want. If there’s enough of your own work in there to make it unrecognisable as AI, noone will notice anyway. Sort of like how noone will actually care whether you use AI or a colour wheel and/or basic colour theory for selecting your palette (but you will, of course, eventually become a better painter by doing the latter).

 

otoh, at that point, I think it’d likely be more work using AI. Sort of like how some students will jump through a lot of hoops to cheat instead of taking the actually easier route and just doing the assignment.

 

Thank you for your reply. I think that is a fair answer. :)

[Sergeant Centurion]

Use AI tech, its a message of no effort in the creation of a content, so i pass to invest time on it.

[Redboot Giddyman]

2 hours ago, ThaneOfTas said:

If you couldn't be bothered to write it yourself, why would I want to read it?

 

 

What about, say, a story that is mostly the writer's own work, but the "first draft" was AI generated based on prompts? By this I mean that the person put prompts based on their ideas in an AI, it produced writing, and then they went and edited / added their own content to make it more uniquely theirs? I don't think I'd want to see someone just do a "copy and paste" job of AI-generated text, but what about a story that is, say, mostly the writer's own but includes some AI generated text left over from the initial prompt generation? Assuming the author is transparent, what would the thought be on that? I ask because that seems to be something that hasn't really been considered yet. Most folks here seem to be thinking of "pure" AI content: art, writing, etc. that is made entirely with AI. But what about something where AI is the "starting point" and then a human takes it from there?

 

What I am describing entails writing it oneself, at least to a degree. Not 100% admittedly, but not just a copy and paste job either. If your mindset is that it must be 100% made by a human with no AI assistance, that's fine, but I think it's a little disingenuous to describe it as you did when what I was asking about was a person doing their own writing, but with some amount of AI generated text included. Not just a text that is all or mostly AI generated. Personally, I think there's a difference between those two things, even if we ultimately consider both things to be unacceptable. 

[Kyari]

16 minutes ago, Redboot Giddyman said:

 

 

What about, say, a story that is mostly the writer's own work, but the "first draft" was AI generated based on prompts? By this I mean that the person put prompts based on their ideas in an AI, it produced writing, and then they went and edited / added their own content to make it more uniquely theirs? I don't think I'd want to see someone just do a "copy and paste" job of AI-generated text, but what about a story that is, say, mostly the writer's own but includes some AI generated text left over from the initial prompt generation? Assuming the author is transparent, what would the thought be on that? 

 

My thought on that would be that the "author" is creatively bankrupt and they edited a bunch of content and ideas stolen from other creatives without their permission in an act of self gratification rather than indulge in a creative endeavour.  

Edited yesterday at 02:39 PM by Kyari

[Lay]

This a social and creativity driven hobby. There's a cost for AI usage in this space. Every prompt you make is one less attempt at being creative or reaching out to others for help. If we turn to AI just because we hit the limits of our abilities, where does that leave us?

 

Not to dunk on any single person using AI though. It's a bit like fast food. It's quick and convenient and it's fine in moderation, but it won't be healthy for the hobby as a whole if it becomes too common.

[phandaal]

4 minutes ago, Kyari said:

 

My thought on that would be that the "author" is creatively bankrupt and they edited a bunch of content and ideas stolen from other creatives without their permission in an act of self gratification rather than indulge in a creative endeavour.  

 

You are free to not like it, but framing it this way catches anything people post as fanfic. Unless people are being very careful to not mimic anything they remember from ADB, or Dan Abnett, or Mike Brooks, anything they read online, any characters or locations developed by a codex author, and on, and on and on...

 

Just to be blunt (and I include myself in this) almost everyone on this forum would be laughed out of any writing or painting review if we shared our stuff in a serious way. What we do is paint-by-numbers for adults. So by all means, dislike the end product, but don't be sanctimonious about it.

[Lay]

7 minutes ago, phandaal said:

 

You are free to not like it, but framing it this way catches anything people post as fanfic. Unless people are being very careful to not mimic anything they remember from ADB, or Dan Abnett, or Mike Brooks, anything they read online, any characters or locations developed by a codex author, and on, and on and on...

 

Just to be blunt (and I include myself in this) almost everyone on this forum would be laughed out of any writing or painting review if we shared our stuff in a serious way. What we do is paint-by-numbers for adults. So by all means, dislike the end product, but don't be sanctimonious about it.

 

I have to disagree here. Writing, painting. like really all other forms art, can be measured in terms of skill and expression. A toddler making a drawing of his teddy bear isn't much in terms of skill, but we can at least understand the earnest expression of feelings behind it. That why we don't turn up our noses at goofy little crayon drawings.

So, likewise, an amateur writer who channels his inner Abnett is valid, artistically speaking, because, while derivative, it is derivative because the writer (presumably) has a genuine appreciation for Abnett's work. The fact that it reads like a poor attempt at Abnett tells us something about the fanfic author at least. It ain't high art, it's flawed, but it still counts as a form of artistic expression.

 

AI deserves no such credit. At best it's the equivalent of commissioning a highly skilled artist, who has no interests or preferences of their own. It doesn't create so much as it permutates. How much credit can we give someone who pays for an art commission? How much less credit to someone who commissions a digital automaton? Here's props for being an ideas guy I guess.

[Exarch Telepse-Ehto]

26 minutes ago, phandaal said:

 

You are free to not like it, but framing it this way catches anything people post as fanfic. Unless people are being very careful to not mimic anything they remember from ADB, or Dan Abnett, or Mike Brooks, anything they read online, any characters or locations developed by a codex author, and on, and on and on...

 

Just to be blunt (and I include myself in this) almost everyone on this forum would be laughed out of any writing or painting review if we shared our stuff in a serious way. What we do is paint-by-numbers for adults. So by all means, dislike the end product, but don't be sanctimonious about it.

 

I don't think it serves the argument to conflate fanfiction with AI-content. A lot of writing is inspired by or transformed by an artist. Are we saying that Dante's Inferno or Paradise Lost or Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead are the equivalent of a LLM's response to a prompt? I don't think that they are and I doubt anyone else would either. Those works are considered by many as masterpieces even though much of their content is derived from the work of another author or authors. The primary difference being, of course, that they were created by people, not an algorithm that is unscrupulously "scraping" the internet and using pattern recognition to string together series of words that sound like sentences. Art is made by people not machines. People may use machines to make art but they largely make the choices for that art. Where to add color. Where to end a line. Where to place the camera for this shot. LLMs do that for the person using them. Often by taking the work of other artists that they've "scraped." Without credit. That's the big thing. The LLMs are stealing. And not well. 

 

I also think that characterization of artists sneering down at people who paint miniatures or write fanfiction is a poor one and is often used by those who aren't artists or creatives. It frames art as this gatekept realm where only the truly grand are celebrated. But any artists can appreciate the scribbles of a child. Are there jerks? Yeah. But there are jerks everywhere and they're never the majority. 

 

The thing about art, as I detailed in the long-ish ramble above, is that everybody starts from the same point. People have put a lot of time and effort into their craft and so are farther along in it than you. But if you want to be a painter, or a writer, or a musician, or a woodworker, all you have to do is start. Paint, make music, write, whatever. Letting something else do the work for you just cheapens your experience and the art as well. 

[HeadlessCross]

53 minutes ago, phandaal said:

Just to be blunt (and I include myself in this) almost everyone on this forum would be laughed out of any writing or painting review if we shared our stuff in a serious way. 

That's because fanfics are bad. There's people out there that like it though, and you'd be laughed at more if you used AI because you were too lazy to do your own rough draft. 

[Teetengee]

If I had my druthers, anyone who intentionally used any genAI/LLM in any way would be banned, zero tolerance, and any unintentional use would be removed with a warning.

Since that seems to not be the route this is heading, I'd like to see as much of the following as possible:
1. extremely harsh penalties for intentionally feeding anything posted in the forum into AI, even indirectly. ("How do I respond to..." or photo editing style prompts, mostly)
2. a tagging system for every genAI/LLM involved piece of content that tags at the top, so I can safely ignore it
3. a system to autoblock all genAI/LLM tagged content
4. a system to autoblock all users who have posted any genAI/LLM tagged content, even their non-tagged content.

[phandaal]

52 minutes ago, Lay said:

 

I have to disagree here. Writing, painting. like really all other forms art, can be measured in terms of skill and expression. A toddler making a drawing of his teddy bear isn't much in terms of skill, but we can at least understand the earnest expression of feelings behind it. That why we don't turn up our noses at goofy little crayon drawings.

So, likewise, an amateur writer who channels his inner Abnett is valid, artistically speaking, because, while derivative, it is derivative because the writer (presumably) has a genuine appreciation for Abnett's work. The fact that it reads like a poor attempt at Abnett tells us something about the fanfic author at least. It ain't high art, it's flawed, but it still counts as a form of artistic expression.

 

AI deserves no such credit. At best it's the equivalent of commissioning a highly skilled artist, who has no interests or preferences of their own. It doesn't create so much as it permutates. How much credit can we give someone who pays for an art commission? How much less credit to someone who commissions a digital automaton? Here's props for being an ideas guy I guess.

 

This is a fair way to look at it. The other day, I walked past a new fast food place that had very obviously used AI to come up with the overhead menu display. No wrong spelling or nonsense words or anything like that, just the design itself was that "colored paint on dark chalkboard" look that models are generating nowadays. Then I noticed the exact same type of menu sign on a smoothie kiosk a little ways away. Like, identical design. It definitely does make things feel less original when you can see the similarities so easily.

 

I also think there is some lumping-in conversation here, where using AI to help spark something original is being bundled up with having an AI model generate something that is then taken and presented as if it was created by the individual themselves. It seems like the guidelines in the OP are saying the first one is OK as long as it is called out, while the second one is not OK and will be removed.

 

I suspect a lot of people will start second-guessing whatever they see if it even has a whiff of AI, kind of like when someone new starts posting a certain way and everyone wonders if it is Black Blow Fly's latest alt account. 

[Evil Eye]

2 hours ago, HeadlessCross said:

That's because fanfics are bad

So nobody should write their own fluff for their armies, then?

[HeadlessCross]

5 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

So nobody should write their own fluff for their armies, then?

Not with AI, it's lazy and non-creative

[Mazer Rackham]

3 hours ago, HeadlessCross said:

That's because fanfics are bad.

 

I regret to say it, but sometimes, so is an official product. Occasionally, fanfics are actually better in some regards. It seriously depends on the amount of peer-review and constructive criticism the artist is willing to endure. Sometimes that isn't much - primarily it's because of ego, secondly it's down to an array of ignorance over various factors.

 

@phandaal I run writing groups, and I always take it seriously. I would never laugh at your stuff. Once you leave the room, I might smirk though, especially if you use the words 'glistening' and or 'cleavage' twice in the same paragraph.

 

Edited yesterday at 07:16 PM by Mazer Rackham

[gaurdian31]

13 minutes ago, HeadlessCross said:

Not with AI, it's lazy and non-creative

But fanfics are bad so they shouldn't be written either right? With or without AI. Only lore by GW is good as all other sources are fanfic.

[Lay]

A nicer way of approaching it would be "it's okay to be bad at art".

[phandaal]

1 minute ago, Mazer Rackham said:

 

@phandaal I run writing groups, and I always take it seriously. I would never laugh at your stuff. Once you leave the room, I might smirk though, especially if you use the words 'glistening' and or 'cleavage' twice in the same paragraph.

 

Hmm... so you're saying I need to go back to the thesaurus for my new hiking novel...

 

Spoiler

"The trail narrowed where the creek slipped through a fresh rock cut, its glistening water tracing the natural cleavage in the stone like a silver thread. Each exposed face showed another clean plane of cleavage, and the whole wall seemed glistening after the morning rain, more like polished slate than broken earth." 

 

Fair enough. That is a bit repetitive. 

 

For what it's worth, my post was intended to knock things down a peg before we all get the vapors over our own legendary creative genius. Someone asking "what if AI helped me get a draft kicked off" should not be told they are a creatively bankrupt thief.

 

Whenever "AI" and "creativity" get brought up, everyone seems to turn into world-class artistes and auteurs, and I think it is better to be humble than snooty.

[Northern Walker]

18 minutes ago, phandaal said:

 

Hmm... so you're saying I need to go back to the thesaurus for my new hiking novel...

 

  Reveal hidden contents

"The trail narrowed where the creek slipped through a fresh rock cut, its glistening water tracing the natural cleavage in the stone like a silver thread. Each exposed face showed another clean plane of cleavage, and the whole wall seemed glistening after the morning rain, more like polished slate than broken earth." 

 

Fair enough. That is a bit repetitive. 

 

For what it's worth, my post was intended to knock things down a peg before we all get the vapors over our own legendary creative genius. Someone asking "what if AI helped me get a draft kicked off" should not be told they are a creatively bankrupt thief.

 

Whenever "AI" and "creativity" get brought up, everyone seems to turn into world-class artistes and auteurs, and I think it is better to be humble than snooty.

Writing about cleavage may bring in the audience to be fair.....

 

To add to the debate, I don't support AI use in hobby spaces.

[Evil Eye]

1 hour ago, HeadlessCross said:

Not with AI, it's lazy and non-creative

I wasn't addressing AI, I was addressing your assertion that fanfic is bad. Given that homewritten fluff (be it for an army or a campaign) is functionally fanfic, such a blanket statement would include those as bad too, would it not?

[Xirix]

I personally don't think AI has any place here. This is my opinion.

[kabaakaba]

 I'm personally prefer bad writing and art created by human than AI bloat.  AI generated "content" should be placed in appropriate resources.

It's just ain't part of hobby. 

[Antarius]

8 hours ago, Lay said:

A nicer way of approaching it would be "it's okay to be bad at art".

Indeed. Also, being bad at art is the only way you'll ever be good at art.

[Gillyfish]

Please note that the guidance is Interim. 

 

There is a lot of potential nuance to AI usage, as the discussion in this thread demonstrates, and a lot of strong opinion about its use, or non-use.

 

Pandora's box has been opened and this new iteration of AI is out there and will remain so in one form or another. We are keeping an eye on how AI continues to develop and what it potentially means for the site.

 

As with many tools, it can be used positively and helpfully (depending on what you are intending to use it for, of course) and it can produce utter garbage, as I am sure many people have seen from a lot of popular social media sites.