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

[Antarius]

Without going into whether AI is "bad" or "good", I'd say there's a big difference between using AI and posting your questions/requests for help on the forum, when it comes to maintaining an active forum community. The latter creates interaction on the forum (and might give other people ideas and inspiration as well, which is valuable too), whereas the former doesn't. So even absent any moral or artistic arguments, using AI rather than engaging with the community seems a bad strategy, assuming you want to preserve the community.

Edited June 26 by Antarius

[Antarius]

16 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

The second point kinda falls apart given that any fan-made derivative work involves unauthorized use of copyrighted work to exist. Unless you're suggesting every single fan-artist, fanfic author, homebrew writer etc should go by Games Workshop to seek approval before making their work public in any way, which naturally would not be great.

I think the second point only really falls apart if you take it to it's absolute theoretical conclusion, whereas it holds for most real-world examples and certainly holds for any practical example I can think of that's relevant to this forum (although I'll agree that there are certainly artists that are boring because they're too derivative and so I have no interest in them, but at least they're still humans doing art and presumably taking joy in it).

This is also why I think it's just not very constructive to discuss these things using very abstract and/or hypothetical arguments.

Upthread someone said something along the lines of "are you saying noone are ever entitled to anything they can't produce themselves?" which just seems like taking the argument to the realm of abstract extremes to avoid engaging with the actual point of what AI use does and means in practice. I'm not saying that it's only the "pro-AI" side that does this, there are probably examples the other way around too, but in either case I think it's just not a very productive way of discussing these topics.

In practice, I don't care whether someone has a 100% original idea. I just care that they have an idea that they care enough about to post here so I can interact with it. If they came up with that idea by chatting to an AI, I honestly don't really care either. But if they post an idea that's basically just them prompting an AI and posting what it spews out, it becomes a lot less cool and interesting to interact with and it just seems like a counterproductive use of a hobby forum.
To me, the reason why people should not post AI stuff is not about some absolute moral right derived from "doing the work" (although I guess I would argue that doing the work is actually what the hobby is at the end of the day - and it's certainly the only way to improve your skills, but there's no moral imperative to do so or want to do so). It's about this being a forum for interacting with each other about our creative hobby, so posting AI stuff actively detracts from that purpose.

Disclaimer: anecdote time, take it for what you will, but it is a practical example at least
Once upon a time, there was a Necromunda crafting group, where a bunch of people started to post a lot of AI pictures of terrain that they were totally going to make (for some strange reason, they never posted photos of any actual terrain they had made; why is left as an exercise for the reader). They could not fathom why this was a problem and argued that they should have the right to do so, that this was super inspiring and that people just hated a cool technology for no reason, but at the end of the day, it was simply not the place for it. Just like you don't post your watercolours in an oilpainting group.

If these people had used AI to create those (allegedely) amazingly inspiring pictures and then made the terrain it inspired them to make and then posted pictures of that, would it have been a problem? You could still argue against AI on general principle, but in practice, I don't think anyone would have known or cared. Just like people can freely use an AI to come up with a chapter icon or a colour scheme and that's "fine". I personally don't know why you would want to, but I have no desire to stop you from doing so in the comfort of your own home. I mean, I do all my highlights with my penis* and I can do that because it's a free world, but I obviously shouldn't post pictures of that part of the process here either.

In the same way, I think any forum-facing use of AI is simply beside the point (not to say directly against the point) of a forum for a creative hobby. I also think it's something that genuinely endangers hobby spaces, but I freely admit that I am not at all sure whether this will actually be the case here - But I do know that it has absolutely been a problem elsewhere.


*may or may not be strictly true, but you gotta admit it's a good story, if nothing else

[NovemberIX]

I kinda feel at this point like Antarius has said, some of us are starting to take extreme sides (though his highlighting technique may be the most extreme of all).

 

I've said it before, AI/LLM doesn't have a place for creating discussion or as part of hobby challenges, but that's the line for me. If you want to use an AI to give you a color palette as opposed to web searching for one I don't think that's a morally or creatively bankrupt act, it's just using a tool. But if you turn around and try to generate a post, IA, or article that's what crosses the line. More to the point, even if you start something from AI and iterate from there, that's the creative process that's worth talking about as long as the final product is made by human hands.

 

I do think there can be use cases for image generation (separate of all the issues that entails) in the case of trying something far outside of your skill set. By trade I do automotive graphics, and my general art skills are serviceable but very specialized toward what I do for work. So when I wanted Rococo style portraits for my Index Quistoris I had two real options, either commission someone or go to an image generator. In an ideal world I would commission someone and time and money wouldn't be an issue, but this is the real world, and both would have prevented that. Thus did I generate the portraits? I'll admit I tried, but I didn't like the initial results so I instead decided one of these days I'll just 3d print some bodies and appropriate heads and moved on. Had they worked there might have been a few extra images in my Index, but nothing that would be the centerpiece of what I was working on. 

 

So am I pro-AI? NOPE. Again, I think there should be a complete moratorium on LLM generated content on this forum simply from the fact that we're a place for discussion and we already have a problem with some folks posting just to see their post number go up without adding anything substantial to the conversation, letting folks just generate a post, or an index is a quick way to kill any interest in interaction. 

[HeadlessCross]

2 hours ago, Frogian said:

 

Hell, you can think you're engaging and discussing something with someone online, and these days depending on where you are posting and what it's about, decent chance it's a bot. 

 

i'm not making any moral argument for using LLMs or image generators over talking to people about stuff instead (hell, i'd love to see all the AI companies collapse into dust), but there is some absolutely ridiculous framing going on whenever this discussion comes up, as we can see between how you depicted the two scenarios where they can just both be asking a single question and getting a single answer. You only end up coming across as someone who isn't actually willing to have any discussion about the topic when you engage in such disingenuous false equivalences

 

  Reveal hidden contents

no, there's no value for AI as part of a "creative" process, because you're not creating anything to begin with the moment you use AI to steal other ideas and pass them off as your own, credit or no credit. 

 

Like, why if you use AI does it mean you are using whatever it produces exactly as it produces with no creative input from yourself, but if you ask for something of others it 'engagement and discussion which leads to inspiration'? Surely you can see this distinction isn't a real one? It's just your own bias being projected on how you see the world and the people in it, but it is simply false. 

 

1. And that's why I don't bother with social media and chatting with people there for the most part, as the bots have gotten painfully numerous. It's also why I purposely block anyone using AI content or using Skars songs on all their memes. Yeah it's a bias. I'm also biased when I say kicking puppies is wrong too. 

2. The bot, LLM, or AI image generator is not giving you original ideas or inspiration. It's taking them from other places without permission or giving you the biased answer that you internally wanted so you continue to use it. It's why you should always avoid using Google AI summaries and, when I see someone copy-pasting that or screenshotting it, I immediately dismiss any argument they make.

 

So yes they're completely distinct situations, and if you're ACTUALLY someone wanting to see those AI companies collapse to dust, you'd get it. It's not just an environmental concern, but a moral one as well. 

[Evil Eye]

2 hours ago, Antarius said:

*may or may not be strictly true, but you gotta admit it's a good story, if nothing else

I'm afraid your otherwise entirely reasonable post has earned a laugh react thanks to that. If I'd had a drink whilst reading I would have it all over my screen right now. Goddamnit Antarius!

 

(Though if you're able to do highlighting with your manhood...no, no, don't go there, EE, you're better than this!)

[phandaal]

3 hours ago, Antarius said:

If these people had used AI to create those (allegedely) amazingly inspiring pictures and then made the terrain it inspired them to make and then posted pictures of that, would it have been a problem? You could still argue against AI on general principle, but in practice, I don't think anyone would have known or cared. Just like people can freely use an AI to come up with a chapter icon or a colour scheme and that's "fine". I personally don't know why you would want to, but I have no desire to stop you from doing so in the comfort of your own home. I mean, I do all my highlights with my benus and I can do that because it's a free world, but I obviously shouldn't post pictures of that part of the process here either.

In the same way, I think any forum-facing use of AI is simply beside the point (not to say directly against the point) of a forum for a creative hobby. I also think it's something that genuinely endangers hobby spaces, but I freely admit that I am not at all sure whether this will actually be the case here - But I do know that it has absolutely been a problem elsewhere.

 

This nuance gets lost when people tell you that using the AI model at all, even if only to kickstart your creative process, makes you a creatively bankrupt art thief (just an all-around bad person, maybe even a villain).

 

As I recently learned in my attempt to get people to reflect that they should not take themselves too seriously for miniature painting, everyone here except for me is a serious artiste, and therefore using an AI model in any capacity is quite literally taking food right out of this forum's members' hands. Not mine, fortunately, because my skill level renders me immune from being considered artistic.

 

I kid (a little), but for many people, they do not want nuance. They want the tech to be gone completely.

[kabaakaba]

Need inspiration? Go artstation, DeviantArt, etc. museum at least. But by feeding prompt to LLM you ain't look for inspiration, you ask for solution. 

 

When you ask people here on forum, in you lgs or else where  you already do compose your question, just to not look dumb. With AI you ask for color scheme select what it suggest, refine with AI and just paint. You do nothing. Just feed prompt. And you can start with pretty stupid sentence. You barely do that in conversation with someone live. 

 

Our designers at my work do keep weekly design meetup where they brainstorm and looks for inspiration. They do not ask AI for inspiration even though we have own AI division whom can train the model exactly for design purpose. 

 

When you communicate, ask think you are the part of creative process. When you feed prompt to LLM you are the consumer and nothing more.

 

Edited June 26 by kabaakaba

[Indy Techwisp]

I know some hobby spaces have a rule where if you're using AI generated content you need to Tag it so people can turn it off.

 

I also know what B&C is currently redoing the Tag system.

 

Maybe, if you are for some reason required to allow AI content on the site, you should make the rule require tagging it and let users "hide" posts with the tag if they don't want to view that content.

 

But in general AI content is a very divisive topic of conversation and making a decision on behalf of the community behind closed doors about it feels like the kind of move that precludes having a pop-up chatbot inserted into every page on the site.

[Teetengee]

On 6/26/2026 at 10:02 PM, phandaal said:

They want the tech to be gone completely.

More or less accurate. I think because of a number of reasons that it's morally bankrupt, and I agree with the United Nations, every artist I know, and, much to my surprise, the Pope that the best way to use LLMs is to not. Furthermore, this is something that has existed for a only few short years, and everyone on this forum has lived most of their life without it. It is simply unnecessary and counterproductive for the human-engagement focused environment that B&C has cultivated over decades, and will only harm the community. There is a beautiful spark of creativity in every single person who comes to this forum, and I want to see that grow, not be stifled and crushed under the weight of slop we see in so many other places. I come back here again and again over the years because I want to see all of these human endeavors in art flourish.