I appreciate the nuance. I haven't had anything to do with RPGs since, uhm, about '89 and frankly, either of those pictures up top kick the ever-loving shit out of anything Palladium or FASA had back then. I will also admit that in the image linked above, I really don't see much difference. With the images you linked, there's only one comparison and yeah, the hand-drawn tail is clearly better. Here's my argument, though - bad tail and all, it's still clearly orders of magnitude beyond what I grew up with. And at $9.99 in 1977, it would be $52 converted to 2023 figures - more than half again what WoTC is asking for Glory of Giants. My buddy Richard left New York for Hollywood in 1996 because he was getting $800 a page to draw Daredevil for DC. That, he told me, was the most he ever got in the comic world - full pages paid less than covers. When I was looking at getting my book done by Archaia I was told to budget about $125 for every B&W page and about $250 for every color one. The one number in your link is $125 - if you got $125 for a single magic card in 2015, that tells me that game rates are still substantially better than comics. And yeah - it should be more. But then someone has to pay that. Michael Whelan sells his originals for about a factor of ten more than WoTC pays for a Magic card. DC, if I'm adjusting for the times, probably pays about a factor of ten for a multi-panel page. So set aside the argument that "there should be more money." Granted. Conceded. IF there is no more money, where does the line for AI involvement reside? You're cool with content-aware fill and not cool with AI warming over a monster's hands - presuming there's no more money to be had, at what point is it cool for the artist to hit the magic tweakbox?
I think it's cool to use the tweakbox when it raises the standard, when it's being used to replace drudgery, or when it's for something unimportant. This is the fun and creative part though, none of the artists I know like the process of drawing a quick sketch and then having control taken away at the end. And "presuming there's no money" doesn't apply here since Wizards of the Coast is by far Hasbro's most profitable division. (1 bil revenue, 500 mill profits in 2021) They have the money. It's not that the AI assisted art is awful, it's that (in this case at least) it's worse for the artists and worse for the consumers, and there's no reason for it besides greed.
Our web designer is also Paizo's web designer so I've had some... nuanced discussions around WotC and budgets, shall we say. I'm not going to say "they don't have the money;" I am going to say "they're not very good with money." I agree wholeheartedly that the investment in a monster manual or whatever should definitely lean heavily into the art. I'll go one further: a "deluxe edition" at twice the price with double the illustrations would probably sell very well. My broader point is "they should suck less" sidesteps the issue. We can both agree on it. However, if they're incapable of sucking less the problem doesn't go away. I think my broader point is "when it's for something unimportant" is a moving target. For example, if you kick ass at hands, having the AI do your hands is definitely NOT "something unimportant." However if you kick ass at faces and suck at hands, AI hands could be defended as "something unimportant." I don't have an answer here. I've just found that debates around artistry in the comics/gaming world tend to be a lot more knee-jerk than informed, and I think it's generally detrimental to the fandom.
When I wrote "something unimportant," I meant it from the fan's perspective - some marketing copy somewhere on a website isn't going to bother a lot of people but the art in a book that is bought essentially just for the art is something important. For more or less important parts of an image, for artist that likes drawing hands vs faces etc., I would not be offended if they Chose to use AI because they liked the workflow, it made results that they are happy with and represent their vision, and improved their art. I am offended when AI is used to reduce the artist from drawing a full work to drawing a prompt. For years, if you wanted art to be cheap and good you could squeeze artists, outsource it to other countries, and other dirty tricks but at the end of the day, an artist somewhere gets paid and thanklessly puts their own love and care and ideas into the work where they can. I don't think that the world would be better if all these artists went from making basically no money to none, and if commercial art was entirely soulless instead of mostly soulless. Even if miraculously the money they saved went into making the product cheaper and better for me instead of lining investor's pockets. I think that being Very Upset at WotC using AI is pushing back at what seems like an inevitable trend by capitalists to make the world worse. I have a friend who makes marketing videos. Recently, he has been told to make them twice as quickly, essentially forcing the backgrounds to be made with AI (and ending up fine but worse that it would have been otherwise). Before AI that wouldn't have been possible, if you hire someone skilled you get good work or nothing. I don't know exactly where the line should be drawn. If you're indie (as in, actually independent) and choose to use AI, then cool for you. But any use of AI from a company, especially a big publicly traded one, reeks of it being used against the artists will. Unlike the Thundercats reboot, a lot of the outrage against Stable Diffusion etc. is coming from artists.
I think this is insightful, and I think the important aspect is agency. Did you use AI because it made things better? Fine. Did you use AI because it only made things cheaper? Well the end effect is your product is cheaper. I also think too many people get wrapped around the wheel over the tools, rather than the intent, and the more fundamentally evil you are, the quicker people will use any excuse to call you out.I think that being Very Upset at WotC using AI is pushing back at what seems like an inevitable trend by capitalists to make the world worse.