Wizards of the Coast, publisher of the popular role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), acknowledged Saturday that one of its hired artists had used artificial intelligence in creating imagery included in one of its upcoming books, and said it has updated guidelines. come.
The company owned by Hasbro said on Twitter that it had reached out to Ilya Shkipin, a California-based artist they had previously worked with, and made an arrangement that will apply to other contributors in the future.
“He won’t be using AI for Wizards work in the future,” D&D said. “Artists should refrain from using AI art generation as part of their creation process for developing D&D art.”
The 34-year-old painter had used AI technology to develop artwork for the forthcoming D&D sourcebook “Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants!”
Shkipin has a BFA in illustration from the Academy of Art in San Francisco. He is also a singer and bassist in an experimental indie rock band called The Laytcomers.
Wizards of the Coast said it was unaware of the artist’s use of AI, suggesting the tabletop gaming giant may have put its foot down earlier. The discovery comes less than two weeks before the release of the book, filled with maps, classes and monsters.
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Since its inception in 1974, artistic depictions of spells, monsters, and mystical environments have fleshed out the materials used to play D&D. However, as AI artworks become more prolific, Wizards of the Coast’s decision raises questions about where the technology fits in artists’ toolboxes, both culturally and commercially.
In a now-deleted Tweet, Shkipin defended his use of AI technology, describing it as part of his larger artistic process. He said it was used for “certain details or polishing and editing” rather than image generation from scratch, as documented by Gizmodo.
Shkipin added images to show how AI played a marginal role. He later said on Twitter that the post was removed because the artwork in question “will be reworked.”
Previous post removed because it talks about the future of today illustrations.
— Ilya | SuperRare (@i_shkipin) August 5, 2023
In addition to working with D&D since 2014, Shkipin has created digital artwork that is sold on the NFT marketplace SuperRare. Several artworks for sale on his page say that AI was used to add animation or augment style to their descriptions.
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AI models used to generate artwork, such as Stable Diffusion, have had a thorny reception due to the way images are created. Because they are trained on existing images, including the artwork of others, plagiarism and copyright claims have tinged the use of AI models among artists with a certain amount of controversy.
Greg Rutkowski, an artist known for producing some of D&D’s most iconic art, is an outspoken critic of AI art. At one point his style was imitated more than Picasso and Leonardo Da Vincil using Stable Diffusion.
The creator of Stable Diffusion, Stability AI, even limited users’ ability to emulate Rutkowski in an updated version of its software – only for models that mimic Rutkowski’s style to show up elsewherelike heads on a hydra.
Within the NFT space, generative art has become a celebrated genre and commonplace. Pieces from Fidenza, a generative art series created by Tyler Hobbs, have sold for millions of dollars. And Dmitri Cherniak’s Ringers #879, aka ‘The Goose’, sold for over $6.2 at a Sotheby’s auction in June.
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Wizards of the Coast has ruled out NFT technology in the past, even though Hasbro itself has offered several NFTs.
Earlier this year, Wizards of the Coast announced changes to a D&D-related game license that would affect how creators who create derivative works are compensated. After it led to backlash, D&D made changes, but held language Ban NFTs.
Ultimately, the changes were scrapped altogether and D&D placed intellectual property under a creative commons license to satisfy fans. Yet it was another recent flashpoint that showed friction between the tabletop hit publisher and emerging technology.