AI art in Sanctuary? What are your thoughts?

[Al]

For the last couple of weeks a debate has been raging within the community about the viability of using ai to assist with art in Sanctuary. I covered my thoughts on this at the start of February on the main site:

To AI Or Not To AI?

(The irony of using an AI generated featured image is not lost on me) The subject of AI in art has been a hot potato recently. It’s a growing debate with proponents on each side of the divide arguing…

sanctuaryshatteredsun.net

To sum it up:

This is often the situation. Silent Majority vs Vocal Majority. Most people actually don't care, those that are satisfied with it - the majority - don't speak up. Those who don't like the idea - the minority - are passionate enough about their distaste for AI that they will shout about it to whoever will listen. Ultimately, we have to be grounded in reality. Enhearten Media doesn't have the funds to do all of their art from scratch. If AI assists, then go for it.

Others have commented:

with all due respects to artists and designers i dont think their work is appreciated on their own but as whole game package, people care if game works nowdays, if its optimized if it has replayability and its fun in general some bigname artists could be used to promote the game on launch week and such but depending on game as a whole it could be hit or miss im afraid that bringing this up in first place could be ammo for loud people as you doubt it in the first place should just went on with it

I'm quite against the AI art generation fad.
However I'm open to buying cosmetic packs for factions to help pay for the team to hire an actual artist or two.
StarCraft 2 did this, for example

if you can use ai without it being obvious that it's ai that means that your quality is good enough,
So I don't particularly care what you do or what you use as long as the finished product looks like you actually cared about it and that's typically what people use AI for

Yeah... you can't even remotely compare AI's cost with hiring a new full-time paid artist or commissioning art on a large scale.

I feel like people are confusing the ethical and social issues with the practicalities. The simple facts are that making art costs money, and making it with AI (existing artists using AI as tool) costs a lot less. Whether AI should or should not be used for ethical reasons is another discussion.

Generated content is not only stealing from real artists, but is so lazy that it shows a complete disrespect for the medium. If you spent 5 minutes wipping up some stick figures, at least it shows you care enough to put that effort forwards. Look at slay the spire beta art as a great example of art that looks terrible, but is extremely authentic in its message.

What are your thoughts on the inclusion of ai as part of the art process for Sanctuary?

 

[Brodes]

I get that people rage against ai because it is taking work from starving artists but if there is no money in the bank to pay for an artist and ai will help, just go for it. Like you say, most people don't actually care.

 

[Cobalt]

I also don't mind using AI tools to help in certain processes. As long as the output is good enough that is, as these tools are no magic wands (yet?).
It's what made the technological development possible: more and more sophisticated tools.

 

[Henrywrites]

I get that people rage against ai because it is taking work from starving artists but if there is no money in the bank to pay for an artist and ai will help, just go for it. Like you say, most people don't actually care.

That aside, I believe ai can be a great addition in helping artists do their work better in building what they aim for. I am never against ai inclusion and won't change that in the near future.