AI Megathread

[Tez]

Since Tat went to the effort of linking it, and I don’t want to have to come over there and fork now that Concordia’s staff has addressed using AI, let’s talk about it here.

What level of AI content are you comfortable engaging with? What is the difference between creating and editing content?

[Tez]

I’ll say this again so @Rinel can come find me and fight about it, but I’ve used ChatGPT when making descriptions for a game.

I have asked ChatGPT what kind of businesses you might see in a small Midwestern city, and what you might see in a movie theater in the 1960s. ChatGPT wasn’t my only source for this; I then went and looked up what movies were out at a certain period of time (ChatGPT got it wrong) and I looked at the main streets in Google street of a few locations.

I also used ChatGPT for describing certain aspects of architecture that I didn’t have words for. I was trying to get a specific look but I didn’t know the name of the style or architectural detailing. ChatGPT did, and then I was able to get more information about it by taking that and running off to google it.

I think it can be a great tool in all of those cases!

[Ashkuri]

This hobby is entirely about reading and writing with other human beings. That’s it, that’s the game.

I enjoy human writing. I like the quirks and uniqueness of it like a fingerprint. I have enjoyed many mush friends who can’t type for shit, their spelling is the worst, mad typos, but it’s funny and quick and witty so I love it. I like people’s weird little turns of phrase. I like people’s effort to branch out away from their own habits and ‘tells’, I like the constant creativity of it.

I hate Chat GPT.

All the mush content I see written by AI is bland and weird in a way that requires human re-editing to salvage. AI as an industry is demonstrably bad for creative people and their livelihoods. This thing has been let out of the box in the context of “It’s harmless and fun and I would never pay money anyway for that thing so what is the hurt,” and it’s starting to hurt.

But back to mus: I dunno, it just sucks? Give me your shitty human written desc, I prefer it to the shitty desc that ChatGPT averaged off the Tracey desc and 2.3 million scraped fanfictions.

I don’t wanna rp with robots.

[Faraday]

Generative AI (like ChatGPT and Midjourney) is the Napster of this generation. It’s piracy and copyright infringement on a massive scale.

There are a slew of lawsuits out there against these tools all alleging the same thing: OpenAI used copyrighted works to train the algorithm, and the algorithm can spit out stuff that VERY closely mirrors the stuff it was trained on, right down to the watermarks. Take away the copyrighted works, and those tools would not exist.

On a technical level, they are not generating anything truly original. If you and I use the same prompt with the same ‘seed value’, we’ll end up with the exact same result. Pixel for pixel. Word for word. (Like a Minecraft world or fractal for instance.) This is nothing like how humans generate art.

Now I know this community has always played fast and loose with copyright - deriving settings from established media, using actor images, etc. So is generating descs with ChatGPT actively harming anyone? Not directly.

But that argument is somewhere on the same slippery slope as “it’s OK to download music from Napster because I wasn’t going to buy it anyway.” Maybe so, but that’s not true for everyone. We’re already seeing massive impact to the creative industries as markets are flooded with AI-generated crap built off the (uncredited, unpaid, illicitly-used) work of actual artists, writers, narrators, etc.

Not all “AI” tools are bad. These ones are.

[sao]

I think for me it comes down to personality. Even bad writing has personality. It may not necessarily be personality that I like or connect with, but it’s still there.

ChatGPT writing does not have personality. It is all the same flavor. It can’t help it - no matter how much learning that it does, it just… seems to generate the same level of insipid material.

I’m not here to eat flavorless drek. I am here to consume human creativity in its infinite combinations. Or-- some analogy that makes me sound less like a mindflayer, I haven’t even played BG3 for more than 5 minutes yet.

So people can use it as a tool, sure. Sometimes the stuff it comes up with can fuel human creativity in unexpected, bizarre or hilarious directions. But man, I don’t want to be the only human engaged in the content creation when I’m creating this content. It sucks the fun right out.

[Vulgar Boy]

My primary use for AI when playing MU-style RP games continues to be summarizing theme files and Ares scenes that have been going on long enough when I come into them that reading the log becomes intimidating enough that I just couldn’t bring myself to do so. I actually really get frustrated that WyrdHold doesn’t allow for selecting multiple poses at once for that purpose.

I don’t write using AI. But, hey, if I were playing some kind of fashionable guy on a lords and ladies game I could certainly see myself asking an AI to spit out some appropriate clothes for the 1700s fancypants or whatever and then punching it up. A lot easier and faster than googling “what would a rich guy in the 1700s wear to the signing of a declaration of independence ball”.

[Tez]

@Vulgar-Boy said in AI Megathread:

I actually really get frustrated that WyrdHold doesn’t allow for selecting multiple poses at once for that purpose.

Not totally sidetrack the conversation, but REALLY? Huh. I’ll pop in a request for Sal to take a look at it when he gets a chance. I can’t imagine that’s intended.

[Faraday]

@Vulgar-Boy said in AI Megathread:

A lot easier and faster than googling “what would a rich guy in the 1700s wear to the signing of a declaration of independence ball”.

Faster, yes, but the problem with using generative AI for research is that it just makes crap up.

With a google search you can actually vet the sources and recognize the difference between answers derived from a historical fashion website and someone’s revolutionary war fanfic.

[Tez]

@Faraday This is true! But the problem I ran into was not always knowing the right terms to google. Google would lead me to (probably ai-generated, haha) shallow websites devoid of real content when I was looking for architecture information.

[Testament]

I’ll personally be fascinated when AI writing prompts becomes indistinguishable from that of an actual person. For both good and bad reasons.

Admittedly, apart of me plays on mushes for entirely selfish reasons. It’s collaborative, sure, but there is exchange of some kind of gratification. If that gratification comes from some AI that I don’t know is an AI, is that gratification still empty? Is the writing that’s created less meaningful?

The optimist in me would like to always play with people obviously that goes without saying. However, the pessimistic nihilist in me would look at forums like here, MSB, r/MUDs see the kind of toxicity that are entirely bred within them and it makes me consider, “Okay, but what if we just remove the human element to it?”

[Vulgar Boy]

@Faraday said in AI Megathread:

@Vulgar-Boy said in AI Megathread:

A lot easier and faster than googling “what would a rich guy in the 1700s wear to the signing of a declaration of independence ball”.

Faster, yes, but the problem with using generative AI for research is that it just makes crap up.

With a google search you can actually vet the sources and recognize the difference between answers derived from a historical fashion website and someone’s revolutionary war fanfic.

Holy shit, that sounds like so much work for a scene where my character will wear his Corinthian trousers and colonial feather hat once. And if ChatGPT assures me that George Washington’s best pals all wore Peter Pan hats it’s a pretty safe bet that no one else at the emperor’s cotillion is going to correct me.

Oh my god, the idea of vetting the sources makes me want to get a PhD and become a college professor just so I can be paid for doing something so agonizingly boring.

[dvoraen]

@Vulgar-Boy said in AI Megathread:

@Faraday said in AI Megathread:

@Vulgar-Boy said in AI Megathread:

A lot easier and faster than googling “what would a rich guy in the 1700s wear to the signing of a declaration of independence ball”.

Faster, yes, but the problem with using generative AI for research is that it just makes crap up.

With a google search you can actually vet the sources and recognize the difference between answers derived from a historical fashion website and someone’s revolutionary war fanfic.

Holy shit, that sounds like so much work for a scene where my character will wear his Corinthian trousers and colonial feather hat once. And if ChatGPT assures me that George Washington’s best pals all wore Peter Pan hats it’s a pretty safe bet that no one else at the emperor’s cotillion is going to correct me.

Oh my god, the idea of vetting the sources makes me want to get a PhD and become a college professor just so I can be paid for doing something so agonizingly boring.

I’m going to leave this (lawyer) video here about why vetting sources is a good thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqSYljRYDEM&pp=ygUNbGVnYWxlYWdsZSBhaQ%3D%3D

ETA - No one’s asking you to take your fine toothed (flea?) comb through everything someone produces, but you better believe someone might in matters of import.

[Faraday]

@Tez said in AI Megathread:

But the problem I ran into was not always knowing the right terms to google. Google would lead me to (probably ai-generated, haha) shallow websites devoid of real content when I was looking for architecture information.

Finding stuff on Google is definitely a problem. Research is an art unto itself, and I would love to see ethically-sourced tools to help with that.

But take AresMUSH for instance. Ask ChatGPT about Ares and it spits out a mix of facts that range from complete nonsense (“Evennia is built off Ares” - or sometimes vice-versa) to info lifted straight off my copyrighted website. Not only does it not credit its sources, if you ask it where it got this info it basically tells you it doesn’t know because the nature of a LLM puts all the words into a blender.

I also love the time a couple lawyers got in trouble for using legal cases that ChatGPT invented out of whole cloth in a lawsuit.

ETA:
@Vulgar-Boy said in AI Megathread:

Oh my god, the idea of vetting the sources makes me want to get a PhD and become a college professor just so I can be paid for doing something so agonizingly boring.

Huh? I’m not talking about an exhaustive background check. It’s as simple as looking through the list of search results and saying: “Looks legit” versus “Lol, some random garbage”.

[junipersky]

I’ve had my descs insulted enough times that writing them does cause anxiety for me. So the thought of being able to have something generated for me, and then I have some emotional distance from it being made fun of and critiqued. . . That sounds like a barrier being removed from me being able to join a game.

[dvoraen]

@Faraday lol, we literally linked the same video almost simultaneously

[Vulgar Boy]

@dvoraen said in AI Megathread:

@Vulgar-Boy said in AI Megathread:

@Faraday said in AI Megathread:

@Vulgar-Boy said in AI Megathread:

A lot easier and faster than googling “what would a rich guy in the 1700s wear to the signing of a declaration of independence ball”.

Faster, yes, but the problem with using generative AI for research is that it just makes crap up.

With a google search you can actually vet the sources and recognize the difference between answers derived from a historical fashion website and someone’s revolutionary war fanfic.

Holy shit, that sounds like so much work for a scene where my character will wear his Corinthian trousers and colonial feather hat once. And if ChatGPT assures me that George Washington’s best pals all wore Peter Pan hats it’s a pretty safe bet that no one else at the emperor’s cotillion is going to correct me.

Oh my god, the idea of vetting the sources makes me want to get a PhD and become a college professor just so I can be paid for doing something so agonizingly boring.

I’m going to leave this (lawyer) video here about why vetting sources is a good thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqSYljRYDEM&pp=ygUNbGVnYWxlYWdsZSBhaQ%3D%3D

ETA - No one’s asking you to take your fine toothed (flea?) comb through everything someone produces, but you better believe someone might in matters of import.

I’ll keep this in mind when I’m looking at AI to write the clothing part of a description I’m doing for a supreme court case.

[Faraday]

@Vulgar-Boy said in AI Megathread:

I’ll keep this in mind when I’m looking at AI to write the clothing part of a description I’m doing for a supreme court case.

Just hope you don’t have the same luck as the one MIT study that had it suggest they wear a swimsuit to court.

[Ashkuri]

@Tez said in AI Megathread:

the problem I ran into was not always knowing the right terms to google

I once googled “building in rome with a hole in the roof so demons can get out” because I couldn’t remember the name of the Pantheon. All I had to go on was half remembered art history and the manner in which I was 68% drunk. I still found it, Googling Vaguely can get you a lot of answers.

@Vulgar-Boy said in AI Megathread:

Oh my god, the idea of vetting the sources makes me want to get a PhD and become a college professor just so I can be paid for doing something so agonizingly boring.

Nobody’s saying you have to vet everything like it’s your thesis and it’s silly to act like that’s the ask. But I submit to you that Googling Weird Shit is a cornerstone of this medium, sometimes a fantastic one.

If you don’t want to describe the clothing you can literally just write “his clothes are colorful and finely made, if a bit behind the fashion” or whatever the hell. Don’t gotta cry that you don’t know exactly when to employ a cravat, and you still don’t need AI for it.

[Tez]

@imstillhere said in AI Megathread:

@Tez said in AI Megathread:

the problem I ran into was not always knowing the right terms to google

I once googled “building in rome with a hole in the roof so demons can get out” because I couldn’t remember the name of the Pantheon. All I had to go on was half remembered art history and the manner in which I was 68% drunk. I still found it, Googling Vaguely can get you a lot of answers.

I admire your powers.

[Vulgar Boy]

@imstillhere said in AI Megathread:

@Tez said in AI Megathread:

the problem I ran into was not always knowing the right terms to google

I once googled “building in rome with a hole in the roof so demons can get out” because I couldn’t remember the name of the Pantheon. All I had to go on was half remembered art history and the manner in which I was 68% drunk. I still found it, Googling Vaguely can get you a lot of answers.

@Vulgar-Boy said in AI Megathread:

Oh my god, the idea of vetting the sources makes me want to get a PhD and become a college professor just so I can be paid for doing something so agonizingly boring.

Nobody’s saying you have to vet everything like it’s your thesis and it’s silly to act like that’s the ask. But I submit to you that Googling Weird Shit is a cornerstone of this medium, sometimes a fantastic one.

If you don’t want to describe the clothing you can literally just write “his clothes are colorful and finely made, if a bit behind the fashion” or whatever the hell. Don’t gotta cry that you don’t know exactly when to employ a cravat, and you still don’t need AI for it.

Nobody’s saying I gotta or don’t gotta do nothin’, and they better not or I’ll give 'em what for. I’m just saying it’s a use case I could appreciate, and where it likely would never be noticed. Where it barely even matters, except that it gives a person just enough confidence to walk with a little pep in their step. Like Dumbo and his feather. I don’t play fancy people for a reason. I dress like shit so I play characters who dress like shit. I know my limits.

Honestly, I’m kinda surprised to see people getting upset at these edge cases while no one seems to care too much that there are entire games now where people are using AI to make their character images. Is it because when someone uses AI to do writing there is an attempt at deception, whereas no one is pretending their AI hottie was painted by them?

I tried to do the AI art thing for a game, but I don’t have access to the good AI art sites, so the only one I could use was primarily for endlessly generating hot anime girls and I couldn’t justify any of my dudes looking like hot anime girls. Though the future is not yet written.