Tabletop gamerdom is, historically, largely defined by bespoke, hand-crafted folk art remixes of prior material, all the way back to Wesely, Arneson, and Gygax.
Trying to figure how the widespread, strong reactions both in favor of and against AI, which is industrialized machine remix, are entangling with subcultural values on that topic is odd.
It feels like they should connect all over the place, but aren't, that much? Like, there's compartmentalization or something on that score?
@LeviKornelsen What strikes me about the "AI is theft!" reaction in particular is that it seems to represent the general public embracing the antisocial, possessive attitudes about culture that corporations have espoused for decades, without actually recognizing them for what they are, for lack of any concept of any other "legitimate" way to oppose what content generation represents, and without any consideration of the domino effects that would result from objecting in this specific way.
@LeviKornelsen Yes, and "this might be controversial..."
I'm not sure that both:
A) People (at large, in general) make the conscious connection that "we stand on the shoulders of giants" much like we do in academia. They might at a subconscious level, but not right there in their face and right now AI is right in your face. This statement applies to lots of contexts surrounding the hobby.
and
B) we all agree on a conceptual understanding of what remix constitutes in creative works. (for reasons that include what @Tim_Eagon mentions)
@LeviKornelsen One current difference between industrial vs human sampling is the mechanism by which something is chosen to be included in the remix. For humans, this comes down to “taste”. AI has to use something else, and has many, many ways to choose badly. Like, if the entirety of RPGs was the best game in the world and 100 rando vampire fetish games, a human might remix the best with a sorta good fetish idea. An AI might weight them all equally.
@LeviKornelsen
Every fool's errand in Philosophy begins by assuming that if our words are unclear, we can disambiguate and analyze them until clarity arives.
What do people really 'deserve'?
What is justice?
What is piety?
And simplicity?
All of them are muddy thinking to be released. So if the underlying question amounts too 'which ideas should people own', the answer is 'you can't own a recipe', no matter how many batons you have.
@LeviKornelsen I think also there's an implicit assumption that corporations should be held accountable to copyright law with a lot more strictness than individuals
Like for instance if some random person shares PDFs of my work, I wouldn't care. If WotC takes my work and posts it on their website as their own I would care a lot. If people say we don't need indie creators because WotC has figured out a way to own the work they did I would care even more
@LeviKornelsen It's driven a lot by economics and political ideology. In any case, philosophically, I'm very sympathetic to the notion that it's driven by IP theft and is ultimately ruinous for the environment. Practically, the output is banal at best, both textually and visually.
@LeviKornelsen I feel like most of the AI-love in Gamerdom is people saying, "Oh, but I can't make anything myself, I'm not ✨ talented✨." And there is... so much underlying that.
@LeviKornelsen This is because we recognize that the corporation has no personal connection with this decision. It's not coming from their values (right or wrong) it's just coming from what they think will sell and we recognize their mass cultural reach has more (unconsidered) impact that rando hot-vampire guy.
Unfortunately, some people have not actually internalized this distinction and see them as both the same. This is how online harassment happens.
i would wager to guess that a lot of the people you see making those arguments are not fully aware of how things like 'fair use' apply to copyright, either. It's a very murky area of law, both copyright in general and the fair use clause, that a lot of people don't understand how they play together. So, the general basic assumption becomes 'using other people's work in any way is bad', even when it isn't.
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