AI is here to stay. Just as the assembly line made machinists obsolete (or a specialist) it created DIFFERENT jobs, and I see the same for AI. When Photoshop first came out this basic discussion was in the mainstream as AI is now, so it will eventually be accepted in some way with holdouts refusing to give up their views. I appreciate your transparency and think you should continue this series as you did in the first one blending AI and Tarot cards. Your decision should be for future series. I don't see any difference reading an old book to spark your imagination or reading an AI generated passage to spark your imagination. In both cases, you make that idea your own and present your version. Should artists use AI? As long as they don't (basically) cut/paste its generation and present it as their own genius. Or if they do cut/paste, they should credit the AI as one would a quote. A few days ago I stumbled across a video (made last year) about the limitations of current AI. "Why AI Can't Pass This Test" It does very well for facts and figures but has almost no concept of reasoning (which I think is the reason for AI hallucinations although that wasn't in the video).
Exactly! This is a new technology and we're in a period of transition. And inspiration is inspiration! It shouldn't matter where it comes from. I agree about the copy paste, I find that unintersting.
What about Feela, though? Well either being Pointage's familiar she feels a tug in the direction of him and goes off to join him or some serious trauma councelling over abandonment issues is in order.
I know! I thought long and hard about whether or not I was ready to say goodbye to Pointage. But I feel like I got him to a good place and he had a good ending.
I don't normally binge watch anything, but this has kept my imagination! I started with you in Troika, and skipped here to Sphere Hoppers. I like the story, but especially enjoy how you use the randomizing tools. I don't know Mythic (although I have the hardback) so my yes/no is a roll 2d6 with +/-1 for (un)Likely or +/- 2 for Highly (un)Likely. I'm still figuring out my preferred distribution of the 2d6 with the and/but included. Oh, and I now own a few Rory's Cube sets because of you!
I'm so glad I could inspire you! There are so many variations on the Yes/No oracle, your 2d6 with modifiers sounds great! All of my Gone Solo campaigns will eventually connect into the Sphere Hoppers campaign, so check out the other series if you haven't yet!
The dams hold back the content of what were once the special mixture that once fed the healing baths of the planets curative health spa. But when that went belly up during a its so far in the past recession that no one remembers, the holding dams and reservoirs sat untended in the spa ruins and the thaumochemical compounds destabilized over time. The algae in the residual sludge changed... :) I see how your imagination is on fire cause mine is too.
I don't know if it would be of use to you, but if you want to go into more detail on this, Biblaridion's Alien Biospheres episode 9 focuses on rainforest biomes that might be usable in a drier jungle setting (He was approaching it from a spec evo perspective, but it might give you things to consider, the series is half spec evo project and half crash course on evolutionary biology for world building)
Did you think about how lichens are symbiotic organisms? All lichens are a combination of algae and fungus. Does that inform you about the hacker's bane at all?
Yeah, this still didn't help me. Instead of talking about theory, I'd like to see it ACTUALLY in action. It sounds fine for building stories (albeit simple ones), but not true solo adventuring. How would I use it on say, Temple of Elemental Evil? It doesn't sound feasible.
Let me ask you Mr Stephen king, why can’t you just make it up as you go? Why do you need to spend $50 on a book that you will only use a few pages in??
The book is full of helpful play examples. If you just want to make it up as you go that's fine. But I found the Mythic structure helpful for introducing surprises and a game-like feel.
I use chat gpt for role play and interaction. I handle oracles and game mechanics. Use the one page solo oracle app and im good to go. Ah i use the tiny dungeon app to generate dungeons and make my encounter charts.
Wrong, the only thing to do is actually get a solo designed RPG, problem solved. 4AD is maybe your best choice. Or d100 Dungeon. Or type solo RPGs in the search, pick one of those. I have all the tools and nothing replaces just playing something designed for the function instead.
Great question! In the lore, the demons of Dis live deep within the depths of the Crucible. I see this as less of a teleportarion portal and more of a tunnel entrance.
Loved your insights/reveal of the process you used. As you say : "A.I. is but a tool". The fact that you are upfront with it and that you used it as 97% inspiration, not using it integrally, is fine by me. Haters are going to hate... It's like talking to Amish about using motorized tools or single young men about refraining from watching porn. Using a new tool isn't cheating or a crime, if it's used well. It's adapting to the times. Making a chair with only chisels and rasps, releasing tension by using only a physical companion or solving writer's block by only banging your head on the wall are all ideas that belong in the past IMHO. You do you with the tools that you choose. Don't let the ideologists rule your endeavors.
I wonder how people would react if they realized how much of writing, all sorts, has used AI for the longest time. There are a lot of grammar and spellchecker that are basically AI, not LLM’s, but definitely using training and all of the advancements that make AIAI possible! I won’t mention any of them, but if you have used them, you know what I’m talking about. As a blind person, AI has opened up the world to me in ways that required people before. As a creative AI has benefit to me greatly, especially in the music World where I can actually finally now right lyrics. Is a tool, it is a tool computer is a tool, like a spreadsheet is a tool, and what I’ve seen when I’ve witnessed is that the people that use the AI best are the creatives who know how to get out of it things rather than just going blindly into it and asking it to do things for them. Creative know what they’re looking for and can get what they need out of it much more better. Also become a prompter, prompting is difficult if you know how to prompt you can get amazing things out of AI. Also, I hate to term AI because they’re not intelligent.
Yes, it is the next step in a process that has been going on for a long time. And I agree that creatives that understand their process will leverage AI in new exciting ways!
I loved hearing about your process, and your thematic use of these tools. Thanks for sharing. This is exactly the reason I believe those who are already craftspeople will use AI to create the most interesting art. Just like someone can make a very functional clay pot or a Ming vase with clay, AI can produce very different results in the hands of a craftsman versus a hack. I hope you find a way forward you feel good about. It's not an easy choice, for all the reasons you said.
Yes exactly! I think editing, recognizing good prose, and reshaping scenes are going to be essential skills for ai-assisted authors going forward. Having an eye for style and a vision for how to achieve that are key to any discipline.
I believe that people are reacting negatively to AI as a result of numerous questionable practices that have been the subject of debate since its inception. Ethical concerns about the source of training data have already been raised; on the ttrpg side, Hasbro's active push for widespread AI use in their products, while firing many people just before Christmas, contributes to the tool's negative perception. I don't believe most people are against the tool itself. Additional distaste may stem from AI-generated images flooding the web in general, with image quality ranging from meh to nightmare fuel uncanny. I think these contributing factors are the root cause of the problem. Until I began experimenting with available AI tools for my own solo sessions, I had a similar visceral reaction to the concept of AI being used in the creative process of a work. Following those experiments, I understand where AI can be useful and where it falls short. Now I think of it as a tool, with right and wrong ways to use it. I see no reason why your usage is any different than using Tarot cards, as you mentioned, AI text is almost always need editing and the moment you try to get longer than a paragraph out of an AI tool, you get an unusable mess. That mess can get an author unstuck, but nothing more (currently, future development of the technology may change things around). I believe when more people experiment with AI in their own lives, their perspective will be more nuanced.
I think that's what I'm pushing for here. Try out the tools, see how they're useful, see what it actually means to incorporate them into a creative process, before judging a creator for using them.
@@theragamancers Regarding whether to disclose or continue using these tools, I believe it will depend on your stance on the subject. I trust that attitudes will shift over time, and that being open about the process while maintaining your stance will help your work stand out as an example of best practices. Reviews already mention they enjoyed the book despite having such strong feelings against AI tools being used in creative processes.
I've read your book and enjoyed it as I do your stories here on your channel. I think it is brave, for lack of a better word, to disclose your process. I'm not surprised people have reacted to your use of AI like they do ... unfortunately, not a lot of people are willing to really read how you did it (you didn't ask the AI to write a book and publish that as is). I myself are like you, I'm a creative, I love to use all kinds of tools, also tarot and oracles, and dice, to get ideas, to get unstuck and all of that. Thank you for talking about this and for your take on the cons.
I'm enjoying the book so far. I came into this video very dubious about the use of AI. But I have to say, I feel pretty good about the way you used it.
I'm glad to hear that. My hope was, with a detailed explanation of my thoughts and process, I could overcome some resistance. I'm still thinking about what to do going forward.
So, I'll start by saying that I don't have a particular problem with LLM generated text being used in a primarily oracular way. Is it, at this stage, a bit of a gimmick? Depends on the model, and the context will likely change within two years. Is it more effective than tarot for coming up with ideas? At some very specific tasks, but not usually. I've encountered a lot of broad-spectrum opposition to any sort of generative AI in some communities I inhabit. I would argue that their experiences reflect two primary socio-economic threats: indie and self-publishing as an avenue being devalued by reckless use of LLMs to saturate the market with majority LLM-text books (which end up being not that good, at least at this time), and that specific art commissions are being displaced by text2img prompt engineers spending less effort, using their art as training data without consent or compensation. Both of those, to some extant, *have* happened, and there is measurable economic impact. As such, there is an ideological desire to stay away from the technology altogether, out of a sense of solidarity. I personally haven't touched the tools since it became apparent that it was starting to become an issue. There are other issues with the technology that I presume you aware of, such as environmental impact, training data feedback, use in critical security infrastructure, and even "sorites paradoxing" our way into slavery. How close we are to some of those really rearing their heads is disputed, but worth following. I personally feel weird with some of the rhetoric going around: yes, I want to get paid for any training data I end up writing, and I don't want to generate some crappy too busy baroque pieces of visual art to make my products more appealing to a mass market that craves visual stimuli. But, I also feel that putting on labels of "Human-Made" get uncomfortably close to a sort of "anthrochauvinism" that may hurt people further in the future, and hearing about "disclosure", I can't help but hear echoes of some of the talking points that I've heard as a trans, nonbinary person, valid or not. I have no desire to tell you what to do other than to be empathetic, and follow where the technology goes. The boundaries of media are fraught with both avenues to the future, dead-ends, and dark, twisted turns. Stay true to yourself, and maybe let the dust settle on text2img before committing to it. 😁
Thank you for such a thoughtful, nuanced response! This is the kind of discussion that feels useful rather than knee-jerk reactions. The disclosure issue feels really salient, and it's one that I'm really wrestling with. A lot of AI authors don't disclose because of the pushback. There's a pressure to disclose from in the book community, but when you do, there's nasty reviews. Readers are likely experiencing AI-assisted work without knowing it and enjoying it just fine, none the wiser, especially in high-volume genres like romance. There are other concerns that I am aware of, like the environmental one. Without specific complaints from these reviewers I wasn't sure exactly what to address. I didn't talk about image generation in this video, which feels like a separate issue to me, and I'm less comfortable with, although I'm not sure I can articulate exactly why in this moment. I did hire human artists for both my cover and my promotional tarot card bookmark because it was easier to get exactly what I wanted and it fit within my budget. I'm certainly not all-in on AI. One of my design goals of Sphere Hoppers is to keep it as analog as possible, so no computers or tablets during play sessions. Thanks again for your thoughts. This is an ongoing process for me.
What an interesting process and premise for your book. I don't consider myself an artist, but it seems like AI tools are beginning to be utilized in all industries (some more recklessly than others). We're even starting to use it in my construction sales job. What I heard was that it's not replacing jobs, but more like businesses who utilize it will start to edge out those that don't. And it seems sort of unfair to me to say, "well, everyone can use it except the artists. Art must be pure!" That's bananas.
Oh awesome! Is your homebrew available anywhere? Check out the old free version on itch, it's good reading and sure to be inspiring: huffa.itch.io/between-the-skies
@@theragamancers I have a half-finished "campaign bible" keyed to a GURPS system. I'm actually working on condensing it now (I think I've gotten better at writing; it's like 20-something pages of mostly metaphysics and some of the details have changed), but I could send you an email to check it out if you want.
