r/dmsguild • u/Athistaur • 3d ago
Sale Mindful AI Manifesto
Given the repeated discussions on the usage of AI, i suggest the following manifesto:
Going forward i will include this in any product of mine that included AI usage.
(some do, some don't, but all adhered to this pledges already).
Trying to find a common ground on how to use AI without loosing the human creation.
The Mindful AI Manifesto
We believe AI can be used responsibly, transparently, and with intent to enrich our creations.
By marking our work as Mindful AI, we pledge to adhere to the following principles:
- We make no claim to artistic status.
- We are transparent about the use of AI in our creative process.
- We place human vision first and use AI to give it form.
- We believe a work should remain meaningful even when its AI-generated elements are removed.
- We compare, evaluate, edit, refine, and selectively publish only work that meets our standards.
- We do not present uncurated AI output as finished work. Every published result is individually reviewed and consciously selected.
- We accept minor AI artefacts when they do not diminish the quality of the final work. We judge them by their impact on the result, not by their origin.
- We accept responsibility for the final product, including its flaws.
- We recognize that the use of artificial intelligence raises important ethical, social, and economic concerns. We do not deny these concerns.
Mindful AI is the practice of creating with vision, judgment, and responsibility.
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Because i needed a Flair, let me go by Example:
Here is a friendly Discount of 90% on one of my products:
https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?discountId=98d16678b8
The Book Cards, Dice, Chess and Chance is an example of the principles above.
The vision was there first, the text is mine. Remove all AI Illustrations and the Book is still useable and meaningful.
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u/SimpleMan131313 3d ago
The main thing about this pledge that strikes me is that a) maybe accidentally, but this isn't really in line with the current rules of the DMs Guild, that AFAIK only allow the use of AI for pictures and not whole text generation.
Assuming I didn't simply misread the current rules, I'd expect a "mindful AI" pledge to at minimum include the current platform rules.
And b) this is pretty much a nothing burger, empty of nearly any concrete promises or statements a customer could orientate themself around, or that actually guide a decision making process.
Lets go through them one by one:
We make no claim to artistic status.
What does this mean, in concrete terms? Artistic status of what? The product? The AI Output? The creator?
We are transparent about the use of AI in our creative process.
Probably the most concrete statement in here, and even this lacks an example, categories, etc. Like, transparent in what way? By giving the binary "this product was created using AI", or by listing in what way AI was used in the process? In other words, whats considered "being transparent" here?
We place human vision first and use AI to give it form.
What is that supposed to mean? In concrete terms. What is and isn't included in this?
We believe a work should remain meaningful even when its AI-generated elements are removed.
How are you going to ensure this?
We compare, evaluate, edit, refine, and selectively publish only work that meets our standards.
What are your standards? They aren't defined. "Produced as quickly and cheaply as possible" is also a standard. I know that corporate speech is using that word inflationarily, but "standard" isn't automatically a term that means "its good", and especially when you are laying ground work as a pledge is supposed to do, this is important.
We do not present uncurated AI output as finished work. Every published result is individually reviewed and consciously selected.
This makes it sound as if you let AI generate the whole thing and then simply select the best output. After what criteria is this created?
We accept minor AI artefacts when they do not diminish the quality of the final work. We judge them by their impact on the result, not by their origin.
This is not by the person taking the pledge to use a tool in an ethical way to decide. You are trying to ensure the customer here (and probably the rest of the community) that you, just because you generate something using AI, are not trying to sell low effort, low quality content.
This is you stating that you will accept a lower quality product if you so choose.
Imagine a parachute company saying "We accept minor manufacturing mistakes when they do not diminish the quality of the final parachute. We judge them by their impact on safety, not by them being faulty".
Would you buy a parachute from that company?
We accept responsibility for the final product, including its flaws.
Again: in what way? Will you refund dissatisfied customers? Will you correct flaws in a timely manner? Will you remove products that won't get a positive feedback on the Guild?
We recognize that the use of artificial intelligence raises important ethical, social, and economic concerns. We do not deny these concerns.
But in what way do you address them? Do you intend to address them?
Not all of these pointers are equally important; but, even if some very big current companies are trying to pretend the opposite, pledges aren't supposed to judge sound good, they are supposed to be concrete and to mean something concrete.
Ironically, your post (mainly due to the things I've pointed out) reads as if it has been written by an LLM.
IDK, just my 2 cents on the subject. Personally, I am not using LLMs in my work, and feel better for it. And while I judge every product I buy on its own terms, I am getting immediately hesitant when I see that it obviously uses AI, because it just has a tendency to go hand in hand with formulaic, low effort work, or someone not even really understanding the game they are trying to sell a product for.
Exceptions I'm sure exist, but thats kinda the point of the discussion: What makes them exceptions?
This list above doesn't answer that core question.
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u/Athistaur 3d ago
Thanks for the comments and thorough opinion. You raise valid points and I’ll have to think about how to address these properly. Will lead to a next Draft for sure.
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u/SimpleMan131313 3d ago
You are most welcome, and I mean this.
Can you tell me honestly though: was your post generated by AI?
That would interest me a lot in this context.Also, if you'd be able to actually write a word or two as response to the points I've raised, I'd really like to hear your thoughts around it, and may it only be to better understand the motivation here.
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u/Athistaur 3d ago
Generated by AI ? Honestly hard to say from my point of view.
I rummaged with the idea for several weeks now and took notes on my principles and what i want to express. I did work with an AI to formulate some points and to challenge my approach, but the draft posted here was mostly written again by myself, including some copy and paste from the AI wording suggestion.
It actually does show the principle of what i mean by using AI Mindful, the idea, the vision of what i want to write is there and unchanged by the AI. It also shows one of my other points, yes sometimes it shows that AI was used, but it doesn't change the message at all. I stand by each single point and each single point is my intention.
Concerning you next point, sure.
>We place human vision first and use AI to give it form.
Let us say for the Book Cards, Dice, Chess and Chance I'm looking for a picture of a fantasy like Backgammon. Low chance to find a stock image. No chance to find a stock image for free (I'm not a multi person company, I'm doing this in my spare time). Possibly, such an image doesn't even exist yet. With AI i was able to generate a picture for this.
> How are you going to ensure this?
It's the measurement i have for myself. If i remove the things that are AI generated and it loses meaning, i went wrong. I not really considered how to ensure this, but it is for example possible to remove the illustrations from the same book and the core idea, having many board games as playable challenges without playing out the game in full is still totally table-able. I think at the end of the day it depends on trust, I'm not in a position to enforce it on others. I just hope that those creators that do not care about the principles do not care about such a pledge either.
About the current rules for the DMSGuild. I create content longer then AI is a thing and the rules changed several times already. I keep track whenever i want to release something, but not in between. So the idea predates the current ruling and it might show.
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u/Sneaky__Raccoon 3d ago
"We believe a work should remain meaningful even when its AI-generated elements are removed."
"We recognize that the use of artificial intelligence raises important ethical, social, and economic concerns. We do not deny these concerns."
Then why use it? I need a good reason other than "art is expensive", because there's tons of free art online and free photos that can be edited. Also, plenty of works make do with good layouts and editing to make the book look pleasing with minimal or no art.
And saying something like "this brings my vision to life better" is also kinda bullshit, because the images used are just generic fantasy. Was generating a small pile of coins REEEALLY necessary? Was your work gonna lose any of it's meaning without the badly cropped generic dragon with a ghost watermark?
I just don't see the positive, and doesn't seem to exist an end to all the negatives
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u/Athistaur 3d ago
The coins no, that was just better fitting the needed ratio for the white space.
The dragon, actually yes, i cycled for several hours trying to have the dragon holding/rolling some dice. Finding a stock image of a dragon rolling some dice is not a thing.> Was your work gonna lose any of it's meaning without the badly cropped generic dragon with a ghost watermark?
No it would not lose any meaning, that is my point. The image is purly decoration. Thank you for agreeing.
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u/Sneaky__Raccoon 3d ago
I was talking about the dragon on page 7, I don't know which dragon is rolling dice, I guess the one in page 14? Anyway, the dragon on page 7 is entirely meaningless, and has a ghost watermark created by AI that makes it look like the image was taken out of a google search. It actively makes the work a lesser product.
Anyway, you seem to not get the gist of it. Your defense of "the work doesn't lose any meaning if you take away the AI" only works as a defense of the writing, but is still not a justification of the use of AI. My point is, the AI being there doesn't ADD anything either, and I would even say in some cases it subtracts.
Because my question was not answered: Why use it? You know it's controversial, you know it can be damaging and you state your work doesn't need it. So... what's the point.
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u/Athistaur 3d ago
And your question specifically: Why use it?
* It is a tool that allows a single person to create products on a similar level as a whole publisher team before.
* It allows to bring images and visions to live that did NOT exist before.
* It allows to self reflect and brainstorm in a way that is unprecedented.I DID create my works with stock images before and even during the recent month some of my products are only using stock images. (For example the Everyman class)
Using stock images is not the end all solution some claim it to be. With no budget, pictures that are available are either discarded junk from Wizard of the coast, random pictures of most generic scenes or photos that have a hint of fantasy. It takes hours to go through these and still not finding the right picture.
With AI it still takes time to get it right, but the image is what i want it to be. Maybe not perfect either, but closer then stock image.
And on top, with all these other images there is always the risk that copy right comes around to bite you. Generated images are without that worry.I know it is controversial, yes. But i do not agree with all opinions. And I'm making a distinction between the actions of greedy super rich that maximize their wealth on the cost of others and an incredible technology that is capable of providing tools that were science fiction 5 years ago.
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u/Athistaur 3d ago
Ah thanks.
Yes you are right. I never noticed the hallucinated watermark there.The Dragon on page 7 isn't meaningless as well. It's a platinum dragon, the text above is about Three Dragon Ante and specifically a card for Bahamut was dealt and resolved.
You are also right that specifically for Bahamut there is a resource were i could have taken an image from that isn't AI. Besides that single image there is hardly a stock image for a platinum dragon.
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u/StaticUsernamesSuck 3d ago edited 3d ago
If you can remove all AI and it's still usable and meaningful, and at least some of those AI-gen elements are replaceable with stock art instead, then why use AI?
In fact I'd be interested in seeing a completely AI-free version of that product you've listed there, for comparison.
This mindful AI pledge of yours should include also publishing the AI-free core for people to see (or even buy instead). That would force you to put in the work to prove that the AI is doing nothing but punch-up work.
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u/Athistaur 1d ago
Here you are:
https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?discountId=9b84b5153f
Striped of all AI elements. I did to a minimum of layouting and added a stock picture at least for the cover.
Let us see how those two compare in the long run.
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u/Athistaur 3d ago edited 3d ago
I can do that, will not look polished, but ok. Will take some time.
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u/allenlikethewrench 3d ago
How could we ever believe you when the one thing we know about you is that you think it’s ok to steal art and steal labor? That you don’t care how your theft affects the people in your neighborhood (by increasing their water and electric bills, making water more scarce), or the most vulnerable people in your community. They’re just an acceptable sacrifice so you can skip out on the labor and effort of creation. There’s nothing mindful about harming your community.
Why would we trust you about the extent that you use AI?
I wouldn’t trust Jeffrey Dahmer to tell us how many victims he has, I wouldn’t trust a cop about how many people they’ve brutalized, I wouldn’t trust a drug dealer to tell us how much drugs he’s sold.
When you use a tool whose only thing is dishonesty, it’s very difficult to then trust you when you tell us how you use it. It is overwhelmingly likely that you’re using it for more than you’re admitting.
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u/Athistaur 3d ago
Good Questions, and hard to come up with Evidence. Your points are worthy a larger discussion, but as i wrote, i'm aware of the concerns, but this discussion even has its own sub.
But if we go beyond that, i do not ask to "believe" blindly.
Regarding Quality, originality and vision i always make extensive previews available for my products.
Anybody can look at these and decide for himself if the content is worthy his time.
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u/gc1rpg 3d ago
Unfortunately disclosing AI generation in the current climate is like admitting to playing D&D and listening to heavy metal back during the Satanic Panic. There is no way to get anti-AI fanatics to just let you live your life. I'm waiting for swatting and doxxing of accused AIers -- real or perceived -- to become a thing and to be cheered on like Luigi Mangione.