Wizards of the Coast are in hot water with fans of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). The company released a statement following the recent discovery of AI art in its newest companion book.
The rapid rise of AI in the last year has led to some surprising outcomes. When the World of Warcraft or Destiny 2 communities aren’t tricking it into believing in Glorbo, it’s being used to impersonate streamers.
Now, AI art has found its way into the next D&D supplementary text Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants. Fans on Twitter noticed some tell-tale signs of artificiality in some of the book’s artwork a few days ago.
Since the incident has blown up, parent company Wizards of the Coast addressed the issue via the D&D Beyond Twitter profile. The company said it had no knowledge that AI was used and has since updated its guidelines to prevent a similar situation in the future.
On AI-generated art and Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants: pic.twitter.com/q6oXRRITk9
— D&D Beyond (@DnDBeyond) August 5, 2023
Artist Ilya Shkipin confirmed in a since-deleted Tweet that they had used AI to “generate certain details or polish and editing”. They claimed that the images were not generated from scratch using AI as the sole means of creation.
Their confirmation caused members of the D&D community to threaten boycotts and direct people toward other Tabletop Roleplaying Games. “Try other TTRPGs. Don’t give them money. Don’t buy this book. Refund if you did,” one user tweeted.
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Wizards of the Coast have clarified that it absolutely does not want AI used when creating future artwork for its products. “We are revising our process and updating our artist guidelines to make clear that artists must refrain from using AI art generation as part of their process,” it said.
The artist responsible has since announced that Wizards of the Coast are collaborating with them to “rework” the art for the book. Fans responded that the gesture was a token one and requested the book be released for free.
Illustrations are going to be reworked.
— Ilya | SuperRare (@i_shkipin) August 5, 2023
Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants releases on August 15 and it’s unclear whether these reworks will make it into the initial print in time. It’s possible that digital versions of the book will feature the reworked art.
If you’ve ever wanted to give D&D a try but don’t know where to start, check out our guide on what you need and how to get a game going.