Change to TAS Conditions - Use of AI

[jwlovell]

Terragen was free when I played with it. Should have sprung the $20 for a perpetual license back when it was still $20.

Bryce is $22. Carrerra absorbed most of that functionality but is not cheap. Daz' Hexagon is free, but Blender gets updated, and Hex doesn't.

Vue page at Bentley

Twinmotion is free on the Epic / Unreal platform, and creates phenomenally realistic landscape and architectural renders and animations - cinematic, photorealistic, and in realtime.

 

[middenface]

Surely if you say you are an artist, then you can produce art without AI.... ? What did you do before AI ? I don't get it.

I'm making some art packs that will help in making art for TAS, yes it's very mercenary, but hey it's an opening!

If you can't get art or use AI etc, then well, you don't always need art - look at the original LBBs?? Saying people will drop out of TAS because they can't get art is well, weak and quite frankly rubbish.

Oh and the idea that Cepheus etc is where to go and do AI art, fine, but be aware, few if any use AI and one is moving away from it.
Zozer does a little and isn't anymore, Independence definitely does not.

 

[ProfGrizzlyJon]

Outside of ethical issues, it's more about legal ones.

You can't copyright it, being non human creation.

And, if it can be, you don't want to have to pay lawyers to argue it out.

Actually, this isn’t true in the US. See my post about it

 

[Talon Greyfeather]

Surely if you say you are an artist, then you can produce art without AI.... ? What did you do before AI ? I don't get it.

I'm making some art packs that will help in making art for TAS, yes it's very mercenary, but hey it's an opening!

If you can't get art or use AI etc, then well, you don't always need art - look at the original LBBs?? Saying people will drop out of TAS because they can't get art is well, weak and quite frankly rubbish.

Oh and the idea that Cepheus etc is where to go and do AI art, fine, but be aware, few if any use AI and one is moving away from it.
Zozer does a little and isn't anymore, Independence definitely does not.

I can write code without AI, but a lot faster with it. I find int interesting that it is acceptable within my creative environment but not in others.

However, my wife is a writer and her agent doesn't even want her using Grammarly as it violates the no-AI use clauses most publishers have.

It will be interesting to see how this all works out - not just here but for every-day use as well. Are we headed for a Butlerian Jihad or finally on the path to Star Trek?

 

[Enkelas]

It will be interesting to see how this all works out - not just here but for every-day use as well. Are we headed for a Butlerian Jihad or finally on the path to Star Trek?

i think we are going fast and mostly to cyberpunk and neofeudalism era(with great corps and rich being the new feudal lords)

and in star trek have in mind that 3ww starts next year

 

[Geir]

It will be interesting to see how this all works out - not just here but for every-day use as well. Are we headed for a Butlerian Jihad or finally on the path to Star Trek?

As generally a technophile, futurist, whatever, I now find that I should not declare an opinion on this as I may be rounded up after the former of these things fails (because some fool storming the castle left his cell phone on).

 

[CordwainerFish]

As generally a technophile, futurist, whatever, I now find that I should not declare an opinion on this as I may be rounded up after the former of these things fails (because some fool storming the castle left his cell phone on).

I've been posting online more than long enough to be in the "may as well hang for a sheep as for a lamb" stage, myself.

 

[boggo2300]

As generally a technophile, futurist, whatever, I now find that I should not declare an opinion on this as I may be rounded up after the former of these things fails (because some fool storming the castle left his cell phone on).

If LLC's take over the world the safest thing to be is an avowed enemy, just going by their accuracy in pretty much every other way...

 

[CordwainerFish]

If LLCs take over the world

That happened years ago.

 

[boggo2300]

That happened years ago.

Different LLC's this time

 

[Zarpaulek]

If LLC's take over the world the safest thing to be is an avowed enemy, just going by their accuracy in pretty much every other way...

Did you mean Large Language Models (LLMs)?

Because I don't think Limited Liability Corporations will be taking over the world anytime soon.

 

[boggo2300]

Did you mean Large Language Models (LLMs)?

Because I don't think Limited Liability Corporations will be taking over the world anytime soon.

yes

 

[Endie]

Hey,

Appreciate you taking the time to spell out the new TAS policy on AI. It’s clear this wasn’t just a checkbox change—you folks care about the work, and you’re trying to protect something that’s got soul. That matters. Traveller’s been around the block longer than most of us, and I get wanting to keep the noise out.

But here’s the thing.

Not all of us using AI are out to crank out junk. Some of us are just trying to get a decent-looking ship interior or a desert moon skyline without blowing a paycheck. We’re not replacing creativity—we’re just short on budget, not imagination. AI’s just the wrench in the toolbox. Nobody freaked out over Photoshop or 3D assets, so why throw this one in the incinerator?

The line you drew—“art needs an artist”—I get it. But let’s be honest, that line’s been blurry for a long time. You think a guy feeding clever prompts into a generator, then tweaking it for an hour to get something that feels right—he’s not an artist? Tell that to Duchamp and his urinal.

And look—slop? Yeah, there’s slop. Seen it. We’ve all seen RPGs with all the flavor of instant oatmeal. But they were written by real people. Slop’s got nothing to do with AI. It’s got everything to do with whether the person gives a damn.

What this new policy does, though, is make it tougher for the folks on the fringe—the one-person outfit trying to put out their first adventure, the gal with great ideas but no cash for an illustrator. You’re not just keeping out the spam bots. You’re locking out a whole lot of good intentions with nowhere else to go. Thing is, there’s a better way to handle it. Set some boundaries. Require disclosure. Say “no AI art unless you edited it, added to it, made it yours.” No scraping, no clickbait garbage. Just give folks a bar to clear, and let them prove their work’s got heart.

You’re trying to stop the future from running roughshod over the present. I respect that. But the future’s already here—it’s just a question of who gets to use it, and how.

Let’s not throw out the tools just because some folks use them wrong. Let’s raise the bar, not build a fence.

Respectfully,

A Traveller fan who still writes, types, with both hands—

Now those fancy digital cameras - those arent real photographs - got to use film and develope them yourself if you want to be a true artist…(thats me being snarky in case some folks think that was a serious dig vs cameras).

This is so well put.

We saw the same petit-bourgeois pushback against the collageist works of Hockney, Kruger or Bradford from people who thought that an original work on a biscuit tin was more valid as a form of art than the incorporation of found materials by Braque or Picasso.

Without wishing to sound too much like the Vorticists, this backwards stance will be washed away in another few years, and will be looked on as a protectionist - and at best misguided - attempt to push back against a new, democratised medium which allows everyone to at least attempt to create new works (however mixed the results). And if human-created art is indeed so superior to the better art created with the use of AI then it has nothing to fear. Such superior qualities will surely shine through.

The ironic thing is that graphic designers and artists using Adobe products - which Mongoose use for their own products - already use AI as a matter of course. Not always generative AI, but AI nonetheless, which you can see in Mongoose's own works. A great many popular effects and filters are AI-powered, and Adobe are pushing these capabilities vigorously, if not explicitly. This position is not just misguided but also a case of egregious double standards, although I understand that with a tiny (but very vocal) minority it gains plaudits.

You can see the frustration from someone creative and capable like @CyborgPrime at this silly, closed-shop, ladder-pulling-up decision.

 

[Zarpaulek]

This is so well put.

We saw the same petit-bourgeois pushback against the collageist works of Hockney, Kruger or Bradford from people who thought that an original work on a biscuit tin was more valid as a form of art than the incorporation of found materials by Braque or Picasso.

Without wishing to sound too much like the Vorticists, this backwards stance will be washed away in another few years, and will be looked on as a protectionist - and at best misguided - attempt to push back against a new, democratised medium which allows everyone to at least attempt to create new works (however mixed the results). And if human-created art is indeed so superior to the better art created with the use of AI then it has nothing to fear. Such superior qualities will surely shine through.

The ironic thing is that graphic designers and artists using Adobe products - which Mongoose use for their own products - already use AI as a matter of course. Not generative AI, but AI nonetheless, which you can see in Mongoose's own works. A great many popular effects and filters are AI-powered, and Adobe are pushing these capabilities vigorously, if not explicitly. This position is not just misguided but also a case of egregious double standards, although I understand that with a tiny (but very vocal) minority it gains plaudits.

You can see the frustration from someone creative and capable like @CyborgPrime at this silly, closed-shop, ladder-pulling-up decision.

All of the "generative AI" companies passing Large Language Models off as "artificial intelligence" are hemorrhaging money, even OpenAI. I'd bet you a kilocred that none of them will be around by the end of the decade.

Maybe some new model that is actually intelligent and doesn't just approximate what the user wants to see (hence all the "hallucinations") will come around, maybe it won't. But LLMs are a dead end.

 

[middenface]

Oatmeal sums it up very well.

Just don't

A cartoonist's review of AI art - The Oatmeal

This is a comic about AI art.

theoatmeal.com

 

[Endie]

Oatmeal sums it up very well.

Just don't

A cartoonist's review of AI art - The Oatmeal

This is a comic about AI art.

theoatmeal.com

If that’s the interminable length (full of logical fallacies and at least one example of downright deceitfulness) he goes to when summing things up, I’d hate to see it when he really lets himself go!

 

[Arkathan]

That which is not earned has no value. The participation trophy ideology has proven itself to be a failure. Why try? Just let someone/thing else do it for you and pretend that you did it in order to pump up your ego.
AI for superhuman precision and optimal control of complex processes is one thing. Leaving the menial tasks to humans and taking over the creative environments is simply dystopian. Why strive to be a talentless menial or an outright slave to those PTBs that are uncomfortable with competent people who can think outside the box? Be a drone and let us do it for you. Here... Poof. You should be so proud.
An ignorant proletariat is easily controlled.
A slave who knows nothing better or has been indoctrinated to have no aspirations is content with that position.

 

[Endie]

That which is not earned has no value. The participation trophy ideology has proven itself to be a failure. Why try? Just let someone/thing else do it for you and pretend that you did it in order to pump up your ego.
AI for superhuman precision and optimal control of complex processes is one thing. Leaving the menial tasks to humans and taking over the creative environments is simply dystopian. Why strive to be a talentless menial or an outright slave to those PTBs that are uncomfortable with competent people who can think outside the box? Be a drone and let us do it for you. Here... Poof. You should be so proud.
An ignorant proletariat is easily controlled.
A slave who knows nothing better or has been indoctrinated to have no aspirations is content with that position.

A bit purple but if the message is “it’s a shame that LLMs are doing the creative stuff and leaving humans with the menial stuff” then absolutely.

But for those of us with no artistic talent and no desire to make money - just a wish to put our writing out for others to use - the fact that this policy insists that we can’t use the TAS logo or reference OTU elements unless we hand over cash to a human to draw any pictures (or to use the godawful clipart that’s provided) is a shame. I’ve no illusions about making money, but I really don’t want to pay someone else reasonably significant amounts of cash for the privilege when I can out a frankly better image on each page using the same tech that I use every day in my work in engineering without controversy.

 

[Terry Mixon]

A bit purple but if the message is “it’s a shame that LLMs are doing the creative stuff and leaving humans with the menial stuff” then absolutely.

But for those of us with no artistic talent and no desire to make money - just a wish to put our writing out for others to use - the fact that this policy insists that we can’t use the TAS logo or reference OTU elements unless we hand over cash to a human to draw any pictures (or to use the godawful clipart that’s provided) is a shame. I’ve no illusions about making money, but I really don’t want to pay someone else reasonably significant amounts of cash for the privilege when I can out a frankly better image on each page using the same tech that I use every day in my work in engineering without controversy.

Plenty of Traveller material in the early days had little or no art, likely for those reasons. Mongoose shouldn't make it easy for someone to use their umbrella to publish and allow creatives to be replaced by something that wholesale took their work without compensation. People want to say it isn't theft, but it is, and I applaud Mongoose for taking a stand against it.

 

[Endie]

Plenty of Traveller material in the early days had little or no art, likely for those reasons. Mongoose shouldn't make it easy for someone to use their umbrella to publish and allow creatives to be replaced by something that wholesale took their work without compensation. People want to say it isn't theft, but it is, and I applaud Mongoose for taking a stand against it.

It's not 1977, though. People accepted a lot back then: we're not so keen on unjustified right text, pictures that look like they were drawn by the writers' children (AD&D 1e PHB I'm looking at you), female characters with stats penalties, 100% honky male illustrations surreptitiously traced from comic books and more.