> while they 100% against using AI to generate art or game design, when you ask them about using AI tools to build software or websites the response is almost always something like "Programmers are expensive, I can't afford that. If I can use AI to cut programmers out of the process I'm going to do it."

Three things:

1. People simply don't respect programming as a creative, human endeavour. Replacing devs with AI is viewed in the same way as replacing assembly line workers with robots.

2. Somewhat informed people might know that for coding tasks, LLMs are broadly trained on code that was publicly shared to help people out on Reddit or SO or as part of open-source projects (the nuance of, say, the GPL will be lost). Whereas the art is was trained on is, broadly speaking, copywritten.

3. And, related to two: people feel great sympathy for artists, since artists generally struggle quite a bit to make a living. Whereas engineers have solid, high paying white collar jobs; thus, they're not considered entitled to any kind of sympathy or support.

The idea of being anti-AI for art or game design vs pro-AI for software or websites is interesting because it presumably reflects the fact that those people value art and game design more than they do software or websites. Their view of AI is as a means to an end for stuff that's necessary but low value to them while preserving the human touch for stuff that matters more.

This actually doesn't seem that unreasonable or inconsistent with how most people treat technology or similar conveniences. Many if not most people value a human component for things they think are important, even if it costs more or has other tradeoffs.

This basically reflects my observations.

> Games Workshop elects not to experience multi-year headache. Will use AI when profitable.

Indeed, companies will always start using something if it makes financial sense for them.

> One thing I've found when talking to non-technical board gamers about AI is that while they 100% against using AI to generate art or game design, when you ask them about using AI tools to build software or websites the response is almost always something like "Programmers are expensive, I can't afford that. If I can use AI to cut programmers out of the process I'm going to do it."

This is because they don't view programming as a "creative" form of labor. I think this is an incorrect view, but this knowledge is at least useful in weighting their opinions.

The most interesting observation is that regardless of how "anti-AI" most people seem to be, it isn't that deep of an opinion. Their stated preference is they don't want any AI anywhere, but their revealed preference is they'll continue to spend money as long as the product is good. Most products produced with AI, however, are still crap.

It's not "anti-AI" to acknowledge the fact that when your job is to create work for hire in order to build up your employer's IP portfolio, being paid to use AI to create work that isn't IP isn't doing your job.

Your job is to create IP. As per the US Copyright Office, AI output cannot be copyrighted, so it is not anyone's IP, not yours, not your employer's.

That's not "anti-AI", that's AI and copyright reality. Game Workshop runs their business on IP, suddenly creating work that anyone can copy, sell or reproduce because it isn't anyone's IP is antithetical to the purpose of a for-profit company.

Yes, anyone with an art-adjacent hobby like tabletop gaming is militantly anti-AI.

Shelling out to support artists is seen as virtuous, and AI is seen as the opposite of that - not merely replacing artists but stealing from them. There's also a general perception that every cost-saving measure is killing the quality of the product.

So you've got a PR double-whammy there.

> One thing I've found when talking to non-technical board gamers about AI is that while they’re 100% against using AI to generate art or game design, when you ask them about using AI tools to build software or websites the response is almost always something like "Programmers are expensive, I can't afford that. If I can use AI to cut programmers out of the process I'm going to do it."

I had a conversation with an artist friend some time back. He uses Squarespace for his portfolio website. He was a few drinks in, and ranting about how even if it's primarily artists using these tools professionally at the moment, it'll still lead to a consolidation of jobs, how it's built on the skillset and learning of a broader community than those that will profit, etc. How the little guy was going to get screwed over and over by this sort of thing.

I started out doing webdesign work before I moved more to the operations and infrastructure management side of things, but I saw the writing on the wall with CMS systems, WYSIWYG editors, etc. At the time building anything decent still took someone doing design and dev work, but I knew that they would get better over time, and figured I should make the change.

So I asked him about this. I spoke about how yeah, the people behind Squarespace had the expertise - just like the artists using AI now - but every website built with it or similar is a job that formerly would have gone to the same sort of little guy he was talking about. How it's a consolidation of all the learnings and practices built out by that larger community, where the financial benefits are heavily consolidated. I told him it doesn't much matter to the end web designer whether or not the job got eliminated by non-AI automation and software or an LLM, the work is still gone and the career less and less viable.

I've had similar conversations with artists before. They invariably maintain that it's different, somehow. I don't relish jobs disappearing, but it's nothing new. Someday, maybe enough careers will vanish that we'll need to figure out some sort of system that doesn't involve nearly every adult human working.

> "Games Workshop elects not to experience multi-year headache. Will use AI when profitable."

They will definitely start using AI when their competitors do to the point that they gain a substantial competitive advantage. Then, at least in a free market, their only choices are to use AI or cease to exist. At that point, it is more survival bias (companies that used AI survived) rather than profit motive (companies used AI to make more money).

Don't assume your experience is uniformly distributed. I know tabletop gamers addicted to AI and 3D printing their own game pieces.

I would describe them as anti-corporate IP/copyright cartel. They understand things like automobiles and personal computers require organized heavy lifting but laying claim to own our culture and entertainment, our emotional identity is a joke.

Just rich people controlling agency, indoctrinating kids with capitalist essentialism; by chance we were born before you and survived this long so neener neener! We own everything!

Such an unserious country.

> ... while they’re 100% against using AI to generate art or game design, when you ask them about using AI tools to build software or websites ...

And this is not complicated at all. It's the quality of output.

Users appreciate vibecoded apps but developers are universally unfazed about vibecoded pull requests. Lots of same devs use AI for "menial" tasks and business emails. And this is NOT a double standard: people are clearly ok when generative AI outputs may exist but aren't exposed to unsuspecting human eyes, and it's not ok if they are exposed to human eyes, because the data AIs generate haven't exceeded the low-side threshold of some sort. Maybe SAN values.

(also: IIUC, cults and ponzi scheme recruitment are endemic in tabletop game communities. so board game producers distancing from anything hot in those circles, even if it were slightly irrational to do so, also makes sense.)

I doubt a random internet commenter can persuade you, but LLMs and tools built around them are fundamentally different from NFT/crypto.

NFTs/Crypto are just ways to do crimes/speculate/evade regulations. They aren't useful outside of "financial engineering." You were right to dismiss them.

LLMs are extremely useful for real world use cases. There are a lot of practical and ethical concerns with their use: energy usage, who owns them, who profits from them, slop generation, trust erosion... I mean, a lot. And there are indeed hucksters selling AI snake oil everywhere, which may be what tripped off your BS meter.

But fundamentally, LLMs are very useful, and comparing them to NFT/Crypto does a disservice to the utility of the tech.

So, stuff generated from AI is copyrightable now?

Not to mention that it could be a legal minefield if your designer uses AI.

> everyone can tell and it looks generic when AI is used

For now. I feel like the gap continues to close with each release, and it's only a matter of time before it becomes indistinguishable.

alternatively, you can use AI as a starting point. All design is iterative.

Well, you can definitely make AI art much less obvious with the right tweaking (directly running models, blending different sub-models, etc). The bigger issues from a professional perspective are liability concerns and then, even if you have guaranteed licensed sources, the impossibility of controlling fine details. For a company like GW it's kind of pointless if it can't reflect all the decades worth of odds and ends they've built both the game and the surrounding franchise around.

It's not as fancy as that but I've had luck simply asking an LLM to generate an OpenSCAD file.

I wanted to adapt my bike balancer to an unusual sized wheel and simply measured the diameter of the rod and the outer diameter of the hole where the axle slides into, asked an LLM to produce an adapter, converted to an STL and hit print and got a fully functional 3D printed part. Felt like living in the future, maybe one step away from owning a Star Trek Replicator.

You mean a technology primarily created by stealing content without attribution is being embraced by people that want to steal without contribution? Shocking!

If they want to be lore accurate, then they should also ise them constantly, just in the down low. There is a C'tan in their version of Mars after all

AI companies would love that. Just as oil companies love it that climate change is still debated throughout society. Big tech would prefer nobody cared about privacy.

People are starting to notice and care about these things.

Maybe I’m just not cynical enough about the “average” non-HN population but I think there are quite a few people who care.

Lots of people from all walks of life play board games. There are a lot of people who refuse to buy games made with AI generated assets. They go as far as making forums and tracking these things so that other folks can avoid them.

Well that's the thing that makes capitalism the most effective resource management system ever. If this is a bad play, and people do indeed find value from AI, it will be sink or swim. If it's not, then the ai forward will have to learn to stand out in the overwhelming sea of slop that they are competing against undifferentiated. That's why capitalists get paid so much, it's not a clear decision, in this case it seems contrarian, and if it pays off then they make money.

And that’s probably the OpenAI killer. If any of my work product from now to 2030 could legitimately be entangled in any of the millions of coming copyright claims, I am in a world of hurt.

This fast run to use LLMs in everything can be undone by one court decision - and the sensible thing is to isolate as much as you can.

Really interesting insight

Only the tech priests know the right incantations and rituals to commune with the holy machine spirit.

Literally any familiarity with the lore and it just makes sense, the kind of people the 40k lore would resonate with are unlikely to be AI chuds in the first place.

Though then again people do usually look way past any/all subtlety that might once have been intended and any franchise-ification of something usually destroys the remaining of originality as it becomes a facsimile of its original self.

But GW do seem to take reasonably good care of their IP and world, so I respect them for resisting the imminent slop-ification at least a little bit, there's enough shitty 40k work out there in both book and videogame form already. I'm sure the Abominable Intelligence will come for them eventually too, but until then, the emperor protects.

For who, Roboute Guilliman be using the Cawl Inferior like chatGPT.

I trust Data more than Lore.

Yeah they used to have quarterly reports where they talked about their plans for world domination.

Correct, all of these is about shifting the power dynamics into the middle managers rather than the engineers, who are already trusted to design and develop the system. It’s as if always there should be some gate keeping and wrangling work in place so these managers feel they are not useless in the overall process. Just design a process that ensures the outcome is of xyz quality and never check how and where it was done, but human nature to control is always there.