> 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.

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.

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.

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.

> "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?