I know this is a topic that has been on the surface for a while now and it raises a lot of thoughts and feelings. But I’m curious about the general consesus for using AI art as a character reference. Is it okay? Not okay? And why that is.
And this is not to point a finger at anyone, I am simply interested in the topic of AI in general and curious to know people’s thoughts around it. Thank you. 
I don’t really care about it myself.
70% AI refs I have seen mostly looked the same, just slightly different hairdos. It’s usually your <Attractive female AI gen #1231534> so they tend to end up being very forgettable.
AI art is theft. For the second time, I’ll repost some Acrona takes on the topic again:
As ever, she worded it better than I could have and from a more informed/professional position.
(I also used the links like I’m a Yu-Gi-Oh duelist summoning Acrona in attack mode.)
I seldom see people take issue with using AI art as reference for RP. What people take issue with is using AI to make art by any capacity, means and purpose at all.
Use of generative ‘AI’ to create images is based upon theft of artist’s work to train their data models, and is inherently immoral, even if not (yet) illegal.
It’s not okay, and I would side-eye anyone doing it.
I make my stance known by not partaking, I’d say. I know better than to try and educate strangers on the internet on why the practice is morally dubious at best.
Use something like Hero Forge instead, IMO.
Heroforge is excellent! Especially after their updates, there are so many models and styles to choose from. I haven’t personally gotten into the AI art train and the only art I’ve are commisioned from artists, but Heroforge is excellent for playing around for character concepts for sure. A good tip.
Hero Forge, picrew, various other relevant sites.
Imo its fine, in a few years everyone will be using these algorithms people for some reason are calling AI as assistant tools to do things faster and more efficiently in simply way more fields then just art
what people do in the confines of their own network is; as long as things are legal; completely their business.
Now if your’e going to use it to start competing with artists for income, that’s not cool (but technically still not illegal)
It irks me increasingly seeing more and more roleplayers using AI generated images - sometimes even trying to present themselves as the creator of the image.
I totally get that people want to have pretty images for their roleplay, but it shouldn’t happen through exploiting actual human artists.
I was about to throw this in the peeve thread today, but I’ll now just leave it here:
https://twitter.com/kelly_mckernan/status/1729709817210470626?s=46&t=6NYsU5TkkLHovQRtFosorA
https://x.com/kelly_mckernan/status/1729711064001007673?s=46&t=6NYsU5TkkLHovQRtFosorA
Tweet TLDR it’s so bad that some artists’ own works are getting drowned out or replaced by AI mimickery in search engines. As a creative it’s disheartening to see.
I have alot of issues with AI art, in particular roleplayers using it as well.
It is not only built on art theft, it is in my opinion extremely lazy.
I can understand not being able to afford or even wanting an artist commission, but in that case just be descriptive. Write your character appearance. It doesn’t need to be lengthy or fancy.
Or use something that is actually a creative expression for your own character. Use Heroforge. Use a doll dress-up minigame. Using AI art for it is just the wrong approach.
Perhaps harsh, but I will heavily doubt the player’s RP capabilities and morals if their profile is just full of AI art or links to it for refs instead of literally anything else.
I honestly don´t mind, if you want a picture of your character, go for it.
This is pretty crazy thing to do though, it doesn´t matter how long the prompt was or how many tries were needed to achieve the result, the person using AI to generate a picture isn´t a creator just like someone messaging an artist with description of what they want drawn isn´t a creator of the picture the artist draws.
It’s spilled out from drawing artists into other medias too. A youtuber I watch occasionally had an issue a few months ago that an AI-centered channel was pumping out copies of his entire library(with his thumbnails, scripts and everything) just sliiightly altered in order to try and get people to to that channel instead for ad revenue.
It’s part of a culture of instant gratification. People, especially in this day and age where everything is so readily available to us, don’t like to wait for things. I know this because in the vast majority of cases, I’m the same – patience is not my virtue.
Because of that convenience, they’re willing to overlook the “moral downsides” of what they’re doing and who they’re depriving. It’s something that’s not unique whatsoever to art and the creative sphere.
Of course, in many cases that’s for essentials. People go to large supermarket chains instead of smaller groceries stores because using them makes it cheaper to live. Meanwhile, things like character art are a luxury; you don’t need them to live, so it makes the theft inherent to artificially generated pieces more egregious.
If we were to use the chef metaphor, even if one didn’t claim to have created the meal, from my POV using the data-laundering AI generators equals ordering a meal prepared from stolen goods.
Doesn’t exist.
It’s AI generated imagery based on art.
And yes it’s also theft.
I’m not personally going to rally against any individual using AI, but in the world of RP-related shenanigans its always struck me as some sort of anti-thesis to the whole community aspect.
I’ve always enjoyed how it’s a conglomeration of human effort and human creativity, I like seeing what people have written or made, I want to see peoples passions expressed!
Any of the moral troubles have been expressed by better people than I when it comes to covering those topics, but I concur with those also. I’ve had jobs slowly peter away in the advent of all this AI-art building and building, not especially monetarily rewarding jobs - but work I just enjoyed doing!
At this point, there’s too many people who use it to criticise anyone specifically – excluding, of course, the more prominent proponents who tend to be actively gleeful about the fact they’re getting one ‘over’ on artists.
Oh aye, I won’t disagree with you there - I’ve said it y’know, but like you say - there’s some certain buggers out there I don’t mind seeing get snubbed.