Statement on AI

This is a drawing of a Sawdager Kuulik that I created while contemplating what what would be needed to build an entire game. This was drawn with alcohol (markers) and watercolor markers. It took me roughly one month to create.

Will to Power Games is not an AI game company. Will to Power Games does make use of AI sparingly for certain aspects of our development process, and that will be explained here. To those who despise AI with every cell in their body, I understand you're probably having a hard time with every company in the world looking for a way to squeeze AI into their products, from web browsers to dish soap.

Our use of AI has three levels. The first is where it is not used at all. The second is where it is used to assist traditional development, and the last is where it is used to perform tasks with a minimum of human effort (there is always some human effort).

Before we go any further, let's review Will to Power Games' ultimate game creation goals:

1. Wiki time! To create wiki-style user interfaces for players and GMs that describe everything described in the game.
2. Illustrate! To provide one or more reference illustrations for each page (character/power/settlement/item/etc.
3. Color fill! To provide one or more reference illustrations as background for each unit of lore.
4. New era! To break the tradition of art that looks "painted", swapping in photorealistic images (if possible).

Level 1: No AI

Otan and the fantasy characters within it are creations of Robyn Blaber and his employees or affiliates of Will to Power Games. Some of the Will to Power characters have histories that date back to the late 1970s. Every character, creature, faction, spell, and power was dreamed up with human dreams long before AI was even commercially available.

Our Products: AI Does Not Affect Play

Will to Power Games is dedicated to making games to be played by groups of people. We provide technological assistance for both players and GMs. This assistance is provided in the form of pre-selected lists, curated by a human curator or random generators, again from curated lists. At no point will an AI direct a player or GM at any point in the use of our products.

Level 2: AI Assist

It would be improbable for a single developer to create a product to compete with the HUGE companies now famous for their TTRPG products and software. As a developer with 30 years of experience, I consider myself to be up to the task, but to perform the work of ten developers, some of the software development has had AI assistance. None of this software affects game play, but rather how the information gets from our database, to the web server, to the player's or GM's browser.

As a writer, I also confess to using Grammarly. I have a love/hate relationship with it as this very document features a dozen yellow underlined sentences that it would like to rephrase ITS own words. I do not allow it. It can correct my typos and add in the Oxford commas that it loves more than life, but it is not allowed to rephrase entire sentences. If my writing sounds AI-inspired, it is because that is how I sound. I have a higher education and a very concise way of speaking... almost made for this job.

Level 3: Mostly AI

Our images are mostly AI. I am an artistic person; I can draw, play guitar, and sew together cosplay costumes, but I cannot produce anywhere near the amount of art required for a game with such a large scope. At first release, we estimate that our flagship game will have over 20,000 images. At the rate I produce art, that's a 1700-year project. To hire a team of artists, some 20 million would have to be spent, though that figure could vary significantly (upward) depending on quality.

We decided on Midjourney AI for the following reasons:

1. The vision for this project required a quantity of images that would take several lifetimes to complete.
2. We have no intention of using AI to deceive. Our photorealistic images could not be created without AI. We do not imply that they are real photographs.
3. Our system is 100% home-brewable, and users are free to replace any art, or any lore for that matter, with their own.

AI Objections

We have been creating reference images for our game for 3 years now, primarily using the various editions of Midjourney. We have discussed AI use at length with some very vocal detractors, again and again, in those three years. Here are the major debating points that these detractors continue to bring up, followed by our "official" responses.

It's Theft

The training methods used by the large AI companies are said to make unfair use of the IP of others, from art to literature and beyond. The detractors conclude "all AI is unethical". So, two things: First, as an end-user of AI, I cannot know whether the text and images used in their training were used with or without permission. Second, if I ask Google about Brimaelfes, it responds with information culled from our website. Did they steal my data, or did they use it fairly to inform people about my public site?

We have a set of rebuttals to the "theft" problem.

1. If stolen, why does it exist? If the AI companies are stealing IP, then they would be quickly torn apart by litigation. Disney and other huge companies that own much of the world's IP would have destroyed them already.
2. We do not own the images. We don't own the IP for these images. We license them from Midjourney. We cannot copyright them and have no recourse if they are "stolen" pixel by pixel from us.
3. We could be held liable. Despite not owning the art, we could be held liable if our images look too much like a Disney character. Perhaps Disney is happy to have its images stolen, simply to prosper through litigation. As such, we will promptly remove any reference illustrations that resemble a third party's IP.
4. Fair use. This has not been thoroughly tested in the courts. We mostly agree to disagree with detractors.
5. AI free gaming. Because our game is not reliant on reference illustrations, as they are only a design choice, they my purchase a text-only version.

It's Not Green

We understand from the news that, particularly in the United States, AI data centers have been built on creaky electrical infrastructures that do not have the capacity to handle AI's electrical needs. Further, the heat produced by these data centers is discarded, with the region's potable drinking water serving as coolant. We also understand that these data centers have been responsible for increases in local electrical bills by as much as 500%! This is inexcusable, but this is the fault of governments and corporate green, not lone individuals googling and getting an AI-assisted answer.

Here is a possible remedy:

1. Petition your state and federal government to use green energy for these massive AI data centers.
2. Require that excess heat from these centers be put to industrial, commercial, or residential use.
3. Do not build data centers where there is a limited supply of potable water.

Hire a Real Artist! Humans Rule!

Soon. More than one, we hope.

Real artists may never replace all 20,000 images in our repository; for the more visible of those, we Will to hire real artists to replace them. Budget willing. When we launch, we will be very happy to dedicate part of our budget to "real" art. We hope to sponsor cosplays, hire artists, guest writers, and build a creative community around our beloved Otan. Right now, with only two of us and a HUGE requirement for reference illustrations, we simply don't have the budget at this time. Soon? We hope so!

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