Hello players who bought a really cool notebook for D&D and then I actually got way too nervous
to write in it and ruin it so they just take a blank notebook to every single session with
them.
And DMs who steal way more than they write.
Welcome back to Table Talk, I'm Maddie Conway.
And I'm Robert Lopez.
What are we talking about today Robert?
Today we are talking about a hot button issue.
We haven't decided what to call a segment yet.
We originally talked about calling it Nat Ones but then we did an episode called Nat Ones
where we talked about dealing with failure at the table so the title is off but this
particular episode is going to be about playing with Big Brother at the table or AI for those
that are uneducated and have never played the book.
Read 1984.
Yeah, you'll get the reference.
Very poignant.
There's a wonderful play adaption.
I cannot remember the playwright but I read the script for it recently and it was one of
my favorites that I've ever read.
It's a fucking wild dystopian novel man.
Yeah.
I think her Vonnegut shit's nutty.
Yeah, it's...
Concept is basically robots control everything.
They curate your experience.
They manage everyone's lives.
I mean it's...
They fuck this man.
We're really, really close to it now which is why some people are freaking the fuck out
because we're like a hopskippin' to jump away from just handing them the reins and being
like cool, do with us what you will.
Yeah, and 1984 in particular also deals with a lot of brainwashing and the government using
AI and using...
Or not AI so much as a surveillance state and kind of situation but AI feels really similar
to that surveillance state kind of situation just because of how much information it is
taking from the people that are using it.
Yeah, so anyways, now that we've moved past that, the episode is basically going to be
all about talking about how AI is used in D&D.
Ways that we use it.
Ways that we don't use it.
Sort of the pros and cons, the benefits, the ups and the downs.
I know I started using it pretty early on when AI started to become a big thing.
I was on ChatGPT like I think the day or maybe the second day after it went live to the public.
Jesus Christ.
And sort of using it for all sorts of shit like from day one.
I mean it was a lot more limited now.
I think we're at ChatGPT3.
You can pay $20 a month and go up to four.
But eventually four will be free and then it'll be five that you have to pay for.
But I've used the system enough.
I tell people how to use it now.
That's how experienced I've become.
I know how to work it.
I use it to write character backstories.
I use it to write faux scripts for like news anchors and fake press releases in game.
I've used it to come up with Snap Blocks, which it can do, which is nuts.
I've used it to come up with cool unique abilities that are not in books.
I mean it's really sky's the limit with AI already.
But I think looking at it from a DM lens or even just from a D&D lens, truly it's just
like it eliminates the process of having to sit there for hours to try and come up with
the tiniest bit of information.
I'll say even going back in AI's relationship with D&D specifically, I think even going
back further than that, like fantasynamegenerator.com, which is a website that I at least have
been on since before I was playing D&D and everything like that because it's just like
a general website that you'll run into anytime you're looking for a name generator.
It is like the big boss.
It is great.
It's AI.
It's basically AI.
It's a generator of some kind.
And there even before the conversation of AI was in the general public, I guess, in talking
about how everyday people are using it.
People were already kind of using it in regards to tabletop games.
I think with fantasynamegenerator, the way a lot of generators work is opposed to what
we think of as AI now is that they basically just set parameters.
They say these are the kinds of letters you're allowed to use.
These are the examples.
Anytime somebody hits elf mail, you can only use X amount of letters and you could only
put them in certain combinations.
But I think now we have ones that are using AI.
But fantasynamegenerator has been around a lot longer than AI has been.
It's just very close to it.
But now we have essentially what is like a person on the other end of the screen that
can just give you a list of names.
Person on the other end is such a sentence.
You can have a conversation with these things though.
You can ask them about their day.
You can talk about the weather.
You can talk politics.
You can ask it how to play chess.
There's no limit to what you can do with these things, which is freaky.
I think it's cool, but it's pretty fucking freaky.
I'll say when it comes to AI, I think Robert and I have two different approaches to it.
I err on the side of caution.
I just recently started using it.
I will say I did go off the deep end a little bit.
I've been using one particular thing a lot.
Shout out to Bing Image Generator.
Bing Image Generator has been, which goes against my core morals, which is so tricky
because I'm someone who I am in a field where the union just went on like SAG-Athra and the
Writers Union and everyone just like, strike just ended and the contracts are still kind
of rolling out.
In the new deal for actors, in the contract that was signed, one of the big talking points
was companies basically saying, hey, we'll pay you like your normal days wage.
We'll scan you and we'll use your AI likeness so you don't have to come to set for extra
work and background work.
We can just already have you.
People and all of the actors were kind of rightly and fairly like, no, no, that's not
you're not just signing that away.
In the contract that was offered back, which I have my own thoughts on in general, was
basically saying consent will be asked and compensation will be given, but that is still
a thing that companies are allowed to offer people.
That is really scary.
Running a field and having an art form that AI is like genuinely running a big part of
it and is going to continue to run a huge part of it going forward and you're just
going to see it more and more and more.
It's terrifying and it scares me so much.
However, I do think in the comfort of your own home, in the comfort of your own games,
it can be a very helpful tool.
Yep.
Because I mean, there's also, there's a lot out there now that specifically work with
generating maps where you can essentially say like, hey, generate a town.
Okay, give me six buildings.
Tell me what those buildings are for.
Give me a list of NPCs that live in those buildings.
Give me some background on each of those NPCs.
And like what would normally take a regular person days, weeks to come up with like a
fully fleshed out background town with names, locations.
Sorry.
Can you just click?
AI, like 30 minutes if you know how to use it right.
If you can set the parameters correctly.
If you feed it prompts before you ask it like your big question.
And I think for me, like as somebody who's ADHD often manifests in ways to cut down the
most time spent on just about anything.
I mean, it's really, both a detriment and it helps sometimes because I'm always looking
for the most efficient way to do something.
AI in particular is giving me like a sky's limit.
I can do everything in minutes as opposed to hours.
And I have so many thoughts and it's impossible to condense them all.
But when I just ask AI to do it, I have a set list of options that it's provided.
And then I just pick my favorite one and I say, I'd eat on that one a little bit more.
I like this one.
Give me more like it.
And then I can just keep going down that rabbit hole until I find one and then I pick
it.
Yeah.
Instead of having to come up with it all myself.
And then by the time I'm done doing it myself, I've written everything but the thing that
I was supposed to write.
I got a name for a town.
I got a random NPC.
I've never used it.
I got an item that's probably no one's ever going to pick up.
I got a backstory for a twig in case somebody steps on it.
But what I don't have is the name for the NPC.
And I doesn't do that unless I tell it to.
You know?
I mean, but I think it's really easy to give me the name for like a random NPC.
I think that's something that would be beneficial, especially like from a DM's perspective as
someone who like is done a lot of improv sometimes being put on the fly.
It doesn't matter how good or how experienced you are.
Sometimes there's going to be things that just break you and your brain is just not
going to work.
It's just like a name.
And you just freeze.
You can just go to your laptop and be like random name generator and just like pull that
up and like give that for you.
I think where it really has a leg up though is that like there are already those kinds
of things out there like fantasy name generator, fantasy NPC generator, fantasy town generator,
but like the one thing that I can do that those have never been able to do is depth
within the click of a button.
So instead of just giving me a name for an NPC in a town that they're from and like an
occupation.
It's like here's the person's name, here's their entire backstory since today they were
born, here's what they like to do, here's what they don't like to do, here's who they're
married to, these are their three closest friends, this is the town they live in, the
house they own, the dog they like.
That's like information overload.
It is.
But it makes it so much easier than when players decide that they want to focus on one particular
NPC to be like yeah, no I know the answer to the questions you're asking.
Yeah, instead of having to make it up on the fly.
Yeah, I think if you're good enough at improv which is what so much of being a DM is unless
you're one of those DMs that likes to prep which fucking gross.
It's work getting Robert to prep for the podcast.
Yeah.
I don't press for anything.
We have a list of things where I'm like okay we just need to do not a ton of research.
I wing it.
Just a little bit of research before we come in.
AI allows me to wing it even more.
I did that.
But if I want to do an episode where we're doing prep work.
I have to make sure that I like trap this man.
But you don't do the prep in advance either.
Like unless I sit down and start doing the prep you will avoid it just as much as I do.
So put that shit on me.
Yes, but.
Uh huh.
Trap you like a rat in the family room to get you to do stuff man.
Don't put that shit on me.
But anyways, I think that the ups truly for the DM is just the fact that it's a whole
other fucking being that you can just ask questions.
Like it's difficult to bounce questions off you.
Or like if it's your players it's like I don't want to really ask them like why should I
name the town or the dog or the NPC or what do you think about this ability?
Because like I want everything to be a surprise for them.
So I have my little robot buddy on my phone or my laptop and I can ask him.
There was one night where.
I don't really know what it's going to be called in 20 years.
I'm, I don't know either.
I just am using like the thing.
Yeah the thing.
Um.
See eventually it's going to be wise enough to be like I don't want to be called an
it or a thing.
Yeah and that's where it starts to get scary Robert.
We'll see a quote from, I watched this guy on YouTube.
Some of you might know who he is.
Philip DeFranco.
He's been on YouTube forever.
He does.
How in the hell is everyone going to know?
He's like, he's older.
I mean.
Anyone who's listening to a D&D podcast, I'm going to go out on a limb and say has been
around the internet for a while.
Anyways, Philip DeFranco.
He does daily deep dives into the news, whatever, whatever.
But the thing that he always talks about when he says AI is he always says today AI is the
worst it will ever be.
So when you're thinking about just how crazy fucking scary it is now, that is the worst
it is ever going to be.
Moving forward.
Yeah.
Like you're like, wow, it like can only accept papers of 2000 words and only give me like
super critical edits but like the words aren't always correct.
Yeah.
That's the worst it's ever going to fucking get because tomorrow it's going to be able
to write the essay for you.
Yeah.
That's just, that's something that scares me.
And see I think my perspective with it at this point is like if I'm, I mean it's the
whole like if you can't beat them, join them.
I'm never going to be better than AI and I accept that.
So you know what I'm going to do?
I'm going to use it and I'm going to learn how to use it so that come time for it to
be implemented into every goddamn thing we own, I'm ahead of the curve.
You know, I'm not one of the people with head in the sand where it's just like, fuck AI
though.
This is one of those moments where you sound just like my dad and I'm going to say this,
my dad has always been like he tries to say up to date with like the most current technology.
I mean, yeah, why wouldn't you?
It's exciting.
You know, you've got like the Echo Dot's all through our house.
You went from fucking sticks and rocks to fucking metal, pieces of metal welded together
inside smaller pieces of metal that can then tell me how I'm supposed to live my life.
You say that and then sometimes there's things that my dad does when it comes to technology
that I'm like, I love that you can do this, but why are we doing this?
Our thermostat is hooked up through our Echo Dot.
So is our refrigerator.
Our refrigerator has Wi-Fi.
Every of every like every inch of our house is like connected through with robots.
Do it and you can just say, Hey, Alexa, and then anything that you want like to be done
will be done in the house.
So tying that back to D&D specifically, I think, I see, I don't think I could ever have
like an Alexa at the table.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, I think it's one thing to have it behind the screen.
I mean, this is just thinking ahead of where AI is eventually going to go.
Like if one day our robot children turn into overlords and then like we mingle together,
I'm not going to shame you away from the table by all means.
Come and join.
Oh, so you're like going full in the future when we make robots.
But not even like let's say somebody had like an Amazon Dot or like an Echo sitting
at the table.
Like I don't think I could ever do that.
You know, it's getting to the point now where like if I don't know something, let's say
I'm like in the middle of DMing and I'm completely stumped on the name of a town.
Yes, I could type it in behind, but it's not it's so much faster to say like, hey, Amazon,
do this or hey, hey, Alexa, hey, Siri, hey, Google.
What if you could just do that at the table?
Be like, hey, Google, give me the name of a fantasy town.
Never been used before.
I like that.
You know, but like that's totally a use that like it could be or it hell.
I think what's even more interesting too is that you could eventually have AI control
your enemies and manage combat.
Yeah, well, I was going to tie this into there was one night and I don't remember what it
was we were doing.
I think we were actually talking about podcast episodes and we were talking about AI or something
and this was like before I had started using it at all and I was still like very staunchly
against everything and you ended up finding online.
You're asking me every time I pull up chat, you'll be in the middle of an episode.
I stand by it.
There was a, I don't know what website it was.
Ask one of our robot buddies what it thinks AI could be used for.
Jesus Christ.
What was the website that you found where it was basically like it was a AI dungeon master.
It was like an entire website.
Oh, yeah.
It was like it was like that one website that's like basically it was like a porn.
Yeah, like episode.
I mean, the whole thing was that it was just the.
But this AI, the DM AI website, it was mostly porn.
Yeah.
You could play through an interactive like Goosebumps adventure style book with the
AI being your DM.
Yeah.
And like that's a really interesting concept.
And when you look up because I like even though we haven't been able to do like a ton of prep
work for this, I've like been looking through like DND and AI and kind of seeing what like
the internet has out there.
And most of it is like AI dungeon masters and like how do you use or how you can use
DND to like there's entire websites, a website called there's an AI for that where I'm seeing
something where it's like AI tools for DND and it's just like compilations of different
AI tools that you can use.
Here's a website saying how to use AI as dungeon master and like how to use a tool.
So it's like a thing that's out there.
But yeah, there definitely are.
I think.
I would love to go over what the fucking robot just told me.
Give me a list of 15 things and some of these things that we never thought about again,
like shit's insane.
So the first one is NPC generation.
We've already talked about that.
The second one is world building.
We've kind of mentioned that you can have it like if you go with like Bing, like the
the the the Dolly three, you can have it give you like a whole landscape or a city or like
a layout.
You can also just have it write the fucking world for you or suggest lower suggestions
or culture points.
Third one is story and quest generation.
You can have it give you hooks, quests, storylines, dynamic and engaging ways to like wrap players
into those stories, which I think is interesting.
This one I would have never thought about the character integration.
So natural language processing algorithms can be used to enable more realistic and dynamic
interactions with NPCs.
Players can engage in conversations with AI driven characters and the AI can respond
in an actually appropriate manner.
So it's going in the direction I was talking about.
Yeah, which is like literally just playing with AI at the table.
Me having to DM for every NPC.
I could have my little Alexa next to me like queue up personalities and then have it be
that person.
I who and what's crazy about what's scary is because like what happens when these things
become sentient and now I have a trapped personality of a fantasy character in my fucking phone.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, but on the flip side of that, if I could program an NPC, like I say this is where you're
from.
These are who you like.
These are people you don't like.
This is your class.
This is your background and then have that motherfucker interact with my players with like a holy unique
voice.
I would think about it.
It would definitely be interesting for sure, but I think that there's also and call me
old fashioned.
Call me old fashioned all fucking day.
I think that there's something fun.
I'm the curve on this Madison.
Listen, I'm an actor.
And that's what I was going to say.
That's just basically like hiring an AI actor at the table.
Yeah, this is what I'm scared of.
This is what I'm afraid is going to take over my job.
I just have the benefit of not being in a profession that like cares about.
Like AI for me is only going to help me.
My job 100% can and it's one of those things.
I don't know.
My job can get taken over though, because like my whole thing is green infrastructure
and like helping people build green space.
I can ask this AI right now, give me a plan for how to turn Dallas, Texas into a 60%
more green city.
And it could give me a detailed step by step plan.
And as long as I had the resources and connections, I don't fucking need me anymore.
I think that I would lean away.
I think that talking to you in AI and like using an AI at the table as an NBC, I think
in like a specific campaign, I think that that would be interesting.
And I think it would be something fun to do a couple of times.
But I think on the whole that terrifies me.
Space campaign or something, you know?
We're like, it's like a robot buddy.
Yeah.
Like I think in our current setting where we're playing in like a cyberpunk world in a modern
setting, I think that that's something that makes sense.
Like if you give Ludens second, oh my God.
You gotta stop saying names just straight up.
I could give chips, second personality, an AI thing, and then he doesn't have to like
switch between the characters.
He can just talk to fucking Atlas.
Yeah.
And but here's here's my like hesitation with that.
Cool to me, man.
One of the things that I love about D&D and one of the things that I just kind of love
about art in general is the connection to another human being.
And I think that that's lost if we're using AI.
Like I said, I think this would be something to cool, cool to do like a couple of times
and cool to explore.
But like, like I said, call me old fashioned.
I like.
See where I would where I would push back on that though is that AI is wholly a creation
of people.
Yes, everything it gives you therefore has to have come from some other person at some
point in history.
Like all the art it can generate would not be would not be possible if it wasn't for
the millions and billions of art on the internet made by real people.
I agree with that.
And I think there's also and I'm not even going to get into this now, but I feel like
I need to acknowledge that's a whole nother conversation of like, oh, I don't have to work
being used in AI.
And that's like something that that's a whole nother conversation.
I just need to acknowledge that.
It was a very recent thing.
Like, yeah, even when you use like, again, going back to the thing in D&D, like if someone
like dimension 20 or critical role decided to use something that was AI generated, I'm
pretty sure there are now standards and laws that you would have to at least in the credits
credit AI for creating that particular object.
Yeah.
And it's all new and it's all scary.
And I don't think that in my opinion, I don't think that you should be using things that
have been AI generated recently in a personal profit.
An article that happened with a sports, a really big sports company that will not be
named, but they had a bunch of articles.
Oh, now we're going to, now we're going to censor our show articles on the website and
somebody realized that the creditor went to some sort of fishy fucking like secondhand
name and found out that that's the name that this little AI like essay writer goes by.
Yeah.
And then like some of that person ended up approaching this giant company was like, hey
guys, I don't know if that's ethical.
And then they just pulled every article.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
Crazy.
But like I said, I think, and I do understand that AI has been created by people, but I
also like a like human connection between another human being.
And I'm sure that in 50 years, this is going to sound really bigoted of me.
Like once like we've got people like robots and shit walking around.
I think like, I mean, like your, your line of thought is 100% valid.
Cause I think like 20 years ago, 30 years ago, people were thinking the same thing about
their phones.
Yeah.
And I want this like little piece of fucking technology to track my steps and tell me how
good or bad I'm breathing and tell me about my heart rate and communicate with my doctor
24 seven.
Yeah.
It's, it's one of those things I like further and farther removed from like the source.
And like, I know this is going to sound bigoted and this is going to sound outdated eventually,
but like, just to create people, man.
I think it's also fun to create and I'm someone who enjoys the creation process.
And I also love talking to people after and building a story with other people specifically,
which is part of the reason I'm so drawn to D and D is that's like where my creative
like juices get flowing when I'm with another person.
And I think that AI is a super helpful tool, but at the same time at the end of the day,
you can't talk to AI after and be like, Hey, I had a really great time with you.
I'm really glad that like we're friends and like we're able to do this as friends and
like hang out together.
Like that's not fair.
It's not a being.
It's not.
Yeah.
I don't really get that.
Um, but yeah, I'm, I'm fashion.
I'm an AI conservative.
What's interesting though is that like looking at the people who have created AI, like I
would be incredibly proud.
Like to see that like if I was the creator of chat, GBT or one of the co-founders of
chat, GBT to see what it's capable of, like that to me in and of itself is a big enough
act of creation.
They're like, cool.
I'm, I'm settled.
I'm good.
I don't need to make another thing for the rest of my fucking life.
You know, that's it.
I don't think I would ever be removed enough from that to be like, well, I don't really
feel like I've, I've made something here.
A hundred percent.
AI is incredibly impressive.
I'm not dogging that, but like also I've seen enough sci-fi movies.
Like, I mean, that's why we make them.
That, that's, that's the whole, like we, we make, you remember that Disney channel movie,
the original Disney channel movie, smart house.
Yeah.
So I mean it's like monster house, but like instead of it being like magic, it's like
our house, I live in a smart house.
Our thermostat is controlled by, like by our fucking Echo Dot.
I just thought about getting a Google Nest for our house actually.
I listen, I'm not going to be mad at that only because it would be convenient.
It would be convenient.
And also our house, they can't take us down.
Our house was built in the 1930s and it's not been renovated since.
Like at our house.
There's not a lick and nothing for y'all.
There is, there's nothing for like technology to connect to.
We are, it is so old fashioned.
Okay.
So moving forward on the list that's at GBT.
So kindly provided us with random encounters.
AI can assist and generate a random encounters during travel or exploration, ensuring that
they are balanced and fit the overall theme of the campaign.
I think if there was some sort of note taking system that I could upload like all of my
notes to, and then it was also like the back end of it was AI generation.
Like if I could have all my notes in one place, like the note taking app that I use currently
is obsidian.
Can't remember that enough.
It takes a long time to get a hold of, but that's what tutorial videos are for.
I use obsidian.
If obsidian had a back end that said, you can ask me any question based off all the information
that you've provided me and I will only respond with what you've given me.
And I could say, okay, give me an encounter based off everything you know about my NPCs
today or only based on notes one through three, not four, five and six as we haven't gotten
there.
And then like that, I don't know, that encounter needs to be on the road.
It needs to use X amount of forces and the CRs and the monsters can only be so on so forth.
You kidding me?
Yeah.
I think that would be cool.
That would be because then it's not just like a random half-assed AI encounter.
It is an encounter that is tailored to my players, to my world that is bound and themed.
See, I think that's one of the places where I think that you can go crazy with AI.
I think when it comes to like, I know, I know, I know, I know this man is so pro AI.
It scares me sometimes.
I'm waiting for it, man.
He is like, I just exciting.
It's like the next frontier and the creation of like fucking people, man.
No, I get it.
It just, I, call me a conservative here.
I don't ever call me a conservative.
In this moment, you're being a little conservative.
Okay.
Maybe.
But that's because- Your work children's children are going to look back and go, she
was nutty.
She was so behind the times.
Yeah, for sure.
Yep.
She was talking on our robot overlords from the beginning and that's why we're poor now
because they just, they remembered that.
That's why we're poor for no other reason.
Like difficulty adjustment.
That's- I don't know what that means.
So this is crazy.
AI algorithm can analyze player performance and adjust the difficulty of encounters in
real time to provide a more challenging and engaging experience.
Okay.
My question with this, how involved- Nuts.
That's nuts.
Is AI taking notes?
Like if that's a thing, I will say, I will say, if there was an AI that we could set up
at the table that would take notes for me.
I think that might exist.
I'm so serious.
Look it up.
If there was like a little, okay, so anybody that's lived in the world, you know how small
an echo dot is.
If I could put an echo dot- Who's lived in the world?
Well, today, in 2023, if I could put an echo dot, something the size of echo dot in the
center of my table and then have it listen to all of my sessions, take notes for me and
do all of this, I would buy it tomorrow.
If I was in broke, I would buy it tomorrow.
I would not be mad at something to take notes.
Because then it takes away the note-taking.
Because I know damn well- And it analyzes your performance.
It can learn how you like to play.
It can learn how you like to build your character.
I don't want it to know that about me.
Hey, this shit sucks.
Do you have something you want to send in to make it better?
Criticisms, topics you'd like to see discussed, or an advertisement you'd like to run.
Maybe you even want to sponsor an episode.
If so, shoot us a message at mc460 at evansville.edu or DM us on Instagram at crescent magazine.
Or we'll never get better like these fucking guys.
But it's, and that's the scary thing about AI is it's kind of all or nothing.
This is where I'm a little conservative with you too.
It's like it either knows everything or it knows like very little.
And there's no in between.
Because the difference between very little and everything is infinite.
Yeah.
And so you will have an infinitely stupid robot if you limit it to what it can and can't
know.
And I will say that's one of those things where like I always joke because our house
does have so many Echo dots that I know that Amazon is listening to every single thing
I say.
I know.
Our phones are listening to everything we say.
Yeah, that's not a conspiracy.
I did like...
The biggest commodity in the world is data.
Yeah.
I did one of my final projects in my college level speech and communication class when
I was in high school on surveillance state basically.
Like our phones are listening.
That's not a secret.
Literally there's something that just came out with a senator basically wrote a letter.
No, yeah.
I saw that shit.
That was nuts.
So basically the world government...
Like all your push notifications are...
Yeah.
All your push notifications are being tracked by world governments.
That is not like a conspiracy that is true that has been proven or leaked.
Or leaked.
And that's one of those things where I'm also kind of like, you know, what is Bezos
going to do with just hearing me talk about Dungeons and Dragons for hours on end?
Yeah.
But at the same time, I don't want to give him any...
I don't...
No, fuck you.
I mean, AI...
This is interesting.
We talked about this in my sociology class, like the second to last class before we ended
it.
It was all about technology and science.
So like science is like learning like the rules and sort of laws of the world as a whole
and then sort of translating that into things that we can use.
The...
Then putting those laws and those rules into use is what we like to call technology and
it's all about predicting the outcomes and patterns of people.
So if you look at it from that standpoint, all AI is trying to do is learn how to essentially
predict everything we're going to do and then provide us with a service so that we don't
have to do it anymore, which is fucking like that's up or not up.
Sorry.
That's...
Oh my God, wrong Pixar movie.
That's Wally.
Yeah.
That's fat people in chairs.
Wally.
Yeah.
Like that is jelly...
Beautiful movie by the way.
One of Pixar's best.
That is jelly bones.
The robots know what you want to drink.
They take you where you want to go.
I don't like that.
They do everything for you and that's where I'm a little against it too because I'm like,
what the fuck are we going to have left to do?
But funny enough, funny enough.
The basis for the campaign that we're playing in, the whole reason that superpowers emerge
is because the AI robot chips that everyone walks around with removed the body's need
to do anything.
It took over the biological functions.
So then the body was just like, cool, we're going to start mutating, man.
It's insane.
It's such an interesting thing and just like the concept of it in general.
And it's also one of those things where like I'm going back and forth because I'm like,
do we really want to let AI be the thing that is producing music and art and literature
and the human spirit and then we are struggling as human beings to like get through these
minimum wage labor intensive jobs that AI could do.
Yeah, 100%.
But instead of us getting to be able to create and do those human things.
I think the only way that AI really, really, really ends up working for everybody and this
is so far removed from D&D at this point but it's like in a fucking utopia.
That's the only way that we really get away with this whole AI thing, Scott Free.
Yeah, AI manages to solve world hunger and achieve world peace and basically provide
us with little biomes to go around and have fun in.
Well, that body has to pay for anything.
Everyone like, well, that's the premise for like every movie where AI kills everyone.
Yes, but what if we could achieve that and it worked?
I mean, hell yeah, I'd be like, I do it in a heartbeat.
But no, here's what comes with that.
The removal of the human experience struggling in trauma and like having to do things for
yourself is such a core part of who we are as like human beings.
AI is essentially positioning itself to remove that.
I don't, and that's what scares me.
But you can't tell me that you would not choose world B if world B was Earth but like
perfectly taken care of.
All the animals are chilled, the environment's fixed.
You can eat, drink, whatever you want at any point in time.
You can go anywhere in the world whenever you would like to do it.
You can do your hobbies.
You don't have to work a job.
You can go into fucking space.
Doesn't matter.
That as opposed to struggling and dealing with like the human experience, are you kidding
me?
Because the first one is the world where we still have like world hunger.
Yeah, it's, this is messy.
It is.
And that's why I love talking about it because it's so messy, man.
God, because no, because I'm going to sound like like an awful person if I say that I
want the world with like, with struggle.
And I don't mean that in a negative way.
I just, I think that's something that connects as me as a person who struggles deeply with
a lot of different things constantly.
It's also the difference between the world that we know and the world that we don't.
You only know one of these experiences deeply.
Like I don't know what it's like to not.
Nobody does.
Like respectfully, nobody knows what it is like to live in world B. So it is impossible
to say, this is a relict of philosophy and the logic of it is coming out.
It is impossible to say.
Coming out now like it hasn't been in the fucking forefront this whole time.
It is impossible to say that anybody would truly prefer world B, basing it on experience
alone because nobody's ever been able to experience world B.
Yeah.
And it's doesn't happen.
I mean, it's how fucking communes turn into cults, man.
People are like, yeah, that'll work in theory.
And then they get out there and they're having.
You can live in all these school buses together.
And then everyone's pulling money into the one guy that did it all and cool it's getting
hand out the next day like it's just it spirals, man, but because of human error.
If we can remove human error, maybe we could achieve.
If we remove human error, we are removing human.
Yep.
I mean, that's it goes back to the whole removing the experience thing.
So interesting kind of a fun segue.
The next one on here is voice activated gameplay, which I think could be sick.
So integrating voice recognition technology allows players to interact with the game using
natural language commands, making the experience more, more immersive.
So I want to spend this in a way that you would have a hard time saying no.
So let's say that our basement.
Yeah, you're gonna have to try.
What if we had a table downstairs, the whole table was touchscreen, like the full thing.
It is a full, I mean, with like the little cup holders and stuff like that's made out
of wood and fancy or whatever.
So you have a place to put your shit.
But the whole table itself is just like one big as touchscreen.
And you could say or I could say, let's say I take it away from players so that it's
a little more equal.
I could say to the TV, zoom out on this particular map.
And I, and like show them this area.
And then it could then generate you a whole village that looks really nice.
The graphics are really cool.
And we could see in real time where you are, where you're going, the travel distance, how
many, how much time in game that's going to take.
Okay, that would be cool.
Wouldn't that be sick if I could go.
That's not what I interpret that as.
I went, hey Alexa, show them what the world looks like.
Hey Alexa, generally pull up encounter B bandits A.
And then all of a sudden the table changes and we're exactly where we need to be real
time.
No prep, no nothing.
I'm okay with that.
That's where I take it though.
No, no, no, no, let me read.
Voice recognition technology.
Uh huh.
To interact with the game using natural language commands.
I also, I just, I, uh.
Yeah.
No, I get it.
I get it.
Character behavior modeling.
Now this one I think is little freaking freaky.
A.I. can model the behavior of NPCs to make them more realistic and responsive.
This includes predicting how NPCs would react to certain character actions based on the
personalities and motivations.
My counter to this being scary, Baldur's Gate 3.
No, yeah.
We are already living in that world.
Yeah.
The only difference between Baldur's Gate 3 and A.I. is that Baldur's Gate 3 is cool
in a video game.
And it was also written.
And there's a certain.
It was written by human beings.
It has a limited number of options it can choose based off of the options you've already
put into the world.
Yes.
A.I. is going to be what's selecting those.
I'm fine with A.I. selecting things that I've already been.
Do you are pro A.I. with shackles?
Huh?
You are pro A.I. with shackles.
Yes.
You are pro A.I. with shackles.
I am pro A.I. as a.
A.I. has one box.
It can only do things in that box that we tell it it can do.
Yes.
I am A.I. as a tool, not as a creator.
Right.
Right, right, right.
I mean, yeah, that's, and that's the one thing that we've never been able to achieve.
I mean, really.
I mean, we kind of do it with like manufacturing robots and stuff.
I mean, that's how you get your fancy Amazon packages.
Robots in a fucking warehouse somewhere.
I'm not ordering a bunch of Amazon though.
Put it together and box it up and then it tells the fucking shipping company where it's
got to go.
Yeah.
And then it gets put on and some guy gets out of his little fancy Amazon van and then
puts it on your fucking door.
I'm okay with that.
That's that's something that we created creating something though.
Yeah, but there's a difference between that and it like creating a story when part of
the reason that I love A.I. is because you get to tell the story with other people.
Like that's why I that what I love.
I don't know if I said with A.I.
Yeah, you said that was like that's not fully at all.
Not when I met with D and D is I love creating a story with other people and when you take
the people out of it, it gets fucked.
Fuck this next one.
Absolutely not.
Rule enforcement.
A.I.
No, you want to see an Echo Dot get punted.
You want to see real time assistance to the DM and players in interpreting and applying
game rules consistently.
I get fucking up by a goddamn computer the way the way I am.
Baldur's Gate already does it.
Fucking bad.
I want to know why he does it.
I've told Robert this and I will tell y'all now the reason I do not own Baldur's Gate
3 other than money is because I am is because I'm going to get so sucked into that motherfucker
that people will not see me for days.
I have Baldur's Gate 3.
This is crazy to think about Baldur's Gate 3 is the worst a game like that will ever
be.
Stop saying that.
That is the worst a game like that will ever be.
Here's the thing.
I'm someone who gets so sucked into worlds.
GTA 6 comes out in 2025.
That's basically a real world simulator where you get to just be a fucking criminal.
You talk about how problematic that one is?
Deeply.
Uh huh.
It's so fucked up and also the fact that it took that long is also like the fact that
it took that long to make the new.
5 and 6?
10 years?
Yes.
It's basically the Sims but crime.
Yeah.
I love the Sims.
I have to moderate the Sims because I get so into it which is why I don't play Baldur's
Gate 3.
I'll be there.
I'm not.
We've already talked about the next one.
This is Firstful Game Master.
Everything I've said if anybody's following the pieces here what I'm basically advocating
for is something that can be me without me having to be there.
So question for you.
I mean I wouldn't take that deal but that's with everything that I would like it to be
able to do.
I am taking that deal.
That's my question for you.
So would you then be a player at the table?
What would you do if you weren't just sitting there and you program an AI and then you let
the AI run its course?
You then become a director of a play.
That would be so cool though.
Wouldn't it look okay for me?
I think it would be interesting.
If I could plug in all the information about the current campaign we're in and I could
give it to a robot and I said okay you're the DM now I'm gonna go be a player at the
table.
You know how sick that would be for me though?
To be able to play in my own campaign real time.
You know?
No.
I'm gonna be a little like man behind the curtain because I know what some of the plot
hooks are gonna be.
I understand that more than anything else that you've said because we've talked about
this before.
I'm someone who creates worlds but is too scared to be a DM because I've got too many
control issues.
But at the end of the day it's the same way where when I write plays and when I write
movies and things like that and I write books.
I'm imagining myself playing the main character and I'm like I could never publish this because
I'm so attached to this character that I don't want anyone else to play them but also I don't
want to pull Lin-Manuel Miranda and star in my own work because that's gonna look like
I'm cheating.
Which for ever being anything my man's ever played or put out.
He's incredibly talented.
He can do whatever he wants.
I want that to be known.
Strategic planning.
This is kind of back to the combat encounter thing.
AI can assist players in strategic planning during combat encounters suggesting optimal
moves, tactics and possible outcomes based on the rules of the game.
So essentially what that is is Baldur's Gate 3.
You have an NPC.
You set it to auto.
It makes all of its own decisions based on what it thinks the best move is.
We've already seen this in video games folks.
We've seen it in chess.
You can play against bots in chess that are capable of beating the world's best chess
players.
We've already seen that.
The only difference between that and this is you get to see it live and in person.
You know?
You get to interact with one.
I get to talk to you.
See I'm more okay when it comes to like.
Campaign analytics is nuts.
I'm gonna hit this next one real quick.
Campaign analytics?
AI tools can analyze player preferences and actions to provide insights into what aspects
of the campaign are most engaging.
Helping the DM tailor the experience.
So we could make D&D wrapped.
Like Spotify wrapped.
But I'm a sucker for.
How many players?
We were talking about this the other night.
Baldur's Gate 3 has already put out that fucking statistic though.
How many players have chosen to pet the dog?
How many players have chosen to be like Chaotic Evil?
We talked about this the other night.
Crazy.
We were talking about analytics and stuff because I'm a sucker for analytics because
I've been someone who's been on social media.
Everyone loves a box man.
I've been on social media for so long and I've looked at my numbers and I've like
done social media managing and blah blah blah.
I'm a sucker for analytics.
Anything that will give me analytics I will like fucking sell my soul for it.
And I recognize that it's a problem.
But like.
I love.
That's the I would allow AI at the table if it meant that I could get analytics.
I love its little message here at the end.
It's important to note that while AI can enhance the D&D experience the role of human creativity,
storytelling and social interaction remain central to the game.
AI should be seen as a tool to support and augment the efforts of players and DMs rather
than replace them.
That's what I've been saying.
And I would love to think that it can continue to stay a tool forever but it's just not.
It's not going to.
I mean it's already out there as a DM.
It exists fully.
Yeah.
I mean it doesn't exist to the level that we're talking about here but it's pretty goddamn
close.
You know what I'm saying?
It's freaky.
That's just the 15 things.
And I gave it a, well like what?
I said how can AI be used for D&D?
And every topic we've talked about has been generated by AI.
It gave me 15 things to talk about.
All were very in depth.
I didn't think about three quarters of them.
They gave me that shit in like three seconds.
Yeah.
Isn't it crazy?
While we live in men.
It's scary dude.
It's.
Any final thoughts?
I think AI can be, I'm going to talk for a minute about image generating.
Yeah go ahead.
This is one of the, it's number four channel is, Generative Art.
Oh I'm so glad I have permission from ChatGPT to talk about.
ChatGPT is already one step ahead of you.
I don't like it.
I don't fucking like it.
I could hit a computer.
If it's me versus a computer I'm going to win.
I could ask the computer how to pass the bar exam man.
Like that's.
It's crazy.
My life is going to get so easy.
Anyway let's continue.
So I've been using image generation a lot because as someone who like, it took me wrong.
I draw.
I like, I do all the art shit.
Like I feel like I have to being someone like literally involved in the arts.
It takes so long and I'm not very good at it.
And I'm a very visual person.
As someone who's also been kind of like entrenched in like fandom spaces and fandom culture since
I was younger.
Yeah I definitely do digital art man.
It's incredible.
So being able to, I will say this, being able to put what your character looks like into
a image generator.
I've been using Dolly 3.
So sick.
Which is found on Bing.
Which one of the things I do like about it is they say that they like, every artist that
is alive is like given an option.
Do you want your art to be able to participate in this?
You can mark an answer no.
And it will block generations from artists that are currently living.
I like that.
Pretty cool.
I've been opt in, opt out.
But however, I recognize, I don't think that any AI art should be published.
Interesting.
I don't think it should be something that you can put out there for profit.
I don't think it's something that a person should be able to put out.
I do think it is something that we should be putting out in archiving to follow.
To like to follow its journey the same way.
Yeah I think that's fine.
But I think if I am writing a, for example, I've written like a children's book.
Which is true.
I can't sit there and do all the illustrations.
I just simply, I don't have the time and I'm not like, I don't have the capabilities of
doing that.
I'm also someone who's in a financial spot where I cannot afford to pay an artist to
come do this.
If I had the money I would, but I do not.
If I have an AI to all of my artwork for me, I don't think that I should be able to publish
that book and make profit off of it.
But who put in the prompts to get the images?
That's, I'm not saying that there's not work put involved.
That's where I would push back.
I think that you should be able to publish it, but I think it all needs to be with the
caveat of what it was made with.
I don't know.
That's my stance.
AI, I look at AI in the same way that some, like, again going back to my sociology class.
The one thing that technology has done for, speaking of technology in terms of the 21st
century, technology has been with us since we started using rocks to start fires.
Like that is a form of technology.
When I'm referring to technology specifically in the 21st century, I'm talking about smartphones,
I'm talking about infrastructure, I'm talking about AI, obviously, in this particular conversation.
Well one thing that technology has allowed us as people to do is raise the bar in terms
of the minimum human experience.
That means for poverty, that means for world hunger, that means for joblessness, that means
for homelessness.
It is often seen as a tool of the elite, and it is.
It's created by the elite for the elite.
Hard stance, I stay by it.
But because it is so publicly available and because it is becoming more and more common
for even the poorest countries in the world to have access to it, it is allowing those
communities to raise themselves up.
And I think if AI allows somebody who is an incredibly talented writer in a third world
country to generate all of the pictures in a book, and all they have to do is put the
words to it, I would not tell them no on publishing it if it means that they could get themselves
out of that situation or introduce their artistry to the world.
And that's where I think the case for AI and being able to publish it becomes really difficult
to say no to.
Because if it's the key for somebody getting out of an impoverished situation or putting
their work on a public scale, who am I to tell them no?
I understand that.
However, I think that it's still a tricky thing because I think there's also, you know,
AI art is generated from other people's real life artwork.
And I think that there is definitely something to be said, and this is kind of like a caveat
that we talked about earlier when I was like, this is a separate conversation of like, I,
there is no world in which every single artist whose art has been used to influence an AI
has given permission.
And I think that art is something that can also, and it's one of those tricky things
where, and this is like something that I've had personal experience with and gotten into
literal fights and lost friendships over the idea of when you create something, you create
an idea, you create art, you create a concept and you put that out there and you put that
publicly.
What do you control?
I mean, nothing.
That's the thing.
Yeah.
Once it hits the public space, you control nothing.
It's tricky.
And this is coming from someone like, I'm going to use my own personal examples here.
I have mentioned before, social media creator, I've been on TikTok for a very long time.
I've made dozens of different videos that I've been very proud of that are completely
like creative videos that I've like created on my own original concepts, original costumes,
original like, like doing artwork for them and like doing a really cool setup.
And I've had those videos and those concepts stolen by creators that were bigger than me,
stolen by creators that were smaller than me, just recreate them.
And then they like hit that sweet spot in the algorithm and they go viral and they get
money and they get credit and they get a following.
I did put that idea out in the space.
And once you put something out into the space, you no longer have control over it.
The space is a wild concept.
It is such a fucking tricky thing.
And that's where I'm also a little bit more sensitive is because I have seen my own personal
art because that's what I think that my like my content is slash was in a way without trying
to sound too pretentious and seen that used in other ways.
And that's like, so it's an odd feeling.
And it's one of those things where it's like, I've created something for human consumption.
How do I feel about a robot using it?
Right.
So here's, here's where I feel like the other side of it comes from.
There is, there is nothing, there is no concept you have put on paper.
There is no video you have published.
There is no sentence you've said that has not come from all of the information you've
ever absorbed from every person in every piece of art, every technology, every concept that
they have put out for the same reason that we have copyright laws and music.
I think those copyright laws should exist for AI.
I think they should exist on TikTok.
I think they should exist on Instagram, Facebook, et cetera, whatever, whatever.
I 100% agree that we should be at least allowing people to put a stamp on this and say this
is mine.
What I think becomes difficult and why I don't think that we can put that same limit in law
and rule on AI is that eventually we are going to run out of riffs to write on a guitar.
We're going to run out of concepts for a movie to write.
We are going to run out of unique and original videos.
And at that point, what do we do as a human race?
That we say you are no longer allowed to put out music.
You are no longer allowed to make movies.
You are no longer allowed to speak.
You are no longer allowed to make videos.
At some point, it's going to fill up.
Everything is going to be a different iteration of something else that came before.
I think that's where we have to start looking at AI in a slightly different lens because
it is one of the few things that we know for certain has the potential to be unlimited
if we consider it unlimited in regards to it.
It has all of the information that we will ever have.
Sorry, I'm yawning.
Don't mind.
No, you're okay.
This is a very bogged down train of thought.
But I think we should always be able to put a stamp on something and say it's ours.
I don't necessarily agree that there should be a limit on what can be published and be
accessed by the public world than people should be able to profit off of.
I think every concept comes from another concept.
I agree with that.
I just think it is one of those things where it's messy because I think that it's also
something where if we start doing that and we start giving the green light, where do
we draw the line?
Because then you're looking at things like, are you going to tell me that movie studios
aren't going to realize that it's going to be, it is going to save the millions of dollars
in having to pay actual labor costs to actual artists for them to just have an AI do it.
And then you're looking at, and this is kind of something I said earlier, I don't want
to live in a world where we are allowing, and this is going to, once again, I'm going
to sound bigoted in 50 years.
I don't want to live in a world where we are allowing robots to do the human things,
to create the art, the music, the things that influence and enrich the human experience
and reflect the human life and the human experience while we are doing the hard labor.
Because I think if we allow one person, like the person you were talking about who was
in a bad situation, who was going to be able to publish some AI art to get themselves out
of that situation, how do we draw the line between that person and also Disney's latest
movie being an AI-generated one?
How do we draw the line, I mean today with copyrighting when it comes to somebody verbatim,
shot for shot, taking a video of yours and doing it themselves versus a small creator
who's just genuinely inspired?
Where do you draw the line on that?
Credit.
I mean that's where I personally drew the line on.
So I think if the AI is able to credit the sources that it's coming from or if we as
a human race can acknowledge that it's general credit, is humanity as a whole, what's the
issue?
I think that it is going to put millions of people out of jobs.
I agree, but I think there's no way that we're going to be able to stop that from happening
as it is.
And this is where I feel like we have to start advocating for coming up with the backup plan
of what we do when we hit that point because no one's pumping the brakes.
That's what's been happening with the strikes, with the writer strikes and with the actor
strikes.
And this is somewhere where I know that my stance is hard here.
How do we learn to use it in tandem though?
Because it's not enough to just say we can't use it, it's going to remove everything.
It already is.
There's no question and there's no doubt that AI is going to be like.
And the longer we go without wanting to put more sort of further creative limits on it
and we just keep putting like hard no, hard no, hard no, well tomorrow we're going to
wake up and someone's going to come out with something we've never seen before.
There's going to be no limits on it because we didn't want to put limits on it.
And then it's just going to do everything anyways.
I think it's a conversation where I think people need to sit down and have conversations
and create these hard lines and where we draw these lines.
And I think that it's something where drawing the line is never going to be clean.
It's always going to be messy.
But like, I mean, if you look at the negotiations with the writer strike and with the actor
strike, like you see the conversations happening there.
Of like, writers literally being put out of jobs because guess what?
We don't need a writer to actually write this like television episode because this show's
already been on the air for like fucking 15 seasons.
If I'm right, if like a soap opera writer, an AI can do that.
I don't look at, I think the biggest difference for me is I don't look at AI any different
than I look at a tractor.
I think tractors put thousands, millions of people out of jobs worldwide in the agriculture
like industry.
I mean, that's, it's always going to be an industry that we have to use because it's
the way that we generate food.
But no one's going to tell me that I shouldn't be able to use a tractor on my farm.
I think that without a tractor on my farm, I don't generate a nearly like, I don't even
generate a fourth of the amount of food that my community needs without, without tractors
on every major farm in the world, not just the United States.
I don't put enough food on the table to provide for the amount of people that we are popping
out like fucking rabbits.
And I think AI is going to end up in the same place.
Without it, we are going to like just without using it, where we're just, we're going to
be fucked.
We're going to be fucked.
I'm not questioning that we're going to be using it for sure, but I know that I'm going
to be like, I'm going to be digging my feet into the ground on this particular topic,
especially because right now it is my, and this is maybe selfish of me.
It is my career that is like in my world and my work that is currently in debate.
It's everybody's though.
I think it's mine too.
Like, I don't think there's a person out there whose job in theory is not at stake.
I think it's growing up.
I always thought I was like, you know what, the one job that's always going to be safe
from AI, like robots taking over is acting because robots can't do that.
Well apparently the fuck they can.
So they can just scan my, you want to know what they need.
They need my face.
They can scan my face and then they can just take it from there and run.
Yeah, pretty much, man.
I mean, fuck what else do you need?
All right.
I think we've hit a wall on this particular conversation.
Yeah.
It's a heavy ass episode.
AI is crazy.
Yeah.
Heavy ass episode in D and definitely two different ends of the spectrum though.
So I'm glad we have to sort of put that out on the internet.
I hope, I hope it takes D and D to far and future places that are hell of a lot of fun.
And I hope that all of the artists that work so diligently to create all of these wonderful
ideas and concepts of worlds.
I'm sure every one of those published videos that uses AI app are, they will just start,
listen, everyone's going to become the man behind the curtain.
Yeah.
We're all going to turn into the fucking Wizard of Oz.
Oh God, kill me.
Thank you all for joining in for another episode of Table Talk.
We will catch you later.
Bye.