Okay, so this is stupid.
Techbros keep leaping onto the “next big thing” in technology, and keep trying to cram it down all of our collective throats, so they can get rich off of whatever it might be. In recent years, there was Cryptocurrency, because I know that what I want to invest all of my money into is some decentralized currency that is backed by nothing, based upon nothing, and can disappear faster than you can say “RUGPULL”! Of course, who can forget about Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs? Wouldn’t you love to invest in… an image, that allegedly belongs only to you, but you can’t do anything but sell it to some other idiot “investor”, and anyone can copy and use it without your consent?
Well, all of this eventually worked its way down to the newly developing “AI” tech. Although calling machine learning, large language models “AI” is a bit of a stretch. All they do is train off books, paintings, photography, and the like, then respond to text prompts in order to output something approximating “Artificial Intelligence”.
While this is nefarious enough, especially if you happen to be one of the artists these LLMs are “training” off of (stealing from), the Techbros have decided to dip their ignorant toes into the world of Tabletop Roleplaying Games. Yes, now YOU can try to use “AI” to replace your Friendly Neighborhood GameMaster!…
… and watch it fail miserably at the task.
Regardless, so-called “AI Dungeon Masters” are popping up all over the place, with varying degrees of success (mostly bad). They all do one, basic thing: Try to convince you, the Player, that this program is going to provide a satisfying TTRPG experience.
They never deliver.
But hey, idiots bought NFTs, and continue to buy Meme coins, so of course there must be idiots willing to throw cash into bad “Choose Your Own Adventure” generators, right? Except that calling what AI DMs do any form of a Choose Your Own Adventure is an insult to Choose Your Own Adventure books.
Now the rumor is that Wizards of the Coast are potentially going to add AI DMing software into their upcoming virtual tabletop, “Sigil”. In my opinion, that would likely be the worst decision WotC has ever made, and they have made a LOT of bad decisions over the last decade. But hey, you can’t stop WotC and their parents company Hasbro from chasing that almighty dollar, and they seem convinced that AI is the solution to all of their problems.
Need artwork for a new “Dungeons & Dragons” adventure? AI!
Need some additional writing done for that same book? AI!
So why not use AI to run that adventure in their own VTT? It’s free real estate!
Anyway, this is completely ridiculous, in my opinion. I may be on the “Old School” side of the fence, preferring to play at the table, live, with a group of players and a Gamemaster, but I have no issue with playing online, either. What I cannot abide, though, is trying to replace the Gamemaster with a glorified Chatbot! For make no mistake, friends, that is precisely what “AI” is, and nothing more.
AI cannot replace the Humanity of a real GameMaster. It cannot replace the creativity, cunning, and charisma of a living, breathing human GM. All AI can do is mash together what it trains off of, be it written adventures, actual plays, and the like, to try to approximate what a GM should be.
… and it will fail, every time.
