Dungeons & Dragons says its illustrators can't use AI after they discovered the tech was used for work featured in an upcoming book
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- Dungeons & Dragons says its illustrators are not allowed to use AI to generate artwork.
- The company said it is updating its guidance after discovering a commissioned artist had used the tech.
- AI-generated artwork has sparked ethical concerns and copyright issues.
Fantasy franchise Dungeons & Dragons says illustrators are not allowed to use AI to generate artwork commissioned by the company.
The company said they are updating their guidance after discovering that an artist they had worked with for almost a decade used the new technology to create work for an upcoming book. The fantasy franchise said they had reached out to the artist and he had agreed to stop using AI for D&D artwork going forward.
Dungeons & Dragons made the comments via Twitter, now rebranded to X. In a statement, they said: "We are revising our process and updating our artist guidelines to make clear that artists must refrain from using AI art generation as part of their art creation process for developing D&D."
The artwork that sparked the statement is set to be included in an upcoming book called "Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants." Representatives for Dungeons & Dragons did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, made outside normal working hours.
AI-generated artwork has been a cause of contention in the art world. The rise of text-to-image-based programs such as DALL-E and Midjourney has caused copyright issues and ethical concerns, with some creatives saying their work has been used to train AI systems without their consent.
Some artists such as Greg Rutkowski, who has also made work for Dungeons & Dragons, have taken issue with their names being used as prompts for AI to generate art in their style. Rutkowski previously told Insider he was worried that this widespread imitation would lead to his unique style dropping in value.
Recently, three artists took legal action against companies behind AI text-to-image generators Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, and DreamUp, citing several violations including copyright infringement and unlawful competition.