The Real Danger of AI
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Understanding The Assignment: Heavy Metal’s Angry Mob
A while back, I saw a Kickstarter for the return of Heavy Metal magazine. Since I’ve always been at best a casual reader, I didn’t realize it had gone anywhere. But I feel like Heavy Metal magazine something that should exist in the world, so I backed it. I back a bunch of Kickstarters, and…
Review: Gamemasters: The Comic Book History of Roleplaying Games
Jon Peterson’s Playing to the World was one of those rare books, like Guns, Germs, and Steel or High and Mighty, that’s extremely engaging despite covering subject matter that seems like it should be boring as hell. While I’m not bothering with the multi-book “let’s see if they’ll buy it twice” reboot of Playing to…
Will AI Lead to the Enshitification of Art?
I’ve spent three articles telling you why the most common arguments used by AI opponents are stupid. Most are based on a refusal to understand how anything remotely related to AI—including the software itself, computers in general, intellectual property law, and the creative process—actually works. The rest are based on magical thinking. There is one,…
Mythologizing Creativity
A common argument against AI creativity is the belief that art requires a unique, magical force unlike any other human skill. The most simplistic arguments focus on the physical tools and processes used (paint/ink/whatever vs. pixels), echoing similar arguments about photography, Photoshop, and probably brushes (“Real artists use their fingers!”). In the 1990s, these morons…
Wiki Articles Are Wizards Play-Thru Review
I backed Ben Meadows’ Wiki Articles Are Wizards [Citation Needed] during this year’s zine quest because I like wizards and I like game-like systems for generating RPG stuff (my article about using Tarot cards and IMDB to generate campaign history is probably around here somewhere). The PDF was delivered earlier this week, so I gave it…
Let’s Talk About AI, Part 2
Last time I talked about some common reasons people give for pretending that we can keep AI from becoming a thing. Most of those involved legal or technical issues and tend to be the talking points of people who actually do creative work and are scared, but not scared enough to actually do research. I…
Let’s Talk About AI
Generative AI has become a go-to scare topic for slow news days in recent years, and it’s a frequent topic of internet yelling, usually by people with a very limited grasp of how the technology actually works. I’m not going to claim that I’m expert on the topic, but since I’ve actually used AI, I…
Movie Review: Smokey & The Bandit
Last night when I pulled up Netflix, Smokey & The Bandit was a few rows down on the main screen. I’m pretty sure I’ve watched the movie since I originally saw it as a kid, but it’s been a long time and it’s a classic, so I decided to give it a rewatch. I was…
Callings & Trades
After the initial release of QAGS, it didn’t take us very long to realize that the wonky system wasn’t really geared for easy modification. For QAGS 3E, I’m trying to correct that mistake because, at least for me, the level of rules complexity I want varies from one game to another. Maybe it’s because I…