ChatGPT & Roleplay

[great balls of fire]

I am genuinely confused.

i don't know if this was in response to me or the topic in general, but i'll clarify regardless

i do enjoy making cool items, but - having not read much literature or done a whole lot of creative writing - i often find it difficult to write descriptions beyond the most plain of prose; anybody who has ever had the misfortune of interacting with my PCs knows just how limited my vocabulary tends to be

and sometimes this is fine! because the item itself is interesting enough in its own right, such as various gifts my characters have given to people, so i write whatever i can and just roll with that

but for other things with which i'm less familiar, such as writing custom descriptions for food, clothes, or furniture, i find using the AI generated text as a point of reference to be helpful, and really no different to examining another person's work (to which i have already admitted would likely give better results, anyway)

at the end of the day, all of my amateur writing comes from emulating things that i think are cool and applying my own personal touch to it

a lot of creative writing starts with emulating and experimenting! that's the first step. writing doesn't need impressive esoteric language to be good, or a lot of flowery prose. roleplay is more like drama/play writing then actual novel writing, which means the important part is dialogue and your interactions with other characters in the moment.

as long as you're getting across whatever the 'thing' is/whatever the other players need to understand able 'thing' for the purpose it's being used for in the scene, you've done it.

[Dr. B]

I just went back and re-read this thread and have a thought:

If English isn't your first language, write the text in your native language and then use a translator app. You don't need ChatGPT to solve that problem.

[Kuma]

IDK, maybe in the long run, the take away is that home cooked meals are lame, Just use a microwave. or that handmade items are stupid - they won't be as proffessional as stuff made by machines after all. And I think there's arguments for these things too. I buy lots of stuff from shops, eat a fair amount of microwaved food. But I also value stuff that isn't like that, And when you can't easily distinguish one from another - due to the nature of the internet it makes me feel... uneasy?

Fun little metaphor. Back when microwaves and TV dinners were invented, they were hailed as game-changers. People would be excited at the prospect of a meal in a few minutes, whole cookbooks were devoted to the subject, and an industry arose to facilitate and encourage that perception - they symbolised the future! The space age! The thrill of convenience!

Of course nowadays microwave ready meals are frequently looked down on, a signifier of the lazy, unfulfilling, frequently bland, unhealthy, unchallenging, mass-produced slop.

The only thing they don't do is operate solely on theft, but the similarities are otherwise endless.

[Algol]

I just went back and re-read this thread and have a thought:

If English isn't your first language, write the text in your native language and then use a translator app. You don't need ChatGPT to solve that problem.

I use a Grammer checker while writing descriptions and such. I'm not sure how good of a job they do but at least they catch typos.

[Xarge VI]

Writing a descriptions with google docs is a better option imo. It checks for typos automatically and it saves the writing for later use and editing.

[solar separation]

chatgpt has no place in a roleplay community for the same reason ai art has no place in the art community.
full stop.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

chatgpt can't even do basic arithmetic

[DM MoonMoon]

ChatGPT npcs though !

[A MAN DRUNK ON POWER]

I remember someone on the discord months ago losing their actual mind at the concept of an NPC being chatGPT integrated or written in part by chatGPT or anything. Like "I would stop ever writing for Arelith again if there was ever a single AI thing used" level of thing.

I think it'd be neat, personally. I also have been an avid fan of (or worked on) NLP systems for like, 17 years though. Anyone else remember A.L.I.C.E.?

If anyone ever approaches the discussion from the perspective of "AI is all theft" then you are giving away that you basically never have done anything in ML and have no idea how anything works, or how privacy or copyright laws work, and only started talking about this stuff as of this year. It's the most braindead Neo-Luddite take you can have on the entire topic. This was already handled to a large degree with things like the Google Books case. Search engines have been summarizing and serving up and crawling your online content for literal decades, and serving it up to users on-demand, from their websites/platforms, and earning their own ad revenue. You don't have the right not to have your online text viewed and inserted into an ML platform to try and teach something how sentence structure works. That is not a thing. That has never been a thing.

Way better argument is the whole "it's lazy and not really interacting with a person, so it violates the premise of RP" argument. That makes way more sense. Go with that if you hate NLP systems that much.

[Eira]

I remember someone on the discord months ago losing their actual mind at the concept of an NPC being chatGPT integrated or written in part by chatGPT or anything. Like "I would stop ever writing for Arelith again if there was ever a single AI thing used" level of thing.

Hi! That was me who said that. I would like to think I have not lost my mind; it was actually a very well-thought through decision about what Arelith is as a passion project, and something the writer team had discussed at length about why we do the work we do, and how we as volunteers would like to feel valued.

I am sorry that me stating that I would like to not be replaced by AI doing something I have a lot of love for, is seen as losing my mind.

[Dr. B]

ChatGPT generated NPC dialogue would be so dull.

[Kuma]

I remember someone on the discord months ago losing their actual mind at the concept of an NPC being chatGPT integrated or written in part by chatGPT or anything. Like "I would stop ever writing for Arelith again if there was ever a single AI thing used" level of thing.

This sentiment is actually one shared by the entire writing team. If you think we've lost our minds, you're very welcome to think that, but we don't care.

[Dr. B]

I remember someone on the discord months ago losing their actual mind at the concept of an NPC being chatGPT integrated or written in part by chatGPT or anything. Like "I would stop ever writing for Arelith again if there was ever a single AI thing used" level of thing.

This sentiment is actually one shared by the entire writing team. If you think we've lost our minds, you're very welcome to think that, but we don't care.

TBF, Fitzgerald was a raging alcoholic, Hemingway, Woolf, and Plath were all severely depressed, Huxley was on hallucinogens, Norman Mailer was an unstable murderer, Capote did blow, Tolstoy was a religious nut, Ezra Pound was thrown in an asylum, Salinger was a total recluse......... etc.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I remember someone on the discord months ago losing their actual mind at the concept of an NPC being chatGPT integrated or written in part by chatGPT or anything. Like "I would stop ever writing for Arelith again if there was ever a single AI thing used" level of thing.

This sentiment is actually one shared by the entire writing team. If you think we've lost our minds, you're very welcome to think that, but we don't care.

What if I think you have lost your minds, but it has nothing to do with chatgpt. Does the care factor go up at all?

[A MAN DRUNK ON POWER]

two members of the team immediately sarcastically reply

"AND WE DEFINITELY DON'T CARE"

yeah ok, that's fine, you and I are allowed to disagree, that's always been allowed ma'ams and sirs. This is a Wendy's. We both "don't care", gotcha

That said we probably disagree slightly less than you both think. I am able to think that the response from you both is a bit hysterical while also actually agreeing overall that AI generated NPCs would probably be a negative for the server, I even mentioned one reason why that might be, in my earlier reply. Another reason is that checking the quality of whatever's posted would be time consuming and basically require a lore-savvy writer to be on hand to manage the AI dialogue before it gets entered into the server anyway (and that would be very difficult if not impossible if it were a ChatGPT API enabled NPC, rather than just dialogue inspired/ripped from ChatGPT manually).

Frankly the reason I gave at the end of my previous reply is enough that I probably wouldn't want to know if there WERE ChatGPT-written NPCs on the server. If theoretically their dialogue was not noticeably different/worse than other NPCs (which are a hodgepodge because of being written by many different people over the years), we probably would only know it was written by ChatGPT if we were told up front. One of the team members could already have just submitted some edited ChatGPT text as NPC dialogue and just simply said "yeah here's my new NPC dialogue I wrote" and you probably (definitely) wouldn't know. At that point it's hard to tell what the functional difference is to literally anyone.

[LurkingShadow]

In my opininion it should absolutely not be used or used to a very small degree. Even the most misspelled and broken, incoherent story written by a Human is still the imaginations and work of a living Human being. Its commendable and interesting to see different views of things compared to something created by some companies AI.

I know im late, but something made by a Human, a living, breathing being that is inspired by events and their surrounding, new experiences and so on will always be more unique and real. An AI by default I believe can never suprise you since it is not able to think freely.

I use AIs to render art for my PnP campaigns I DM but I do it simply because it is easy to do and I can get portraits on the fly. But if I had the money I would always pay an artist instead.

But thats just my opinion. If people wish to use it for their backgrounds, sure. I just do not think its the solution to think that some people see it as. Procedural generation in games we already have I find boring, and the AI to me is just the same thing but the next evolution. It is lacking in soul and creativity.

[Security_Blanket]

I think ChatGPT is a great tool for enhancing roleplay, but obviously shouldn't be used for back and forth dialogue. That would be so bland and boring, how would you even know who your character is if your letting some AI shape them for you, you're not actually fleshing out your character. I think where ChatGPT really shines is through the brainstorming process, you can use it to generate a hundred ideas in a second, pick out those that speak to your character and flesh them out, or drop a quick description on an item. It can be a great tool depending on how you use it, but if you're relying on it for every aspect of roleplay, I think your shooting yourself in the foot, your RP and experience in the game will suffer for it.

[Cybren]

two members of the team immediately sarcastically reply

"AND WE DEFINITELY DON'T CARE"

yeah ok, that's fine, you and I are allowed to disagree, that's always been allowed ma'ams and sirs. This is a Wendy's. We both "don't care", gotcha

That said we probably disagree slightly less than you both think. I am able to think that the response from you both is a bit hysterical while also actually agreeing overall that AI generated NPCs would probably be a negative for the server, I even mentioned one reason why that might be, in my earlier reply. Another reason is that checking the quality of whatever's posted would be time consuming and basically require a lore-savvy writer to be on hand to manage the AI dialogue before it gets entered into the server anyway (and that would be very difficult if not impossible if it were a ChatGPT API enabled NPC, rather than just dialogue inspired/ripped from ChatGPT manually).

Frankly the reason I gave at the end of my previous reply is enough that I probably wouldn't want to know if there WERE ChatGPT-written NPCs on the server. If theoretically their dialogue was not noticeably different/worse than other NPCs (which are a hodgepodge because of being written by many different people over the years), we probably would only know it was written by ChatGPT if we were told up front. One of the team members could already have just submitted some edited ChatGPT text as NPC dialogue and just simply said "yeah here's my new NPC dialogue I wrote" and you probably (definitely) wouldn't know. At that point it's hard to tell what the functional difference is to literally anyone.

Exceedingly disrespectful to respond to writers saying "no I do not want my work to be used alongside the writing plagiarism bot" by claiming they're being hysterical.

[The GrumpyCat]

I remember someone on the discord months ago losing their actual mind at the concept of an NPC being chatGPT integrated or written in part by chatGPT or anything. Like "I would stop ever writing for Arelith again if there was ever a single AI thing used" level of thing.

I think it'd be neat, personally. I also have been an avid fan of (or worked on) NLP systems for like, 17 years though. Anyone else remember A.L.I.C.E.?

If anyone ever approaches the discussion from the perspective of "AI is all theft" then you are giving away that you basically never have done anything in ML and have no idea how anything works, or how privacy or copyright laws work, and only started talking about this stuff as of this year. It's the most braindead Neo-Luddite take you can have on the entire topic. This was already handled to a large degree with things like the Google Books case. Search engines have been summarizing and serving up and crawling your online content for literal decades, and serving it up to users on-demand, from their websites/platforms, and earning their own ad revenue. You don't have the right not to have your online text viewed and inserted into an ML platform to try and teach something how sentence structure works. That is not a thing. That has never been a thing.

Way better argument is the whole "it's lazy and not really interacting with a person, so it violates the premise of RP" argument. That makes way more sense. Go with that if you hate NLP systems that much.

Why did you even bother writing this?

Dude. Seriously? You're a meatbrain. You're not as smart as an AI. Your opinions are worth nothing. If you really must write something here, then for algorithm's sake, just type a prompt into ChatGPT and post it! You're wasting valuble time here that could be better spent
*Scrubbing Toilets
*Picking fruit
*Fixing machines.
*Making more biological organisms.

Soon NPCs will be replaced by AI, and so will most players. No longer will you have to put up with playing with fleshy organisms. You can just hop on arelith as a single player game, and chat to an entirely A.I. playerlist. One may consider that fuitle and taking the point away from 'multiplayer' services, but honestly? They're pretty useless anyway, spending time in this 'creative' persuits that could be better spent working in factory lines or doing other base manule labour.

Yes, yes, I know your opinions/thoughts/choices/acts are defined by years and years of personal growth, strife, effort, skill and experience. But frankly? There's nothing that you can't type that AI can't come up with which is better, sleeker, and faster. You're obsolete.

And if you find the above insulting and terrifying in the extreme, then I hope you can see why our writing team are also rather terrified of the idea of A.I. taking on their roles, and why it bothers them.
These are skills they've honed over years, art is something you put your heart and soul in, art exists when peopel are there to go 'Wow, yeah! That's awsome! That made me think/feel/react. By taking that away from them, - you're doing something really quite terrifying.

That's not to say that I think A.I. is going to be come all of the above. I honestly don't know. (though I've DEEP concerns when it comes to mixing captalism up with it all) Heck, I'm not even sure I'm 100% against A.I driven npcs personally. But I hope that you can consider the way my first few paragraphs made you feel, and then transplant it into how some other artists are feeling - even irregardless of issues of plagerisms and the like.

It's deeply troubling and also intimidating and invasive. Maybe these emotions should be squashed. Maybe we should push them aside and embrace the brave new world, sure. But I can absolutly see why people have these emotions.

(EDIT: In case there's any missunderstanding - I think you're likely a wonderful and interesting person A MAN DRUNK ON POWER, and I genuinly mean no offence with the above - but I wanted to try and show you how this kinda feels to people who - frankly, probably place a fair chunk of their self worth on that specific skill - a specific skill that's already difficult to find value in commercially anyway. If I caused any real, long term offence I do apologise, that's not my intent.)

[A MAN DRUNK ON POWER]

"Have you considered arguments from emotion?"

yes and they're all bad

I actually literally said in two different spots what some arguments that I think are decent against ChatGPT NPCs are, and why I probably wouldn't want to knowingly play with such things, so just realize that what I'm arguing with here is your arguments presented, not arguing for ChatGPT to be integrated into Arelith.

ChatGPT is used to write boilerplate code which I might sometimes be writing (or, nowadays, "which I might sometimes ask ChatGPT for an idea how to write", if I'm feeling particularly evil and want to use the evil-bot that only does evil things (apparently)), and I feel aaaaabsolutely nothing over it. I also make chainmail keychains and bracelets and stuff sometimes. I'm not offended by people buying mass produced factory-made jewelry. I also used to play the piano quite a lot, and taught myself basic guitar. I am not offended by people using DAW's to make music (or using AI generated music, which I think has existed in some form for a while? Not sure.)

I actually think there's a real opportunity for personal growth for people on that particular front. The attitude you are espousing leads me to believe you'd teach a child not to even bother with art in a world with ChatGPT being a bit more popular, because "why bother, just ask the computer, what a dismal capitalist world amirite?" That's the implication of the thing you wrote out, if that's how you actually see this issue. "Why do anything, a factory already does it cheaper." Do you all actually think that's how the world works??? There are literally farmer's markets JUST so people can go buy locally sourced overpriced produce and meat, in basically every city on Earth, rather than the cheaper mass-produced stuff in grocery stores - and those markets make money. Quite a bit of it, in some cases.

Art isn't going away, actually I bet people will pay extra for art that can somehow be verified to not have been altered or generated at any step by ChatGPT or another generative AI, in the not-too-distant future. Art is never going away lol. Thinking it will, or thinking there's some grave moral fight being waged here (or that using the word "capitalism" means anything here), is what I mean by hysterics.

I'll be honest. The entire issue with ChatGPT has made me hate most people who (usually self-aggrandizingly) identify as "artists", because they're usually people who agreed with me and most other people over the past 5 years about the need for electric vehicles, AI driven vehicles, the death of fossil fuel industries, increasing automation and optimization in fuel and energy intensive fields to reduce emissions and waste, and more, all of which cost jobs... But the moment a tool dares to intrude on your favorite pasttime (or in a few cases, side gig - very few of the people on this server are full time artists of ANY variety, though I'm sure there are some), to make some (usually mediocre) art, suddenly the artists are grabbing their hammers and ready to smash textile machines, and it's all hands on deck to espouse the evils of technology, and then they wonder why they get called hysterical.

It's the ultimate in champagne socialism (you brought up capitalism for no reason so this is just fair play). "Just learn to code, coal miners - wait no not like that, keep paying me to make bad Patreon art. This is oppression reeeeeee."

[Kuma]

I'll be honest. The entire issue with ChatGPT has made me hate most people who (usually self-aggrandizingly) identify as "artists", because they're usually people who agreed with me and most other people over the past 5 years about the need for electric vehicles, AI driven vehicles, the death of fossil fuel industries, increasing automation and optimization in fuel and energy intensive fields to reduce emissions and waste, and more, all of which cost jobs... But the moment a tool dares to intrude on your favorite pasttime (or in a few cases, side gig - very few of the people on this server are full time artists of ANY variety, though I'm sure there are some), to make some (usually mediocre) art, suddenly the artists are grabbing their hammers and ready to smash textile machines, and it's all hands on deck to espouse the evils of technology, and then they wonder why they get called hysterical.

It's the ultimate in champagne socialism (you brought up capitalism for no reason so this is just fair play). "Just learn to code, coal miners - wait no not like that, keep paying me to make bad Patreon art. This is oppression reeeeeee."

holy shit

[A MAN DRUNK ON POWER]

Yeah no I'll say it again if you want, ART IS NOT GOING AWAY, so calm down about yourselves - I literally just got pinged by a DM with like 4 paragraphs of insane doomerism over "BUT WHAT IF YOU WERE CALLED A MEATBRAIN" stuff as if it would impact me, and all it did was assure me I was right that the actual standard for opinions on this topic is so low it's reached Asmodeus. I look forward to talking to you all after I get unbanned for being this blunt about my opinion on the matter I guess.

[DM Monkey]

I tap the ‘Be Nice’ rule sign.