What a D&D Meme Taught Me About AI, Art, and Power

It all started when a friend and I created this "If climbers were D&D characters" meme.

The cover image for our 9-part character alignment grid.

"The neutral good has to be a druid!" My friend and I laughed as we imagined a Colorado-based rock climber with a chipmunk sidekick. We spent hours bouncing ideas around, asking Dall-e 3 to generate the images, and refining them in Photoshop.

Our neutral good druid.

I posted the final creation to my rock climbing brand's Instagram page, hoping others would find it as fun as we had.

"My oldest loves D&D! This is epic!" Followers commented on how much they loved the idea. “I’m the Bard of Wild Beta!” They shared which character they related most to.

The crowd was clearly entertained...

Until the AI Art Police arrived.

A few illustrators expressed their concerns about how AI image generation trains off of non consenting artists' work, calling it unethical. Then, as it often does, the conversation devolved. Reasonable objections turned into personal attacks and demands to “do better.”

The first wave of critiques.

I watched the critical comments evolve like a virus. One comment about training data was followed by three more. A comment about small business ethics launched identical critiques. And finally, a mention of ecological concerns initiated the final wave.

These interactions prompted me to do two things. One was to start a conversation about AI generated images. The second was to address how we behave online.

I wrote a follow-up post, making it clear I couldn't make a blanket judgement on whether AI was ethical or unethical.

But I did bring up a few concepts I had personally found illuminating, like transformative vs derivative works, and how style and content differ. I shared an article called Laws of Art and AI, which I think is a fantastic introduction to the topic.

Then, I touched on the ignorance behind moral absolutism and how it fuels online aggression.

Some found my response to be a "disgusting double down" on existing beliefs. Another said they were "disappointed in me as a climber."

Disappointed in me...as a climber? Can someone please remind me what AI has to do with rock climbing?

Absurdities aside, it motivated me to look deeper into the morality of generative AI. As I went down the research rabbit hole, my low resolution perspective began to take on a bit more detail.

Generative AI and the piracy problem

I’ve seen my own designs replicated by anonymous accounts and uploaded onto sites like Redbubble and Etsy. Counterfeiters undercut my prices and flood the market with low quality versions of my work. Though I've successfully requested a few DMCA takedowns, most of the time, my requests are ignored.

With AI, it's easier than ever to copy an artist's style and threaten their market share. Furthermore, the artist may not be able to file a DMCA takedown because generated images are rarely direct copies of any existing work—they just look like something the artist could have made.

To me, this is an intentional and egregious abuse of AI. I get frustrated just thinking about it.

But I wonder—does that mean all uses of AI are equally abusive? Some people seem to think so, but I'm not convinced.

Maybe an analogy that can help us with that question. Knives have many different uses. They can harm, or they can help.

How you use a knife obviously matters.

Like a sharp knife, AI has many different uses. We can't say all uses of knives are either good or evil, and we can't judge all generative AI activities as such, either. Or at least, I can’t.

Anti AI Stickers by Kelly McKernan, an artist suing Stability AI

Looking deeper into generative AI showed me that there are thousands of valid opinions and arguments on either side of the AI debate.

The research made me realize a difficult truth:

It doesn’t matter who wins the ethical argument.

55% of Americans use AI regularly—and I doubt it's because they are so staunchly pro-AI. They are using it because it is there, and they find it useful. No matter which side of the debate you're on, Pandora’s box won’t be closed.

Some artists are fighting back by suing Stability AI. Tools that poison data sets are emerging. At the same time, technologists are advancing AI at breakneck speed. We are in a race for global AI dominance and trying not to destroy humanity in the process.

The action is dizzying. The world is changing, fast. And yet, some artists are busy calling out other artists for using AI—because apparently, that means…you hate artists?

I’m all for expressing what we believe, but there is a difference between expression and making demands. True expression is a creative act. Making demands is a use of force.

The Illusion of Profit vs. Pain

I recently watched an artist speak passionately against generative AI. At one point, he says: “When it comes to for-profit companies, there are pretty clear sides: the profit of my company versus the people getting hurt.” For him, the world could be split cleanly into two camps: those who exploit, and those who suffer.

It made me wonder. Is it really that simple?

After running a niche apparel brand for over a decade, I’ve heard dozens of stories from fellow creatives trying to stay afloat. I’ve noticed a recurring belief: If you’re struggling, someone else must be benefitting at your expense.

It’s a tempting narrative, especially in small industries where everyone knows each other. You form alliances, rally around shared frustrations, and cast big business as the "bad guys." I did this too in my early years. I believed bigger brands were hogging all the market share. I saw every way the industry didn’t want me to belong.

Then my brand grew. And the criticism started to shift. Suddenly, I was seen as a big dog, even though my business hadn’t changed and I definitely didn't feel like one.

I learned first hand that business isn’t a clean-cut division of winners and losers. It's a lot like making art—you start with a vision and use whatever tools you have to shape it into something you’re proud of. You make choices, iterate, throw things out, and try again. Certain businesses are exploitative. Others are fair and courageous. All businesses are trying to survive.

Some people insist on seeing the world as split between “those who profit” and “little ol' me.” They believe that fighting “the man” will liberate themselves and their peers from some imaginary boogieman. But what this mindset actually does is create a class of people who don’t allow their own to succeed.

It all comes down to personal choice.

Creating a beautiful image used to require years of skill. Now, anyone with a prompt can do it. But as powerful as AI seems, it can only amplify who we already are. The person behind the tool holds the real power.

If you could blow up the world with the flick of a switch
Would you do it?

If you could make your own money and then give it to everybody
Would you do it?

It's a very dangerous thing to do exactly what you want
Because you cannot know yourself
Or what you'd really do

With all your power
What would you do?

—The Flaming Lips, The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song

If you're a creator, how will you use AI? To streamline your process? To undermine your competitors? To create something fun—or will you reject it entirely?

And as a consumer, sometimes even unknowingly, what will you do? Will you value AI-generated work as much as human-made? Shout down others who use AI? Or learn to appreciate it in its own weird way?

Choices, choices.

Rather than arguing for or against the existence of generative AI, it seems more useful to simply share how each of us are personally approaching it.

Here's how I'm using AI:

1. I use AI to make noncreative aspects of my work less tedious, like editing parts of images or sentences, but I won't let AI create for me.
2. I rarely generate images, but if I do, I don’t generate in any artist’s style or as a replacement for an illustrator. I also do not consider these images to be my own artworks.
3. I use AI for research and to get an overview of what’s on the internet, but don't rely on AI for definitive answers.

The sacred becomes optional

I once took an entire college course on how to clip and retouch images—skills that can now be handled by a one-click tool in Photoshop. Maybe drawing will go the same way. Still, that doesn’t make drawing worthless. The process still offers the same transformative properties it always has.

The fear is real—and it’s not just artists. Security guards, factory workers, drivers, and copywriters are all watching their careers creep towards obsolescence.

But when we are faced with sweeping change, humans always seem to adapt. I'm optimistic that in time, we will find better energy sources, determine what fair use means, and maybe even get around to tackling the long list of problems we haven't had the resources to solve yet. I don't realistically see a dystopian world where all art is replaced by vapid trends.

AI has not been around for long, but we already live in a changed world. Skill and effort—once sacred, are now just options.

Getting sucked into the AI debate first hand gave me a reason to ponder a question we should all be asking ourselves:

What is the difference between images and art?

As I watched my D&D post become the stage for a theatre of criticism, I noticed something odd. Most of the anti-AI arguments repeated the same buzzwords and phrases. It was as if the commentary wasn't coming from individual thought processes, but rather, from a pool of assumed knowledge.

Behind the preachy shame on you's and prepackaged reactions, I did hear one message loud and clear:

“You didn’t work hard enough to deserve this pretty image.”

Funny enough, the meme did its job. Everyone who responded revealed where they landed on the chart—whether they realized it or not.

---

Dear friends,

After doing my research, I learned there are so many arguments for or against every point of debate, and an infinity of rebuttals for each of them.

By sharing my experience, I hope to encourage readers to think more situationally—and to live in the creative expression of ideas rather than die in the soul-crushing stalemate of debate.

I’m grateful to

Helen

for writing one of the first pieces that whet my interest in the subject years ago. And more recently, I appreciated

Michelle Akin

’s Boundaries of AI, which inspired me to write down some of my own.

I also have to thank

John Sherwin

,

Benjamin Setor

, and

Leo Ariel

for their valuable feedback on my writing.

Toodles!
—Leslie