But the AI art complaints got me thinking. I understand the recent uproar about Google's interpretation of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks. Pictures created by generative artificial intelligence in my mind aren't "art", in the traditional sense of the word. They lack artistic expression, and are by definition derivative. Having said that, having played role-playing games for decades, I have seen a great many illustrations of let's say an orc that were derivative, and very few that had any artistic value. I liked for example the Paizo interpretation of the common goblin, although not everybody agrees. But at least the Pathfinder goblin is artistically distinctively different from the D&D goblin. Meanwhile many other roleplaying and board games have illustrations of common fantasy heroes and monsters that are extremely generic. Even D&D itself has some "artwork" that looks more derivative than artistic to me. And many of the D&D book simply fill different pages with different illustrations from different "artists" with no common style, overarching artistic expression, or narrative.

Which gets me to the question whether a game that needs an illustration of a generic hero or monster does actually need "art". If something is meant to represent a generic wizard or a generic orc, isn't the illustration bound to be generic too? And if that is the case, what's wrong with using AI to create it?

It seems to me that some people can draw a recognizable wizard or orc, and others simply don't have the drawing skills. Calling everybody who can draw an orc an "artist" is probably stretching the definition. That drawing on a card representing an orc enemy isn't necessarily "artwork", it is often simply an illustration with no artistic merit or even aspiration. And while I certainly don't want to see the artists that are filling our museums with beautiful artwork replaced by AI, I don't think that simple illustrators working freelance on Fiverr should be protected from competition by AI. Just like the "online journalists" that produce SEO slop shouldn't be protected from competition by AI slop. If generative AI can produce work as well as you do, it is time to question the value of your job, not time to ask for protection.