Wizards of the Coast reverses course, admits to using AI in promotional image: 'Well, we made a mistake earlier'

GamesStrategyMagic: The GatheringWizards of the Coast reverses course, admits to using AI in promotional image: ‘Well, we made a mistake earlier’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)

Magic: The Gathering promotional image - five cards on a retro-Steampunk background (detail)

After sharp-eyed Magic: The Gathering fans cried foul over a recent promotional image’s seeming use of generative AI, Wizards of the Coast initiallyasserted that it was fully human-made. However, just two days on Wizards has deleted the offending marketing post andacknowledged that generative tools were used in the image.

The picture in question situated five new MTG cards (with their human-made bona fides, at least, not in question) on a desk in a steampunk-flavored apothecary-come-bookstore. All well and good, but minute details in the image showed telltale signs of it having been made with AI tools, namely the filaments in the lightbulbs, some of the wiring on the desk, and ticks on the pressure gauge⁠. It’s all in line with image generation tools’ consistent failure to render fine detail like fingers, teeth, and text.

OnTwitter, Wizards of the Coast stated that the image background was sourced from a third-party vendor, and claimed that “It looks like some AI components that are now popping up in industry standard tools like Photoshop crept into our marketing creative, even if a human did the work to create the overall image.”

Wizards elaborated further in astatement on its website:

“We already made clear that we require artists, writers, and creatives contributing to the Magic TCG to refrain from using AI generative tools to create final Magic products. What’s now apparent is that we need to update the way we work with vendors on creative beyond our products—like marketing images we use on social media—to make sure that we’re supporting the amazing human ingenuity that is so important to Magic.

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“Along with so many others, we also want to get better at understanding whether and how AI is used in the creative process. We believe everyone benefits from more transparency and better disclosure. We can’t promise to be perfect in such a fast-evolving space, especially with generative AI becoming standard in tools such as Photoshop, but our aim is to always come down on the side of human made art and artists.”

(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)

Magic: The Gathering promotional image - five cards in a retro-Steampunk setting

The issue of a third party artist or vendor using AI tools without disclosing such definitely seems like a tricky one for companies like Wizards of the Coast⁠—it was, after all, the reaction against artist Ilya Shkipin’s use of the tools in the Glory of the Giants sourcebook that prompted Wizards to take firm stand on the issue in the first place.

The flood of low-quality AI art on the internet seems to be creeping into commercial use, and it feels like we’ve all been deputized to try and suss out what’s real or fake, not unlike how we’ve all become accustomed to having unprecedented media literacy when it comes to discerning misinformation out there on the world wide web.

Sometimes that can lead to false positives, like with another piece of D&D art that was accused of being AI generated before gettingexonerated last month. And we’re just getting started: some commenters online haveaccused Apex Legends of using AI generationfor key art in arecent trailerfor its Final Fantasy Rebirth crossover event, while tablet manufacturer Wacom pulled a promotional Twitter post that was accused of having used AI art.

We are one week into 2024, but the burgeoning “AI revolution” has me thinking we’re in for a long year indeed.

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