Wizards of the Coast Accused of Using AI in Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons Promotional Images

In December, Wizards of the Coast committed to not using artificial intelligence in Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons, saying it requires its artists, writers and other creative creators to “refrain from using generative AI tools” when creating their products. Despite this, MtG fans are accusing the company of using AI to create the background of promotional images featuring the new cards – something WotC vehemently denies.

On January 4, Wizards published an image in X with signature:

It’s amazing how good these lands look in a retro frame.

However, a huge number of other people didn’t like it. Almost immediately after publication, questions began about whether AI was used to create the image, and soon the questions escalated into outright accusations. The complaints were caused by alleged inconsistencies in the pressure gauge, light bulbs and other details of the retro surroundings. But Wizards categorically denied these accusations.

We understand fans’ confusion given that the style is different from the images on the cards, but we stand by our previous statement. This piece was created by humans, not AI.

However, this refutation did not convince many subscribers.

Some of these doubts are understandable. In August 2023, artificially generated images were discovered in the announcement of the upcoming source Bigby Presents: The Glory of Giants for Dungeons and Dragons. Wizards of the Coast acknowledged the use of AI in that case and promised to abandon it in the future.

Just a few months later, the company was again accused of using AI images in another publication, but the claims were then proven to be false.

Despite this false alarm, it’s clear that people remain wary of AI, especially in commercial projects like Magic and D&D. This is understandable, but it will likely cause problems in the future as internet detectives struggle to determine whether an image (or text) is generated by artificial intelligence, or is just a little crooked, or just plain bad. Over time, this will become more and more difficult, as technology improves and machine art approaches human art.

To further complicate matters, there are often layers to these processes: Wizards hires artists for its games, but is unlikely to track every step of their work. It’s not very practical to provide step-by-step proof that every image in their products is not AI-generated, but if fans refuse to take a company’s word for it, then what?

Perhaps at some point in the not-too-distant future this will no longer matter, either because we lose interest in it or it simply becomes impossible to distinguish between what is AI-generated and what is not. Then we will have to decide whether to believe companies when they say they did not use AI or not.