Update: Tiny Cyberpunk, Generative AI, and Fulfillment
Happy Monday!
The GKG Team hopes you have a good holiday weekend if you celebrate Thanksgiving. If not we hope you have a good week.
There’s two important parts to the update. Please read carefully.
Fulfillment
Fulfillment is ongoing. Our UK/ROW fulfillment is in line, they’re dealing with multiple Kickstarters (of ours and others), and a high holiday season, so we’re keeping up to date them. They should be starting any day now and we’re requesting regular check-ins (they’ve been doing other projects of ours too, so it’s just a matter of patience as things get moving).
All US and Canadian packages that are not waiting on a Tiny Dungeon 2e (see the previous update) are shipped.
We’ll keep you up to date with another update in a few weeks on fulfillment.
Tiny Cyberpunk and Generative AI
This part of the update is really frustrating to have to make. I’ve reworked, reworded, and tried to revisit this multiple times over the day as I processed what follows.
When we set out to build Tiny Cyberpunk, I was adamant that we do it right and by my standards I try to live and define myself by. One of the rules GKG has is that we don’t allow generative AI material in our products. I prefer human emotions, feelings, and ideas in my games. GKG contracts include no-generative AI provisions.
During the development of the final text, a new-to-GKG freelancer working on Tiny Cyberpunk submitted writing that included AI generated material (which was against their contract). This was discovered after dev editing and text integration had been completed, so at the time, we ended their involvement in the project.
I sat down and took my original outline, rewriting and re-editing the text. I personally tried to review and rework every portion of the book once we found out there was a potential issue, doing my best to re-edit, reword, and rewrite anything that felt unusual, bad, weird, or AI-generated, in order to clean up and finish the text (writing significant new portions of text) and resolve the concerns and conflicts I had.
However, despite my best efforts, I didn’t catch it all. A backer mentioned this weekend that portions of the Neodinium section showed elements and signs of generative AI in the text.
After reviewing the text and with the benefit of distance from working on it, I agree with the raised concerns. They strike me as written by AI. These days, I’ve gotten better at noticing the tell-tale signs of the problem. Eighteen months ago, when this was turned in, I was still getting my mind around how this all worked, learning the signs of generative AI writing, and I wasn’t as able to quickly identify AI generated text. If I’d seen the text now, I’d have immediately known, as I’ve grown more competent at identifying this nonsense.
Parts of the text had been written over several years, and so we were piecing multiple things together from disparate writing styles. Working documents and texts often can feel a bit disjointed, and when you’re in the weeds looking at it regularly, you don’t always see these trends.
I suppose it was a matter of time until we got bit by this, in spite of what I felt were our best efforts.
I want to be clear: I would not print or create products that knowingly contain generative AI material. I’m absolutely sick to my stomach over the situation I find myself (and, by proxy, GKG) in. My work has been used by these tools without my permission, violating my copyrights and trademarks. I feel like I’ve been stolen from and have been tricked into being complicit in that very theft. Robert, Nic, Katherine, Erin, and I all worked very hard to make this game a reality, and the aforementioned folks do not deserve to be in the position they are in, where folks might accuse them of using AI.
But it’s not just about the theft and ethical quandaries, but a serious financial decision that impacts us. We printed over 1,000 extra books for retail/trade distribution.
I’ll be clear: Tiny Cyberpunk is the only project affected by this. Our other projects in development are worked on by myself and freelancers are regulars at GKG, who have done this for years in tandem (before most of us had ever heard of generative AI). GKG has long histories with them and the quality of their work. This is a first-time (and to the best of my ability, last time) issue that will not come up again.
I’ll have to spend some time getting my head around this and how to proceed in the long run, as well as how we’ll validate these things going forward to avoid this. GKG has attempted to bring in and train new writers for ttrpg spaces, and generative AI is making that difficult to work through.
So what’s next? After talking with Erin and some colleagues, we set up a plan. It’s the best plan we can come up with and I owe Erin and my friend Will at Adept Icarus a lot of thanks for talking me through this problem and proposing solutions.
Immediate steps:
- I have delisted Tiny Cyberpunk PDFs from sale on all platforms (Diceweaver, GKG webstore, DTRPG).
- If you have the PDF, it will still be available in “My Library” on DTRPG or on your GKG webstore profile. We’re just not offering it while we address the concerns. It’ll come back.
- We’re going to finish fulfilling the books as they are. The mechanical bits, solo guide, and various other sections were 100% written by me and have no issues or concerns, and you’ve been waiting for them.
Future steps:
- We are calling this current edition the “corporate” edition. We’re going to lean into the problem, since I can’t afford to scrap about 1,000 books. We’re going to present this as a “generated by the corps” style presentation of Neodinium. Marketing text, misinformation, and more.
- Again, only the Neodinium section is affected by the generative AI problem, so the rules, solo play guides, and various other bits are good to go.
- The corporate edition will not be offered for sale digitally.
- The corporate edition will go out of print when this Kickstarter print run is over.
- Early next year, I’ll be rewriting the entire Neodinium section and we’ll be updating the PDF (which you’ll all get updated, obviously). We’re going to call the second (and future) print runs the “hacker” edition, and I’m going to take an in-universe approach to debunking, undermining, and contradicting the “megacorp” presentation in the “corporate” edition. Mark-ups, redactions, debunked material, and more.
- If we reprint the books, I’ll provide backers with free replacements (I’ll assume we’ll have to charge shipping still - but we’ll minimize any and all costs we can).
- If we don’t reprint the books, I’ll provide everyone at-cost POD codes to replace their books with the updated text.
- Either way, you’ll get the updated PDF.
This is the best solution we can come up with, and I hope you find it agreeable.
I hope that throughout this process I’ve been transparent and genuine in my goal to do right by the tabletop gaming community who supports us and buys our games.
I am sorry.
- Alan