About AI-Generated Illustration: UPDATE

Further Updates: I'm going to go ahead and roll this back and make a concerted effort to replace the AI illustration that's present. When I started with this, it was still kinda early days and we weren't quite sure how things were going. But the ethics are clear, and the AI companies have been pretty horrible and it's just time to ditch it.
  First, I have just completed deleting all of the AI-based illustration from the site. If you notice any weirdness with page layouts because of this please let me know via a comment.
  Long-term, I'll work with artists to get real work in place. It's gonna largely be unpaid as this is not a commercial enterprise but the community is wide and I'm hoping to find some folks that want to collaborate in building a world and want a good outlet for creative energies. Reach out if you wanna draw!
  If I do any paid work it'll be for big centerpieces or things that will be used on potentially income-generating streams such as a YouTube channel (which I'm considering).
  I'm leaving the original post I made on the subject below for posterity and transparency. I accept that I was in the wrong on it ethically.
 

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  Short Version: I'll be using AI-generated illustration in order to set the mood or create visuals for people and places, treating it mostly as concept art. If at any point efforts are made to publish this setting, I will absolutely be hiring human artists to create ideal artwork that best fits my vision for the world. In the meantime, this is a hobby project - the only thing I am investing beyond the World Anvil subscription fee is time.
  Long Version: AI-generated illustration is a highly complex subject that many people find it challenging to address. I am an ardent supporter of the ability of technology to democratize creativity and allow those lacking specific skillsets to still create a complete project. At the same time, I also believe that artists deserve to be able to make a living from their work (well, I believe that there should be a universal wage that allows artists to pursue their passions without worry about a living, but that's beyond the scope of this site).
  When considering whether I wanted to use AI-generated art to flesh out the visuals of Lasair, I considered a number of things.
 

• Listening to a podcast including a game designer who talked about the speed with which generative art can be used to rapidly explore concepts. What can take weeks and weeks can instead be done in an evening. When I'm spending some time writing, having the ability to type a few words and get an illustration to go along with that writing is immensely useful.
• That same designer stressed that those concepts would be further developed by human artists - because AI tools just cannot create release quality work, especially if you have an original world with a lot of specific needs.
• Lasair is absolutely a hobby for me. It's a way for me to spend creative time in a fantasy world, preparing good content for my players (and hopefully others) to explore. It's not something that I'm investing in to make money off of. But having some semblance of illustration on the site is important to help make the project be complete in terms of feel.
• Do I actually have the ability or the resources to support artists right now? Not really, no. My game world writing is, like, hobby number 3 or 4 for me. It doesn't really get a ton of resources allocated to it.

A human artist will absolutely be able to make the perfect image when it is needed. And when that time comes, I'll happily support as many artists in that quest as I can. But I don't need perfect, I just need a little bit of "eh that's fine". In the end the choice for me is not "AI or Artist". It's "AI Art or No Art". And when that's the choice, I'll pick having art. I know that it won't be great art, and I know that it's going to annoy absolutists. If it means you will choose not to read any of my work, I'll accept that as a reasonable consequence of my choice.