Q&A : What about AI? (Patreon)

AI is an interesting new horizon that is not going anywhere. It is going to be pervasive and will be invading every aspect of our lives over the next decade. It’s already been a part of our lives for a while now. It’s just now going to explode.

I’ll start here: artists are not going away.

Writers are not going away. Painters are not going away. Creators are not going away.

Could AI be used to make an entire comic?

Yes. It’s already been done.

Could someone like Marvel or DC use AI to generate their comics? Yes.

They probably have one of the easiest routes to do it as well. Decades of scripts and artwork. They could feed an instance of AI and have it dedicated to making comics. Or making scripts.

They could do it, and it would be the end of Marvel or DC. It wouldn’t be immediate, but the stories would just be hollow.

There is some obvious stuff I’ve seen where AI art can not consistently generate the same character design. Tattoos migrate and change shapes. Logos and costume elements change from panel to panel. And not in a creative process way, it a failed to understand that the S on the chest it what makes him Superman. It fails to realize it is an S. The more details, the more risk of failure.

The other reason it would fail is creativity. AI can not think of new things. AI does not have motivation. AI can only mix and match what has already been done. An AI Batman script can only pull from what is already out there. AI can not push the characters in interesting new directions. The snake would just eat itself until all the story is exhausted

To use some examples of the more ‘visionary’ creators, that AI could never bring in something new like a Frank Miller, or Chip Zdarsky, or Jack Kirby, or Kieron Gillen, or Chris Bachalo, or Walt Simonson, or Kelly Sue Deconnick, or Matt Fraction. They all took the stories they were working on, and either story or art went off in directions that no one could predict. An AI could not make those creative choices. People make those choices.

Even with creators who are respected but known for almost exclusively reusing pre-existing materials like Alan Moore or Quentin Tarantino, they are bringing something new to the table. They have a point of view they are bringing into the story. They have emotions and feelings that are driving why they want to mix and match those elements.

And just to prove this isn’t one of those articles about AI where they reveal that part of it was in fact written by AI…Alan Moore is a fucking hypocrite. Frank Miller shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near comics anymore. See, AI won’t deliver these medium to hot takes.

I’m going pretty high level as there is just so much to cover and every potential use for AI is a massive rabbit hole to fall into and circle deeper and deeper into pros and cons to the use of AI in that realm. So for my sanity, I’m going to keep things detail light as we talk about practical ethical uses for AI.

People become artists because they like to create. They aren’t going to stop just because there is now a smarter computer. They pursue these creative endeavors because they want to make things.

But AI is a new tool in an artist’s belt. It’s main asset is that it is fast. It can make a lot of variations fast. All tools need someone behind them to wield it and shape it.

A lot of the artists you like already use digital tools to save time. For a couple of examples.

• Copy and Paste pencils from past pages into the current pages.
  
• Creating custom digital brushes to reproduce hair details like braids, or into any repeated textures that reappears frequently in the art.
  
• Rescaling parts of the art that doesn’t work instead of starting over.
  
• Digital formatting tools
  
• Visual references/Poser
  

I’m going to focus on two specific positive aspects of AI. Generating ideas/brainstorming and generating first drafts. There are a lot of different AI systems at the moment focusing on writing and art. These benefits apply to all of them

Let’s talk about Generating Ideas/Brainstorming. This is actually an area I like to think I’m good at. Was something when I first started making comics, I kind of trained to look at all the options a story could go, then work on picking what seemed the most interesting.

I sat down with Chat GPT and Bard AI and played around with making a story with them. One of the most successful results I got out of it was asking it “What possibilities could happen next?”

Asking it for one direct answer made it freak out. But using it as a sounding board to generate a lot of possible options resulted in it looking at what was already on the page and taking many guesses at potential outcomes. It was a nice way to get creative juices going. Not to say one of those suggestions had to be the answer, but that they spark a path to the answer.

This brainstorming can also be used in visual media. One option that seems the most interesting to me would be using a script to have the AI generate different page panel layouts. I tend to like a grid, but it could help me break out. But I also know I change the script and the number of panels when I sit down to draw.

Architect and designer Dami Lee did a similar experiment with using AI for help in looking for designing a new logo. Using AI to generate ideas and help her focus on what she really wanted. She is very well spoken and makes some great videos, and I’ll include that here.

https://youtu.be/CsIfKB3bb-4

Making drafts is another key aspect to AI. But it can only do those with a lot of information. It needs clear direct specific information to accomplish what is being asked. Even then it can get like 75% percent of the way there. Back to the story I played with on GPT and Bard. I wrote an outline and told it to write a story based on the outline I provided. The more detailed an outline I wrote the closer it could get to what I wanted.

But I’m not famous. Chat GPT doesn’t know me. It doesn’t know how I write or how my characters sound when they talk. It doesn’t know that really witty thing I’m going to make Lexi say when she finally gets up the nerve to kiss Stephanie. Or that it is now a fun thing to tease since I know people want it. It’s the new K-pop. Also K-pop isn’t off the table. I have a path to get there that is still very much at play. AI could never write this paragraph.

But all the weird stuff we want to say like my diversion is never things AI could do. Those are also the things that make something unique. But sometimes a structure or a skeleton of a story can be basic and common. There is an outline. A writer could save some time with generating a first draft, then going back in and changing it to fit them, and fit the emotions they are going for.

It could result in very cringey stories. Or a writer could take this as the bones and keep adding and adding and fleshing it out until they get something personal and not resembling the AI draft at all. Ultimately it’s a tool and it’s about what the user wields it.

There has been a lot of this on the visual side of things. Artists using AI to generate art then bring it into photoshop to adjust and fix and alter until it is the thing that they want. On the visual side it can still be that first draft.

Adobe has a version of this with Firefly. One of the features was AI taking a script and making storyboards. It’s not a stretch to see an artist train the AI on their own artwork and have it generate pages for them to art from. I think with the demands on time and the format of the art, I could see this first showing up in Manga, if it hasn’t already.

Shazam director David Sandberg had a video about communication and pre-production. The way he talks about using every tool at his disposal I think really shows that something like AI generated storyboards wouldn’t be putting artists out of a job, and more that it is one more tool out of many already existing tools that someone can use to communicate.

https://youtu.be/IP-Vaqq91dA

But I’m going to leave it here for now. Basically on my stance that AI doesn’t have to be evil. It’s scary right now and people can do lazy hack stuff with it. Artists write or draw or create because they want to make things and share their ideas. Ultimately it is a tool that will help creators make new things, and not take away the creative experience.

There are a million different directions to go with discussion of AI. Such as 

• How does this affect the writers strike?
  
• How will young new creators interact with AI?
  
• How much AI have we been using for the last decade? Why won’t we call those tools AI?
  
• Accusations of fanfiction authors using AI?
  
• Why a lot of editing AI is going to suck for a while.
  

If there are specific things you're curious about, let’s discuss in the comments.