https://www.404media.co/comic-con-bans-ai-art-after-artist-pushback/
According to Ortiz, the convention is a sacred place she didn’t want to see desecrated by AI. “Comic-Con is the big mecca for comic artists, illustrators, and writers,” she said. “I organize and speak with a lot of different artists on the generative AI issue. It’s something that impacts us and impacts our lives. A lot of us have decided: ‘No, we’re not going to sit by the sidelines.’”
Oritz explained that generative AI was already impacting the livelihood of working artists. She said that, in the past, artists could sustain themselves on long projects for companies that included storyboarding and design. “Suddenly the duration of projects are cut,” she said. “They got generative AI to generate a bunch of references, a bunch of boards. ‘We already did the initial ideation, so just paint this. Paint what generative AI has generated for us.’”
Ortiz pointed to two high profile examples: Marvel using AI to make the title sequence for Secret Invasion and Coca-Cola using AI to make Christmas commercials. “You have this encroaching exploitative technology impacting almost every single level of the entertainment industry, whether you’re a writer, or a voice actor, or a musician, a painter, a concept artist, an illustrator. It doesn’t matter…and then to have Comic-Con, that place that’s supposed to be a gathering and a celebration of said creatives and their work, suddenly put on a pedestal the exploitative technology that only functions because of its training on our works? It’s upsetting beyond belief.”
“What is Comic-Con trying to tell the industry?” She said, “It’s telling artists: ‘Hey you, you’re exploitable and you’re replaceable.’”
From Futurism:
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/comic-con-ai-art
In an interview with 404, Karla Ortiz, an artist who’s worked with major studios that attend Comic Con, called the decision a “relief.”
“Generative AI is still going to creep its nasty way in some way or another,” she said, “but at least it’s not something we have to take lying down. It’s something we can actively speak out against.”
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The decision isn’t the only sign of resistance to AI in the world of comics and fandoms. President of DC Comics Jim Lee vowed to uphold human creativity and not support AI: “Not now, not ever,” Lee said last October. In August, another fandom convention, GalaxyCon, instituted a “sweeping AI art ban,” with its president saying it would “fight against unethical AI companies.” The following month, a vendor accused of selling AI art at Dragon Con was shown out by cops after organizers, with onlookers’ approval, demanded that the vendor leave.
Now, Comic Con’s reversal on the issue represents one of the biggest and most consequential shifts in the comic and fandom worlds, and seems to be part of a much greater turning tide sweeping across the entertainment landscape. Last week, musicians rejoiced when Bandcamp, a major music distribution platform favored by indie artists, also instituted an AI ban, prohibiting any songs that generated “wholly or in substantial part by AI.”
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