AI - The Cannibal's Ball

If you're an aspiring creator and are considering using AI: don't.

Just. Don't.

Large language models and image generators are cannibals. They devour the hard-written words of our best authors (and worst shit-posters) and wash them down with works of art toiled over by master and journeymen artists alike. They digest these human creations, parsing them into strings of numbers and unintelligible code before crapping out some soulless turd studded with kernels of someone else's hard work. Ask yourself: Is that really something I'd use to represent me? A turd I didn't even make?

Embarrassingly, that's a question I had to ask myself a few years ago, once I learned how such "generative" AI models work. When I first started out, I used the Dream app to generate some images for a business card and my old portfolio website. Think about how incredibly stupid that was: the business card I was giving to professionals in the comics industry and the portfolio of sample scripts I had written both included artwork shat from a bot. No one wants an invitation to the Cannibal's Ball. Thank the gods only a few of the cards were circulated (and the free QR code on the back leading to the website expired). Fortunately, I realized my mistake early, and learned from it. I've since hired a great graphic designer to make a new logo for my business card and shuttered the old site. My current card and website pics are the work of actual people that I paid to do actual work. And they're things I'm proud to have represent me.

AI is ubiquitous, I know, but that doesn't make it OK to surrender to it. In the past few months, AI has taken over all our apps. When I log into gmail, it gives me an AI summary of my conversation threads (I hate this feature so much! If anyone knows how to turn it off, drop a comment below). When I go on a dating app, there's a little AI hype man who wants to turn my rizz up to 11. As I type this on Wix, there's an AI icon, offering to help me with my blog post. I politely tell it to fuck off and keep typing. See. That was easy.

AI will not improve your work. You improve your work by doing the work. You improve your work by fucking up and figuring out how to fix it. You improve your work by interacting with other creatives -- writers, artists, letterers, colorists who have improved their own work by (you guessed it) doing the work. Your worst work is better than anything AI "creates," because you created it and that experience taught you something. AI is not creative. It approximates creativity, like a sex doll approximates love -- poorly.

Not to mention -- and this is a big one -- using AI takes food out of the mouths of fellow creators. There are plenty of artists and writers and graphic designers out there, willing and able to make something unique, just for you. All you gotta do is look. Local cons are good places. So are Instagram, Discord and other social media apps where you can search for and follow other creators (Imagine a feed full of great comic art instead of the daily awful). I hear you saying, "But Doug, hiring a ______ costs money!" You're right. It does. Save up what you can, find someone who will work with you on price, be flexible with your timeline (the first issue of Miskatonic Monthly took two years to produce because: budget). One day, hiring you will cost someone else money.

And that's the goal, isn't it?

Investing in other creators is investing in your future. Support your fellow creatives. Fuck AI.