INTRODUCTION
The origins of this interview came from reading the various members of the creative arts community reacting to AI music, and posting images of AI created art. I found the news of AI art (all of the formats and fields) to be relatively unsurprising, but nonetheless interesting. A really great artist I won't name here, was in a chat with me, at a comic convention afterglow, said how computer aided art was a big thing on the horizon. I said, I am not saying it will be better, but AI image art would allow writers to create with its assistance, in ways that over turn the things some artists have said to me, that writers are unnecessary to great story telling artists. And as he was an artist and writer, he didn't take offense, as he knew none was intended, that comic creatives who are writer/artists often have a symmetry in their work that two collaborative artists do not. So, in a decade, we agreed, comics could be highly changed in the creation of them, and resulting works.
Originally I was going to have as many artists as writers and all forms of storytellers in between. But of the 10 artists I asked, 3 became irate for reasons I don't know, and the others ignored my requests or said no without saying why. So, I tested the waters talking with David Hine, who is a highly talented writer and artist, who seemed genuinely curious and interested in AI, without any agenda. Alan Dean Foster has shared his composed music compositions, and his other new creations via AI, and I am a fan of his work, so was curious his opinions. Shortly after I briefly chatted Erik Larsen and it occurred to me that, since he has given great interviews, as a publisher, writer and artist, he'd probably add deeply to this piece. When he said yes I was thrilled.
All images and quotes are copyright their respective owners/creators. ©
DAVID HINE:
Contact him via Facebook
(Drawn from a chat)
Alex Ness: I like almost all the AI I've encountered, but understand why artists seem worried.
DH: The following image is one of a series I made by prompting the Wonder image generator.
AN: I like these. I think they looks parts Ladron and Moebius and Corben. All artists I dig. I've heard from artists that they believe the deviant art site utilized a.i. to harvest art there, and they are angry. But, I suspect, magazines and comics and prints and paintings from great artists form the backbone of most of it. Although, I am sure it would feel bad to think your work was harvested. Fortunately for me, all I do is write shitty poetry. Should A.I. copy that people will say A.I. Poetry sucks.
DH: I use a mass of prompts so there are so many sources that nothing is close to any existing image. Plagiarism isn’t an issue. I see it as similar to the way all artists put together elements of everything they’ve seen. You can see Kirby in almost every superhero artist but they aren’t necessarily tracing or even copying. An AI image is going to be put together from thousands of images. I have yet to see an image that would meet the criteria for an accusation of actual plagiarism. With all the millions of images being created there should be lots of examples. The problem is that in a few years these image generators will be able to make more or less any image you want. There’s a real possibility of artists being completely replaced and the same goes for writers. The world is changing fast and it’s kind of scary but also exciting.
The concepts of ‘work’ and ‘art’ will need to be redefined along with our role and relationships with machine intelligence.
AN: Of course, most every comic book has identifiable roots. It is only in the outer fringes that we see works without roots in comics.
DH: Yeah, it’s whether the art produced by machines can ever have human warmth or creativity. I suspect they will, or at least a convincing imitation of humanity. I don’t think there’s much limit to what machines or artificial intelligence will be able to do. We are close to that point where human intelligence will be left behind. We just have to figure out what the point of our existence is when we aren’t the ‘superior’ species any more.
AN: As a historian I've been asked what is the greatest development of humans. I didn't say nuclear energy, or AI, I said reaching the moon. They asked me why, one was more practical, and I said, nuclear power allowed humans to do more destruction than ever before, and by developing it as we did, our wisdom and morals are still far behind it, so we might never have the wisdom to properly use it. Whereas space might allow humans to escape all we've done and try again.
DH: Ha! Well I hope we don’t have to give up and abandon Mother Earth. I do despair of humanity sometimes but only as a species. Individuals are mostly pretty decent.
AN: I wonder if we have a creative industry with people who make/create art, of their own, should Art created by Artificial Intelligence be avoided, or, like any other tool in a creator's toolbox, is it simply one way to create? Of course, we recognize artists and respect their art.
DH: It has to be the choice of every individual to use or not use
Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) There is an argument that it is more than
tool because it can run in ways that would completely replace the
artist, including using AI to produce prompts. I can see a world where
machines create billions of amazing pieces of art that, in the end, no
one even bothers to look at. Right now I'm fascinated by the weird kinds
of surreal art that it is producing. Some of the imagery is boring and
repetitive but I am still excited by what I am seeing. Some of it is
quite unique. I don't see any commercial use for what I am doing. Others
will use it commercially and that will be problematic. I don't like to
see people deliberately trying to imitate artists' styles to make
comics, but that's true of manually produced art too. If someone is
deliberately trying to plagiarize an artist, I have no interest in what
they make. I am endlessly curious about new kinds of imagery. There's a
kind of mechanical surrealism that is looking at the 'subconscious' of
the artificial mind in the same way that the original surrealism drew
from the human subconscious.
AN: Can A.I. created art and eventually writing ever replace human words
and art? How far into the future do you think it will be before an all
A.I. comic book could happen?
DH: There are lots of A.I. comics already. They are still very limited
in consistency and the ability to tell a story, choose a camera angle,
etc… And they are still plagued by six-finger hands and all the other
problems that machines have with recognizing how the human form works,
but I'm sure those problems will disappear soon. Whether machines will
actually replace writing and art by humans is impossible to answer. If
you want to write or draw you will always be able to do that. The
question is, will you be able to find the audience? Will you be able to
make a living? Those are the same questions we already have to answer.
Most writer and artists don't have a large audience or make any money.
They never have. The ones who make the most money and have an audience
of millions aren't the best or the most deserving.
But what do those
terms even mean? I hate some art that millions of other people love.
There are incredibly talented and hard-working writers that will only
appeal to a few thousand people. In the end you create primarily for
yourself and if you are in it for fame or money then you will suffer the
same end as creative people always have. The very few will become a
household name and for the vast majority, no one will ever know or care
that they exist. A few in between will be able to make a decent living
or top up their income from their day jobs. Franz Kafka worked for an
insurance company and wrote for himself. Apart from a few pieces that
were published to a tiny audience in his lifetime. It's an accident that his work
was published and became known to the world after his death.
AN: Why do we worry about what we do, if we acknowledge that art and
words are written and art is made into art, for a world where nothing is
new? The Bible and Joseph Campbell suggest that we recreate, not so
much create, and there is nothing new under the sun. (However, while we
might recreate, Joseph Campbell did say, if you want to change the
world, you have to change the metaphor)...
DH: I disagree. Everything is new. There's a sliding scale of
originality. Everything is a product of what has gone before, but
everything also has something new that comes from the personal
experiences of the creator. The degree of originality varies wildly.
There certainly are creators who seem to be totally unique but that
probably only means that their sources are lesser known, or their lives
and experiences have been more unusual than most.
AN: New and unique art and writing will be made, and of it will be made
by machines. Then why do we dislike or show bias towards the creator of
that work?
DH: I try not to.
As an afterthought, I think the real issues are about the nature of work
in the future. I like to think that in the future we will be given
everything we need in the way of food, shelter, clothing, entertainment, health, education, etc… (Something along the lines of the Universal Basic Income) as a basic right without working.”. The boring
jobs will be done by machines and the jobs that still require humans
will be done on a voluntary basis. Most of us will spend most of our
time on the things we now enjoy as hobbies. And if we want to produce
art then nothing will stop us from doing that. It just won''t be
work-related. Sounds like utopia to me.
ERIK LARSEN:
Contact him via his website:
(Interviewed Via Email)
AN: AI art has led to numerous artist on social media writing that AI is unethical, more than one publishers to post notices (game publisher Chaosium for one), to post new requirements for works submitted must be submitted with a promise that the art be a human created artwork. Ultimately, will that do anything meaningful?
EL: I doubt it. People will find a way around it--even if it's making small incremental changes so they can claim authorship. And at a certain point--how is anybody going to be able to tell what's AI and what isn't? Artists are drawing on their computers now and using 3-D models on everything from space ships and cars to entire cities. Artists have been using whatever tools are at their disposal for years. Wally Wood was pasting up photos of cars 50 years ago.
AN: Do you think AI is so dangerous that it will replace human art, or will it be a tool for talentless boobs like me to illustrate his work with a computer program, that is, a toolbox and nothing that will be mistaken for personally created art?
EL: I think AI is inevitable--and it's only going to get better. As much as we think creators will take a stance and the audience will reject AI art--we all know that's bullshit. A few people will make a stink but the vast audience won't know the difference and if it means more art by Frank Frazetta, Jack Kirby and George Pérez--who's going to put up a fuss?
Now, it's not going to replace EVERYBODY--there will always be talented artists who find employment, but if a beloved artist is a deadline nightmare or an editor wants a cover by that artist but they can't get them to do it--well, now that’s no longer an issue. If they want a Sienkiewicz cover but can’t afford Bill-- AI Bill will do in a pinch. I expect lazy artists will incorporate AI into their own work if they haven’t already. Once artists are actively using AI to aid them--is AI by non-artists such a huge ethical leap? And this is especially the case with artists who are working digitally. They’re already dragging in photographs they didn’t take to trace off and using 3-D programs they did create to draw backgrounds--AI doesn’t seem like a huge leap to me. But the assertion that it’s the death of art is nonsense. It may be the death of some artists, for sure, but talented individuals will always have an audience.
AN: I've read some ardent artists accusations that AI art was only possible by websites like Deviant art and pixabay or any site that has such a wide spread of style and art that to computers could utilize the art to analyze styles and works to consume, digest and recreate. Do you think that is where you'd find the genesis of such a concept as Artificial Intelligent created art, or music or writing?
EL: Oh, I’m sure they’re fed everything on the Internet. We’ll all posting things everywhere. There is no shortage of material for them to learn from. We’re feeding the machine every day. And it doesn’t need to be on any one site. Image searches provide hundreds of pictures.
AN: I think art like writing and music, all have roots in the past, and very little is truly new. So, why should anyone worry where AI art will take the world?
EL: I don’t like the argument that there’s nothing original in the world and everything is a remix. It excuses those unscrupulous individuals who deliberately steal from others. We should all be striving for originality even if we can’t help but be influenced by the world we live in. That having been said, I think comics, novels, movies and TV shows created entirely by AI is inevitable. At the same time, there will always be artists who create things by hand who will thrive. I’m not worried about me. AI won’t be replacing me on my books. But if I were a struggling artist without much of a name--it would be a cause for concern.
ALAN DEAN FOSTER
Contact him via his website.
(Via Email)
AN: I've heard artists of visual art and music say that they feel as though they've been plagiarised by Artificial Intelligence music and art programs. If we accept that art has a creator, would it be accurate to say that Artificial Intelligence can create? If it cannot, would that not mean it draws entirely upon the creative abilities of the human creative artists?
ADF: At this point the art produced by AI programs such as DALL-E, Midjourney, Imagen, and Surface(?) Diffusion rely on vast libraries of human-produced art, morphed and transformed via the specific algorithims of each piece of software. There won’t be any true AI-generated art until a program produces such art without a prompt. The same goes for music. AI-generated music is even less original than the art, because the source material is much more limited.
AN: I use public domain art to illustrate my work, isn't that on the level of a person using A.I. Art or Music programs, that is, not to replace the work of human artist, but to use it as a tool in my creative toolbox?
ADF: No, I think using public domain art is on a level down from using AI-generated art, because the pd art is a finished product from the time you use it, whereas the AI art requires some human input, resulting in changes to the original art (try it…it’s fun!).
AN: What would you say is the fear that creative artists have, if they know their work is superior from the beginning, is it that people would use the free or easier to acquire inferior product? I write crappy poetry, if AI modelled its poems after my work, people would say AI poems suck. Isn't AI unlikely to ever achieve greater works than a human artist?
ADF: Money trumps everything. Trained artists know their work is superior (and usually is). But if a publisher can obtain a “new” book cover for fifteen cents (cost of 4 DALL-E generations) vs. paying an artist, and doesn’t think the public will care, which do you think they will use? We’ll be seeing the same for music, especially in advertising.
AN: When you use AI art or music, what are you using it for, to create something, to illustrate or add to a creative work you've already created? Do you think it adds value to your work, and if so, does it come at the expense of a human creative artist?
ADF: I don’t use AI music. I write entirely by myself, working as would any composer. As to the art, that’s becoming really interesting. I’ve generated several illustrations to the book I’m working on now (OVER THERE). When I’m satisfied with the final art, I’ll incorporate some of it into the book. Example: I’ll describe a palace. DALL-E will generate multiple iterations based on my description. I will then describe the finished work in the manuscript so that it accords, as closely as possible, with the art. It’s a collaborative process. Here is the palace at C’haglean. My initial description interpreted by the AI. Took ten minutes. Imagine trying to hire/pay a commercial artist to do that. And I own the art.
AN: If you were told an opera or symphony, painting exhibit or some other form of art was created solely by AI, what would you think, what could you learn, or what would you expect to be the ultimate result of viewing, listening, experiencing?
ADF: I would respond to it as I would to any work of art, music, etc. If it’s good, I’m delighted to enjoy it. I welcome our new robot artisans :).
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