A Not-So-Royal Rumble
YouTuber Shadiversity (Shad Brooks), comic book publisher, and nunchaku skeptic has ignited a conflagration on Nerd-Twitter with as documents his ongoing infatuation with producing AI-generated art.
Is Creating AI Art a Skill?
Shad has documented and openly discussed his enthusiasm for AI-generated art, on Twitter and YouTube. Shad employs a hybrid process - that he labels "AI-assisted art" prompting the AI with a base sketch, generating an image, and iteratively improving or refining the image, and then feeding those corrections back into the AI image creator. Brooks claims that his process is skill and effort-based and an artform in itself. Critics, and artists Regan Lodge and George Alexopoulos argue that AI is cheating, and detracts from the work that traditional artists create. In the exchange pictured below Regan asserts "You typed a bunch of words anyone could copy paste to effortlessly get comparable results."
Heat from Comicsgate
Comicsgate personality, veteran comic book artist(Cyberfrog,Flash, Green Lantern), and provocateur Ethan Van Sciver - weighed in with the observation comparing Brooks to Icarus "What people object to is the arrogance of applying the term "artist" to yourself."
Cheater-Cheater-Pumpkin Eater?
George Alexopoulous, well known for his scathing socio-political cartoons likens Brooks to a racer in a self-driving car. Is AI-generated art a passive process, or a substantial work of skill and effort as viewed by Brooks?
The Power of Controversy:
I do not have a strong opinion about AI-generated art, other than it should be identified as such. Intuitively I currently suspect that the rise of AI-Generated media will create increased demand for traditional creative works. My observation is that the discussion and debates brought to the forefront of the nerd-verse by Shad Brooks, are generating an incredible amount of attention and discussion. In some sense all of the participants win, and the audience gets treated to a "bare-knuckle" nerd fight. Society in general will be having this debate over many domains, it is remarkable that ground zero for wide scale discussion is occurring in the domain of comic book fans and artists. For context the posts by Shad Brooks on Twitter generate more views and interaction - than some of the most inflammatory discussions about the ongoing conflict in Gaza. Astounding! Shad Brooks should certainly be recognized for his ability to command attention in Nerd-Twitter.
To follow the artists and creatives mentioned:
George Alexopoulous
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GPrime85
Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/studionj/?etsrc=sdt
Shad Brooks (Shadiversity)
Twitter: https://twitter.com/shadmbrooks
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@shadiversity
Regan Lodge:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ReaganLodge
Website: https://reaganlodge.neocities.org/
Ethan Van Sciver (All Caps Comics):
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CyberfrogHD
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ComicArtistProSecrets