With Artificial Intelligence (AI) now seemingly all around us, we can no longer believe what we see!
WHAT’S HAPPENING?
AI is a subject I’ve hesitated to write about, but I can wait no longer! It has invaded my own life, so I need to speak about it!
There’s no doubt that computers have changed our lives, and some would argue that they have not improved our lives. We now have computers in our phones, our homes, our cars, and everywhere else possible!
At first, computers were described as “labor saving devices,” there to make our lives easier and more manageable. However, what started with great intentions seems to have gone the opposite way.
Computers were going to take away the things we didn’t want to do, like manual labor tasks, and free us up to have more time and energy to do the more creative, entertaining things. Sadly, it has turned out that the reverse is true—computers have largely taken over the creative aspects of our lives, leaving us to spend much of our time handling the more humdrum, mundane parts of our lives.
A good example of this had to do with newsletters and newspapers. I can use one of the papers I work on as a good example. I used to design and put together ads as well as the entire paper. Recently, I noticed that I was receiving mostly ads that were already assembled, and that they seemed strikingly similar when it came to design and layout.
The next time I spoke with the paper’s owner, she told me that she had started using AI that, once she entered the information, could generate an ad in seconds, much cheaper than “any other way,” which I took to mean me doing it.
Now, I first encountered this situation back when I was attending a software conference. To show us what the package could do, the presenter took four separate pictures of the audience, which filled up a large room. He entered those photos into the software, and it combined them all into one big photograph. I turned to one of the co-workers there with me and remarked, “We can never trust our own eyes ever again.”
I’ve looked around online, and I see this happening in many organizations. The ads look very similar, mostly with very busy backgrounds, no white space to rest the eyes, and ablaze with a great many colors that, to the uneducated eye, look “fun” and appealing, I’m told.
So, the number of hours I work have seriously been reduced while AI moves more of the process back on the owner, who has to input the information and send me the ads so I can park them on the pages.
I took note of the variety of organizations obviously using AI, and they vary from local governments to local businesses to even some national organizations.
It may not be long before all those previously created endeavors will no longer be touched by human designers, but will be popped out of a computer program.
It intrigues me because I also proofread a national education journal, and one of the hottest topics currently being discussed is the influence of AI in the classroom. Many teachers have started to do away with “homework” in favor of assignments actually being done in person in the classroom so the teacher can observe that the student is truly doing the work being turned in. The lure of a computer choosing and putting together an assignment seems to be just too alluring to students who feel it is “the wave of the future.”
AI AND COMICS
What I consider the saddest thing of all is that there are now comic books being written, drawn, colored, and lettered by AI. “We have to keep up with the technology,” one creator told me. “If we don’t, the cost will overwhelm us and make it impossible to afford to make comics.”
Much like the ads and student assignments we’re facing, it’s often very easy to tell what has been generated by the computer. It just doesn’t have the depth and style creators use to make their books.
Granted, AI can “learn” how certain creators think and do things. If AI gets enough examples of what any specific writer creates, it can almost mimic just what that person would do. However, there are ways to discover just who made these stories or artwork. Maybe someone thinks they have saved time and effort by turning creative endeavors over to the computer, but what will happen if or when you no longer have contact with the Internet or certain pieces of software. What will you do then? Actually have to buckle down and really do it yourself? You might truly create something fans will love more! How amazing!
MOVING FORWARD
I am gratified to see more and more publishers actually publicly stating that AI has no part in their creative processes. After all, I don’t pay to buy comics that some PC or Mac popped out of its printer. I want real stories, real art that will affect me as a human being, not what some AI thinks I can be fooled into liking.
Do I think there is a place for AI? Yes, if we as fans and consumers obviously know that the books we are reading or the graphics we are looking at came from AI, then we can judge it as such. I am all for computers competing with other computers, just as much as I prefer human creativity judged against other human creativity.
Interestingly enough, software packages are being developed that can clearly identify what other computers have produced. I hope that this programming will be generally distributed and added to computers in the future so that we can KNOW what it is we are looking at, either AI or human creation.
As far as my personal situation, I have seen this coming for some time. The owner of the paper, when I told her that the day was coming when she would just tell the computer to generate the new issue instead of having creators involved, she welcomed it, looking forward to that as being faster and easier.
Still, I have always been offered work in proofreading and editing behind the scenes, which is where I prefer to be. I have always said that editors are like Batman—we prefer the shadows. I knew one editor who felt her name should be first in the list of credits, above writers and artists. I told her that if that was what she wanted, she was going to be seriously disappointed in the years ahead.
I never worry about having enough to do—I have had to turn down a lot of work because I simply couldn’t do it all. Maybe I will just shift what I’m working on from local papers to more comics-centric jobs. We’ll see.
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