Tag Archives: AI Art

October 17, 2025 · 6:29 am

DC Comics Says They’ll NEVER Support Generative AI (And Why I Don’t Believe Them)

If you’re at all invested in comic books, then you probably know the name Jim Lee. Other than names like Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Frank Miller, he is one of the most recognized names in the entire industry. He’s not just President of DC Comics. His artwork and style have defined multiple generations of comics for Marvel and DC alike. So, when he says something, his words carry a lot of weight.

But when he stated outright at New York Comic Con 2025 that DC Comics will never support generative AI, I just can’t believe that in its totality. That’s not because I think Mr. Lee is being dishonest. I suspect he means every word he says with 100 percent sincerity. But like so many statements regarding technological trends, it’s likely his statement will not age well.

There’s no question that generative AI is not viewed favorably in many fields. And in an artistically driven industry like comics, that animosity is understandable. There have already been documented controversies about AI art generators creating images with copyrighted material. There are also major legal implications with AI art. At the moment, it cannot be copyrighted like traditional art. And for any industry that relies heavily in intellectual property, such as comics, that’s a big issue.

But with respect to the comic book industry, it’s far more vulnerable to the impact of generative AI than nearly any other industry. Capable AI art generators have only been publicly available for three years, as of this writing. In that time, the capabilities of these tools has improved considerably.

Yes, this progress has come with plenty of controversy. Many of these improvements came largely from AI models using copyrighted work without permission. But it’s too late to undo this progress. And there’s no turning the clock back with technology like this.

Even if the United States and Europe passed strict laws yesterday about what generative AI can do with respect to copyrighted works, it’s impossible to enforce it in the long run. There are also too many countries in the world who don’t care for foreign copyright laws and are happy to provide black market alternatives.

For Jim Lee and DC Comics, it’s easy to make this promise now. Current AI art generators are still not capable of matching the quality of skilled artists. And even with continuing progress, these programs won’t match and exceed that quality in the near future.

But that won’t always be the case. At some point in the future, generative AI will be capable of producing artwork at a quality that’s equal to or greater than someone like Jim Lee. On top of that, it will be able to produce that artwork at greater volumes and at a fraction of the cost. And that’s the primary reason why I think Mr. Lee’s commitment will eventually falter.

As accomplished and sincere as he is, Jim Lee won’t be President of DC Comics forever. DC Comics is also just a subsidiary of a larger media corporation, namely Warner Bros. If at some point Warner decides that Mr. Lee’s stance on generative AI is detrimental to their profits, there’s nothing preventing them from changing that policy.

And I believe that will happen eventually. It may not happen for many years. It may not happen until Jim Lee is retired and out of the comic book industry completely. But it will happen as soon as generative AI is good enough and cheap enough to provide DC Comics with content. There’s even a chance that DC or some other publisher will adopt this practice beforehand and without informing consumers.

That would be grossly dishonest and deeply scandalous. But if AI is at a point where even the most discerning comic book fans can’t tell the difference between AI and human artists, then Warner and other companies like Disney have every incentive to embrace it. Integrity makes for great headlines and good PR, but it rarely wins out over greater profits and lower costs.

As a lifelong comic book fan, I have mixed feelings about this. I don’t doubt that generative AI will continue to be controversial. The current sentiment among most fans is that generative AI is slop. Any company that uses it will likely be scolded, shamed, and boycotted. But like those who resisted getting a smartphone years ago, the technology will improve regardless of how we feel about it.

Nobody knows where the comics industry will be in five years. Nobody knows what the state of AI will be in that same timeframe. For now, Jim Lee’s stance on generative AI is understandable and laudable. But it won’t last. It can’t last if AI continues to improve. And when it happens, the world of comics will never be the same.

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October 2, 2025 · 7:01 am

The First (But Not Last) AI Actress Is A Thing

Have you heard of Tilly Norwood? She’s a beautiful young actress who is just starting to make her presence felt in Hollywood. She hasn’t been in much, but she’s already negotiating with talent agents to get bigger roles.

There’s just one major issue. Tilly Norwood isn’t a real person. She’s an entirely AI-generated persona.

Naturally, that doesn’t sit well with real life actors and unions. There is already a concerted effort to prevent Tilly Norwood from being cast in anything beyond your typical AI slop content. I completely understand this sentiment. I don’t blame anyone who works in Hollywood for being concerned about this. However, having covered the rise in AI for years, I’m comfortable making this prediction.

Tilly Norwood will eventually be cast in major movies and TV shows.

Other AI actors like her will be cast, as well.

Traditional actors and actresses will hate it. A sizable chunk of the audience will hate it as well. But this is going to happen. It was always going to happen the moment generative AI reached a certain level of refinement. A big reason for that involves money, as tends to be the case in Hollywood and most other industries. But there’s another reason that’s worth highlighting.

Dollar for dollar, movies and TV shows are getting more expensive to produce. This isn’t just due to inflation, unions, and the “personalities” that tend to comes with Hollywood. The logistics involved with making media has become bloated and inefficient. We’re no longer in an era in which media can only go through certain channels, be it TV and movie theaters. Thanks to streaming media, as well as online content like YouTube and Tiktok, the competition for eyeballs has never been greater.

Unless you’re a big budget blockbuster with a massive distribution network, such as Disney or Warner Bros., it’s harder to make content that turns a profit. The scale, resources, and personnel required to produce a movie or show is such that it’s limiting. Add to that the general enshitification of streaming media and the current model for producing content just isn’t sustainable.

Generative AI, as much as it is derided, offers a significant cost advantage. On top of that, an AI actor or actress is less likely to get accused of harassment, arrested for public intoxication, or go on some anti-sematic rant during a routine traffic stop. And for certain Hollywood agents, you can’t put a price on that kind of assurance.

But the question remains. Will audiences accept AI actors? Will the content they produce actually be worth watching?

A lot of people will probably refuse to watch anything with Tilly Norwood or anything like her out of principle. But what happens when AI gets to a point where it’s hard to tell if a person is AI generated? There are already AI tools like SORA and Veo3 that make extremely realistic videos of people who look and sound real. This is one element of AI that is not in the distant future. It’s here and it’s evolving fast.

It’s not yet clear what kind of career Tilly Norwood will have. She may never show up in anything mainstream. But like it or not, she marks the first step in a new trend with AI. We don’t know where it will lead. Hollywood is already undergoing significant change. Technology like this is only going to accelerate that change in ways we can’t imagine.

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April 29, 2025 · 5:37 am

Why People (Wrongly) Claim AI Art Is “Soulless”

This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.

There have been many concerns and criticisms regarding artificial intelligence. One area that has been impacted more than most involves art.

Generative AI has caused serious disruptions to the world of art. And in 2025, this became a much larger controversy with “Ghiblification” trend that began with Open AI. This has led to more vocal criticisms about AI art being “soulless” in nature.

However, that criticism is worth scrutinizing. And in this video, I attempt to offer what I feel is a more balanced perspective on this issue. Enjoy!

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August 9, 2024 · 6:43 am

My Experience (And Plans) Using AI Writing Tools

Since I started this website, I wanted it to act as a hub for my writing, particularly my novels and my sexy short stories. I still want this site to serve that purpose. I see from the regular traffic this site gets that my sexy short stories do have an audience. And I’d like to continue providing that audience with new content, even if my efforts to write larger novels have stalled.

Now, if you’ve been following me over the years, you might have realized I haven’t been putting out as much writing as I used to. For that, I apologize. I promise, there are reasons for that, some of which are personal and prefer not to share. Others simply amount to lacking time and energy.

And once I started my YouTube channel, Jack’s World, my time and energy became even more divided. My channel has actually grown faster than expected, having eclipsed 1,000 subscribers in late 2023. And the videos I make for my YouTube channel generate considerably greater traffic than most of the content I put on this website. As such, expect me to continue giving my YouTube channel priority.

However, I still want to make time for writing sexy short stories. I don’t want to completely abandon that audience. It has just been incredibly difficult to make time to write those stories. And making that time has become even more difficult with each passing month, it seems.

Then, I discovered some new AI tools that could possibly help with that. And after spending the past month experimenting with them, I’d like to share my experience. I’d also like to present a disclaimer of sorts so that those who look forward to my sexy short stories aren’t caught completely off-guard.

Now, if you’ve been following me for any length of time, you probably know I have a keen interest in artificial intelligence and its many implications. Recently, that interest became a lot more real with the mainstreaming of major AI tools like ChatGPT. Like many others, I’ve experimented with ChatGPT and many other tools. It’s been quite an experience. But for the most part, I haven’t really found a use for them beyond simple novelty.

That changed when I discovered some AI tools that specialize in helping people write. These tools aren’t just spelling and grammar checkers like Grammarly. They actually “read” what you wrote and attempt to complete the next few sentences using a model similar to those like ChatGPT. The main difference is that this AI is calibrated to help with writing.

It may sound like a fancier version of autocorrect. I promise you it’s much more than that. I know because in using it, I found it to be surprisingly helpful. It didn’t just supplement my usual writing. It felt like having a personal assistant who understood what I was trying to do and offering unlimited suggestions or ideas whenever I asked.

The AI tool I used in this case was called NovelAI. It’s actually not the best or most well-known AI of its kind. I picked it largely because it was one of the first tools I discovered and it was relatively cheap to experiment with. I only paid for one month of premium use.

But within that month, I actually managed to write more short stories than I had in the previous 10 months. On top of that, I did those over the course of the holidays, a good chunk of which I was both busy and very sick. So, I probably could’ve written a lot more. But overall, I was impressed by what NovelAI allowed me to do.

In terms of actually using it, this actually took some adjusting. This AI program, and others like it, aren’t some magical computer programs in which you could just write a few sentences and have it write 5,000 words with ease to complete it. That’s not how they work. You, the writer, still have to get things going. You still have to establish the characters, setting, and tone.

For me, that usually meant writing three to six paragraphs to get the story started. That part rarely took more than a half-hour. But once I got that setup in place, the AI really helped accelerate the rest. From there, just pushing a button got the AI to spit out several sentences. Sometimes, they were good. Sometimes, they were not. Sometimes, it was complete gibberish.

But that’s actually not a bad thing. Because, like most programs, the more you use it, the better you get at maximizing its strengths. On top of that, the AI gets better at recognizing and adapting to your style. NovelAI even has various settings you can adjust to get different kinds of output. It took a few days of experimenting to get a feel for it. But once I did, I got into a great rhythm.

I managed to churn out multiple short stories in a fraction of the time it usually took me. Even with the complications of the holidays and being sick, I managed to craft over two dozen short stories. I’ll be sharing some of them in the coming weeks and months. I’ll be sure to disclose in the beginning that an AI helped me write them. But I’ll be very interested in seeing the response I get.

If the response is negative, then I’ll certainly take that into consideration with how I plan future short stories. But if it’s positive, then I’ll continue experimenting with other writing AI programs. As good as NovelAI was, it’s not the most well-known or well-regarded writing AI. Later this year, once I assess the impact of the stories I’ve written, I’ll try using another and see if that works better.

I’m also aware that there are those out there who don’t like anything made by AI on principle. Some of my friends and relatives have those views. To them, as well as anyone else who shares that sentiment, I only ask that you keep an open mind. The AI I used did not write these stories for me. I wrote large chunks of it. It just helped me fill in the details in way that saved me time and energy. It supplemented my creative efforts. It did not usurp them.

And if, in the end, the result is still a good, enjoyable story, then I think that made this experience worthwhile. It’s an experience I think many others will explore as AI becomes more advanced and more mainstream. In time, maybe I’ll use it to help me write another novel. Whether or not it ends up being good remains to be seen.

For now, only time will tell. I have plenty of more stories I’d like to tell and if AI helps me get them out there, then I genuinely think that’s a good thing.

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June 7, 2024 · 5:44 am

Revealing Attitudes Towards AI Art (When People Don’t Know It’s AI Art)

When I was a kid, there was a general attitude towards any movie or TV show that was animated. Unless it was “The Simpsons,” then animation was largely associated with kids. Even when there was a concerted effort to appeal to older demographics, animation was still seen as less mature form of storytelling. Even when it was exceptionally well done, this stigma persisted.

Eventually, animation and animated content, in general, matured to a point where the stigma really doesn’t work anymore. Cartoons aren’t just for kids. We now have shows like “Bojack Horseman” and “Rick and Morty” that have helped change the popular perception of animation. On top of that, the added influence of Japanese anime, from “Dragonball Z” to “Ghost In The Shell,” have helped attitudes about animated content evolve even more.

This shift all happened within my lifetime. It’s a simple recognition that attitudes, perceptions, and trends are always changing. And they’re going to continue to change, regardless of how we might feel about certain issues now.

This brings me to AI generated art. It’s a topic that, depending on where you discuss it, can generate a lot of debate, disagreement, and consternation. I’ve been in more than one discussion with someone who claims AI generated art can only ever be a bad thing in the long run because it enables trolls, assholes, grifters, and bad actors.

I’ve also been in similar discussions with those who claim AI art isn’t even art. It’s, according to them, nothing more than a fancy calculator that crunches numbers on where to place certain pixels on a screen. While I think that’s a gross oversimplification, I don’t think it takes away from the end result. Whether it’s produced by a human or a computer, the end result is still the same. An artistic rendering is created. But regardless of what form it takes, we have certain attitudes about it.

As I write this, I think the prevailing sentiments toward AI art are negative. Show someone an AI generated image and they might concede that it looks nice. But they’ll still have an aversion to it, knowing it’s created by AI. And if you how them a human-generated piece of art, even if it doesn’t look nice, that same person will still ascribe more value to it than they would an AI generated image. That’s just where we are right now.

But in a recent study by Scientific Reports, an interesting insight was uncovered. When the researchers conducted a survey that included approximately 200 people, they found that when people weren’t aware that an image was AI generated, then their attitudes about it were more positive. In many cases, they could not discern between the artwork generated by humans and those generated by AI. But as soon as they were aware that something came from an AI, their sentiments changed.

It’s probably not too surprising, but it’s also revealing. It speaks to where we currently are in our perspectives on anything created by an AI. It still has this synthetic, uncanny valley feel to it. We still inherently ascribe more value to something that is created by a human over that of a machine. And while that is certainly understandable, given that human generated art requires more labor and passion, how much will that value persist in the coming years?

That’s not an unreasonable question because the quality of AI art has changed considerably in the past few years. And it’s likely to continue improving in ways we’re not ready for. Not too long ago, it was somewhat easy to discern when something was created by an AI. The issues it had with rendering hands and fingers are well-document. However, those issues have been addressed and improved considerably, especially with newer models.

As such, you don’t need to be a wide-eyed utopian futurist to predict that AI art generators will improve to a point where it’s genuinely difficult to tell if it was created by a human. This study already showed how close we are. The participants weren’t able to surmise on a surface level that they were dealing with a mix of AI and human-generated art. With improved tools, even the most discerning and tech savvy among us might not be able to figure it out.

At that point, our attitudes towards AI art will have to change. Think what you want about AI and whether it’s capable of creating real art, let alone appreciate what goes into it. But if it’s capable of making something we can’t discern from its human-made counterparts, then those negative sentiments we have are entirely arbitrary, as well as subjective.

And those same attitudes might not be shared by younger people who have grown up in an environment surrounded by the internet, AI, and AI generated content. They might not have any issue with seeing AI generated art as real art. And anyone who just despises AI art as a concept might find themselves in the same group as those who still think all cartoons are just for kids.

It’s hard to know where these trends will lead as AI technology advances. It’s already affecting how we see art, knowledge, and what it means to be intelligent. And how we feel today might not be at all in line with how future generations will feel in the decades to come. Only time will tell.

I’ll simply note that humans, in general, are a visual species. We seek to create, admire, and cherish art, regardless of the source. For that reason, I think there will certainly be a place for any kind of art, whether it comes from a human or an AI.

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April 30, 2024 · 5:21 am

How AI Art Could Upend/Destroy The Comic Book Industry

This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.

This video covers some recent news surrounding accusations about major comic publishers utilizing AI art and the larger implications that this new technology will have on the industry. Artificial Intelligence promises to impact a lot of industries, but the comic industry is uniquely vulnerable. And it’s definitely worth confronting as the technology continues to improve.

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February 25, 2024 · 8:01 am

My Thoughts, Opinions, And (Mixed) Feelings About AI Art

This is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World.

This video explores my thoughts, feelings, and overall sentiments surrounding AI art. You might have noticed that some of my more recent videos have been incorporating more AI art lately. I do so with the understanding there is a fair amount of controversy and concern surrounding this technology. I do my best to address that while offering what I hope is a balanced perspective on AI art and the use of generative AI. Enjoy!

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January 23, 2024 · 5:29 am

An AI Version Of George Carlin Just Released A Comedy Special (And That’s Disturbing)

There are certain celebrities and pop culture icons that we tend to appreciate more after they’ve passed away. Like everyone else, they too must face death at some point in their illustrious lives. And when they do, all the work they did becomes inherently more precious because it is now finite. There can be nothing new added to their body of work. It’s as set as the strongest bedrock. It might be upsetting to many fans, but it’s just a fact of life.

Then, artificial intelligence comes along and suddenly, there’s a crack in that bedrock.

Even as someone who has closely followed and written about artificial intelligence for years, I did not see this coming. And it took a form I never would’ve expected.

Recently, a couple of comedians utilizing an unspecified AI created an hour-long comedy special featuring the late, great George Carlin. That “special,” and I use that term loosely, is currently on YouTube right now. For reasons that I hope are understandable, I’m not going to link to it. Just know that, as of me writing this, it has racked up over 427,000 views and 11,000 likes.

Now, in general, I support the development of artificial intelligence. I still genuinely believe it is the most important technological advancement we could develop as a species. But this particular manifestation of its use has me both concerned and distressed.

For one, George Carlin is my favorite comedian. I would go so far as to call him the single greatest comedian of all time. And that’s an opinion many share. Ask most people who the best comedian of all time is and George Carlin is usually in the top five alongside the likes of Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, Rodney Dangerfield, Sam Kinison, and Robin Williams.

To me, George Carlin is the best and there’s no close second. He’s one of those comedians who didn’t just find success over the course of multiple decades. You can still go back and watch his specials from the 1970s and his material is still relevant. His jokes, his style, and his brilliant insights are still on point, as well as hilarious.

George Carlin really was a one-of-a-kind artist, comedian, and philosopher. And when he passed away in 2008, his death hit a lot harder than most. But his legacy has only strengthened in that time as more people discover or re-discover his comedy. But this AI version of him is sure to complicate that legacy and for all the wrong reasons.

For one, this “special” was done without permission, review, or compensation to George Carlin’s family. His daughter, Kelly Carlin, has gone on record as stating that she did not authorize this, let alone receive compensation for it. This was not an instance of a celebrity willingly licensing their voice or likeness to a company, as James Earl Jones did with Disney in 2022. This was done without any consideration whatsoever for how Carlin’s family might react to this or what it might do to his legacy.

As for the special itself, I do admit I have listened to it. And I can confirm that it sounds nothing like George Carlin. The voice sounds like a terrible impersonation of George that someone half-drunk would try to do on a five-dollar bar bet. I promise nobody is ever going to mistake the voice in this “special” for George Carlin. I don’t know if that’s by design or just a limit of the current technology.

But with regards to the actual substance, this is where it gets even more distressing. Because in many instances, there are jokes and comments that actually sounds like something Carlin would say. Yes, they lack his distinct delivery, tone, and mannerisms. But many of his comments on politics, pop culture, people, and society really do feel like they might come up in a real special.

That said, there are also instances where it says things Carlin probably wouldn’t say. There’s nothing too egregious. He never says anything that sounds so out-of-character that it’s jarring. But it’s also clear that the content was edited. There are distinct breaks in the audio that indicate someone edited this to sound more refined. That leads me to believe that, whatever AI was used to make this definitely conjured some content that would’ve been too obviously out-of-character.

I’ll even go so far as to say that there are some parts of the special that are funny. It still doesn’t resonate as well as one of Carlin’s classic comedy specials. But there are jokes in this special that probably will make some people laugh. It’s not entirely clear if those jokes were purely the product of the AI or if those behind it tweaked the language. But the humor is there.

Be that as it may, just listening to a small part of this special feels off. Beyond just sounding painfully synthetic, it establishes a precedent that the estates of other dead celebrities would be wise to consider. Because George Carlin isn’t the only one with a long catalog of comedy, writings, interviews, and movie credits.

Who’s to say that an AI like this won’t do the same for Robin Williams or Richard Pryor? It wouldn’t even be restricted to comedians, either. The works of musicians like John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, Michael Jackson, and Elvis Prestly could also be used to create entirely new songs that might sound eerily similar to something they might have created.

If that happens, what does it do to their legacy? What happens if an AI creates something in the mold of a dead celebrity that says or does something outrageous, offensive, or detrimental? What would it do to their legacy? What would it do to their still-living families?

I honestly can’t imagine how someone like Kelly Carlin must feel hearing a poor imitation of her dead father. But I can easily imagine other celebrity heirs or estates willingly licensing their dead relatives to make extra money somehow.

It could mean we’ll be seeing more strange, distressing content like this in the coming years. And as AI technology continues to improve, it will likely get to a point where it’s so capable that it’s almost too believable. I don’t claim to know what kind of world that might create or lead to. I just know that “specials” like this won’t stop with George Carlin.

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January 12, 2024 · 6:33 am

SAG-AFTRA’s Deal For AI And Video Game Voice Actors: Why It Matters (And Why It’s Concerning)

One of the biggest stories in 2023 was the SAG-AFTRA strike, which also coincided with the WGA strike. It was one of the most impactful and extensive labor disputes in recent history. Some would even argue it was the most important strike to ever occur in the entertainment industry. I’m certainly inclined to agree with that. That’s part of why I felt compelled to mention it.

The strike by both unions had many issues of concern, but one of the biggest had to do with artificial intelligence and emerging technology like generative AI. Both writers and actors alike were concerned that studios would start using AI to effectively replace them or use their past works to create derivatives without any compensation.

It was a very legitimate concern. I’m of the opinion it was the single most pressing issue for everyone involved in the entertainment industry. Artificial intelligence is no longer just the domain of sci-fi stories. Even the limitations of existing tools are capable of producing music, art, literature, and various other forms of content. Future tools promise to be even more effective.

Eventually, in the not-so-distant future, AI tools might get to a point where they can produce content at or near the quality of any human. They don’t even need to achieve human-level intelligence. They just need the right amount of refinement, investment, and engineering.

But even with this pressing issue, both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA largely won their dispute. They were able to get a contract that included provisions protecting them from future encroachments by AI. That is certainly an important, worthwhile consideration. It helps ensure that those working in the entertainment industry can continue to make a living.

However, less than a few months after the strike ended, there are already new encroachments. And they’re happening with the full support and sanction of SAG-AFTRA. According to multiple reports, the union reached a deal with a company called Replica Studios to allow actors to license their voices to be replicated by artificial intelligence for video games.

Naturally, this has caused some concern and consternation, especially among voice actors who do a great deal of work in gaming. On the surface, it seems like an about-face. This seems like a manifestation of what they were protesting against during the strike, letting studios use AI to replicate iconic voices or figures in certain productions.

However, I don’t think it would be accurate to say this is a complete reversal. For one, SAG-AFTRA makes it clear that the intention of the deal is to ensure that those whose voices are licensed and utilized by AI receive appropriate compensation. This way, studios can’t just use a bunch of recordings of a famous voice and stick them in a game without paying the appropriate people. That is perfectly reasonable.

At the same time, there’s no denying that this will undermine current and future voice actors working within the gaming industry. The process for voice acting in most modern games can be extensive and expensive. A high-profile game like Grand Theft Auto V cost over $250 million to develop, unadjusted for inflation, and that game involved a lot of voiceover work.

Developing video games has only become more expensive over time, much more so than movies, TV shows, or music. Some are already estimating that the development of Grand Theft Auto VI could exceed $2 billion when all is said and done. No matter how you feel about video games or their development, that is not sustainable.

In that context, it makes sense to allow the use of AI tools to help cut down on that cost, especially as games and computing power increases. And it will certainly benefit those who have iconic, established voices in the video game industry.

But for those who aren’t in the industry yet or just aren’t well-known, this could be the first step in rendering voice acting in video games an unviable career path. It could become to acting what switchboard operators were to telephones.

I don’t doubt for a second that those in SAG-AFTRA are aware of this. They have to know on some levels that AI technology will continue to advance. They can’t fight it. They can’t stop it. They can’t prevent it from becoming more and more capable with each passing year.

And unlike video or artwork, mimicking voices is a more mature technology. It’s something that doesn’t really need much refinement to replace the work of a human voice actor. If they didn’t make this deal, then it just would’ve been harder to work around with each passing year.

Even if this deal is ultimately beneficial to actors and voice actors, it should still be a concern. It sets an early precedent for how unions, studios, and actors are attempting to accommodate advances in AI with their profession. While this primarily impacts the gaming industry, it is bound to affect others eventually.

There will come a point where AI is capable of replicating the imagery, mannerisms, and presence of any living actor. There will also come a point where AI is capable of producing animated content that’s difficult to distinguish from the kind that’s traditionally produced. What happens to the industry and those who work within it at that point? Would this deal that SAG-AFTRA did for gaming work? Or will it only delay further disruptions?

I don’t claim to know the answer. But if you’re involved in the entertainment industry in any way, this warrants serious attention. The existing AI tools we have now are plenty disruptive. They’re only going to get better with time, investment, and better engineering. The incentives are strong and at this point, there’s no putting the AI genie back in the bottle.

This technology isn’t just going to affect our lives. It’s going to affect how we make a living. If we don’t find a way to coexist with it, then that will only cause greater problems down the line. And it will impact far more than video game development.

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June 27, 2023 · 5:21 am

Here’s What Happened When I Asked An AI To Write A Love Poem

There has been a lot said about the emerging state of artificial intelligence. I’ve certainly contributed my share. I imagine a lot more is going to be said in the coming months and years.

Ever since ChatGPT demonstrated the power and potential of this technology, it has garnered a great deal of interest among the public. It’s also generated plenty of concerns. Some are minor, like whether this technology would eliminate too many jobs. Some are major, like whether this will lead to the development of a powerful artificial intelligence that we can’t control.

There are legitimate concerns. Some are much more pressing than others. I’m certainly not qualified to explain all the nuances, let alone make recommendations or decisions on this issue. I’ll leave that to people much smarter and more capable than me.

But for now, these tools are here. We can use them in any number of ways. Some are already using them for objectively dangerous purposes. That’s always going to be an issue with every new technology, including AI. But the less dangerous, less dire uses will always be more common. And they’ll rarely make the news.

In that spirit, I’d like to share what happened when I played around a bit with Bing’s new AI program. I didn’t do anything too elaborate or ambitious. I understand this is new technology. It’s going to be limited for a good long while in the early stages. But it’s still quite capable of doing wonderful things.

To that end, I asked Bing to write a love poem. My exact prompt was actually “Write me a beautiful love poem.” This is what the AI created.

Here’s the first poem:

You are the light of my life
The reason for my smile
The warmth in my heart
The spark in my soul

You are the melody of my song
The rhythm of my dance
The harmony in my voice
The tune in my ear

You are the color of my world
The beauty in my eyes
The splendor in my sight
The rainbow in my sky

You are the love of my life
The partner of my dreams
The companion of my journey
The mate of my soul

Here’s another.

When I see your face
I feel a surge of grace
When I hear your voice
I have no other choice

But to love you with all my might
To hold you close and tight
To cherish you day and night
To make you happy and bright

You are my everything
My reason for living
My source of joy and peace
My treasure and my bliss

You are my one and only
My forever and my always
My soulmate and my lover
My friend and my partner

Here’s one more.

You are the star of my night
The moon of my tide
The sun of my day
The sky of my way

You are the fire of my passion
The flame of my desire
The heat of my emotion
The light of my devotion

You are the breath of my life
The beat of my heart
The pulse of my blood
The soul of my love

Are these poems the greatest love poems ever written? Probably not.

Do these poems still qualify as love poems? I would argue they do.

If you didn’t know I had asked a chatbot to write these, would you think a real person wrote them?

Given the current state of this technology, I’m impressed. There’s certainly room for improvement. But let’s remind ourselves that this wasn’t akin to asking a calculator to factor a couple of large numbers. I asked this chatbot to do something creative. And it did so in just few seconds.

This is what AI is capable of now.

Just imagine what it’ll be capable of in the coming years.

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