[SkyBelow]

>The tricky part is that the ongoing training of ever-more-interesting generative AI depends on the ongoing labor of artists.

I think there is an ongoing issue. Much like how the privatization of the public domain has led to an ongoing issue of a large percent of our culture being privately owned. I'm not sure the fix to this.

I am by no means happy with the current situation, but I do find the moral reasoning behind the outrage at AI questionable at best as it doesn't seem to be consistent and instead based on what is economically beneficial to those showing outrage. By that same standard, AI is great because it lets me create things at a much cheaper cost.

Artist creating art of popular characters and AI using publicly posted art both seem pretty acceptable to me. Then again I'm the weirdo who goes to conventions to buy originals, the ones actually painted on canvas and not just easily reproducible prints, even though that does mean paying far more than the prints cost.

[cdata]

We are booking our tickets to Comic-Con. We tap through the form, maneuvering past the cumbersome AI-generated takeover promoting a new prestige TV show. The AIs are getting pretty good, and seem to have moved beyond the glassy-eyed doll faces characteristic of the Stable Diffusion era. Nevertheless, the ads are obnoxious and we can't wait to submit the form and get off of this website.

A memory rises unbidden: we once made comics and posted them to the web, free for all to read. We would even browse the web just to find and read them. Wild.

We find ourselves circuiting the convention hall. It is a brightly lit maze, festooned with endless AI-generated promotions for Marvel supers and yesteryear reboots. The cast of Friends is back, youthful as ever, and apparently we're getting at least three more seasons. We round a corner and..

Here. Yes, here. We remember it now. This whole row was once filled with tables showcasing prints and original works of art. Behind the tables: a spouse, a friend, or the artist in the flesh. Artists, who were remarkable in their day for their contributions to the great pop culture that drew us to the convention. Artists who, despite their labor and their infamy among certain fandoms, never appeared in a legible place on the credit roll. Artists who worked a day job for years, stocking shelves, packing boxes, approving Disney licensee merchandise, so that in the evening they might bend their weary backs, put pen to tablet and spill their imaginations across the screen. Artists who did all that so that we could come to Comic-Con today and appropriate for ourselves an original work of their art.

Where once there were artists, now there is Hello Kitty. Sanrio has taken over the whole row. You can walk up to Hello Kitty and ask it for any combination of officially licensed characters, with optional accessories if you have a few more dollars to spend. A 3D printer somewhere behind the booth's facade fabricates the bespoke toy on-demand in food-safe ABS. An original work of art.