I was getting some FB spam ads about this marketing tool originally named “Jarvis” that’s supposed to use AI to write blog posts and ad copy and market leads and everything and all which I ignored because it was full of testimonials from what I am assured were real people saying things like “It took me three months to write 3000 words and with Jarvis is took three days” which made me laugh because if you know your business or your product or your own friggin’ point of view, three thousand words should take you three hours and that’s with some light editing and a break for lunch. Who is this for? Non-writers with no budget for copywriter, I guess. And then I started getting the same adbots but the AI word generator was suddenly renamed “Jasper” because anybody with a meat brain and not a silicon one would know that you aren’t getting away with an AI thing called “Jarvis” as long as Disney owns Marvel, right? So they had to have a name change, because even the squares know Jarvis is Tony Stark’s onboard computer and Disney jealously defends its marks. You’re basically in the same space; it’s no Kryptonite bike locks or “Charlie Sheen” so there will be confusion in the marketplace, no kidding.
This somehow reminded me of my old pal Andy Grossberg and how he vainly tried to cosplay Kevin Bacon at the end of ANIMAL HOUSE by yelling to everyone to remain calm and NFTs weren’t going to take over fine art; it was useful to somebody which is great but real people don’t care if they ever will because real people are wondering how that supply chain thing is working so they can get their Old Bay seasoned Goldfish crackers and not trying to understand what a blockchain is or what anybody gives tens of thousands of craps that your jpeg file says 55471 instead of 55007 like the one Daniel Craig just bought. This kind of nonsense has been going on forever.
So now the big boogeyman all my comics boys are afraid of is the Midjourney and DALL•E and knockoff apps like Dream that somehow, magically, allows you to type in words and generates digital art in the subject and manner you intend. All man artists are crying like Art is over and it just isn’t. In the world of people who actually care about art, of course you know about photo collages and mood boards and dang, even Photoshop even if it’s only CS2 because it has all the bells and whistles you need and Adobe’s subscription thing is just theft and where was I? Oh, right. The doom and gloom that artists and designers and copywriters and everybody will be replaced REPLACED I SAY by machines that can know what you mean when you type “sunset” and give you exactly what you need for that print quality book cover or above the fold newspaper rendition of Justin Trudeau in the style of John Byrne’s ALPHA FLIGHT or whatever. Just magically kick that out and you don’t have to pay anybody because the Screen Rant interns are writing thousand word columns whose headlines ask DOES SHE-HULK RETCON THE FIRST AVENGER and the answer is “no” but they keep writing because that’s what their boss told them so why not generate their own stuff for that nonsense the kids click while they’re at it.
Technology replaces what it can. Lift more weight, drive faster, fly. But nobody watches NASCAR to see the cars go around prettily; they watching to see if some driver dies. Every song on the radio would be a midi version of THE A-TEAM theme song, and every actress would look like 1990 Mira Sorvino. It’s just not going to happen, because AI doesn’t have emotion. Or, more finely put, it can’t GENERATE emotion.
And I love how somewhere in the multiverse, there’s a conversation, probably a late night in a lab, where Steve and Bruce are talking wistfully about Nat and Bruce won’t leave it alone and Steve just got exasperated and told him the whole story. Names and dates and how Irene was one of Peggy’s best friends and it was weirdly complicated they were friends at all, her being in the USO passing through and Peggy being Royal Army attached to the SSR, but Irene convinced Steve he should know what he’s doing when he DOES get with his best girl and it was very sweet under the circumstances and fifteen movies flash past his eyes and it’s been a fine life anyhow and all Bruce remembers is it was some USO dancer in 1943.
Feel that? That’s the sense of rightness a human behind the keyboard can convey an intern or AI never will. Go to sleep tonight sleeping the sleep of the just because this worry you have will never happen.