Marvel Comics Exec Editor Says No Point Fighting AI In Creative Fields: “The Software Is Undeniably Dangerous, It’s Also Pretty Fun To Use”
In offering a particularly eye-raising take on his industry’s current hot button issue, Marvel Comics Executive Tom Brevoort says that rather than continuing to try and fight the crashing tide that is AI generation software, creatives of all stripes should instead accept the technology’s existence and instead focus on making sure the new status quo is “proper and fair and equitable” to those involved.
Brevoort, who also serves as the current X-Men line editor, offered his thoughts on the controversial topic in the opening to the latest of his weekly Man With A Hat Substack blog:
“There’s obviously been a lot of concern about the impact that A.I. programs are going to have on the creative arts, and how such programs remix and repurpose the works of other artists without credit or recompense. And these are all very sound arguments and matters that are going to need to be worked out.
“By that same token, the history of human innovation proves pretty conclusively that once something is discovered, all efforts to halt its further use are likely to be in vain. Technology changes the world, whether we want it to or not. So it falls to us to make sure those changes are proper and fair and equitable.”
From there, Brevoort then revealed that rather than just an errant thought, he was prompted (no pun intended) to share his thoughts after “messing around with Google’s Gemini AI program for a little bit this past week”.
“And with it, I generated a couple of things that I’m going to share with you here. Irresponsible? Probably. But for all that the software is undeniably dangerous, it’s also pretty fun to use.”
As subsequently presented by Brevoort, his AI generated requests included “a movie poster graphic” for his blog – “I have no idea who Rex Fury or Max Midnight are, but both of them have excellent names. And the system wasn’t smart enough not to list my first name twice, a relatively basic error. Still, this is kind of a cool image.” and a matching “logo” to accompany it – “I have to say, this is actually pretty good. I’m not going to use it for anything, I’m just sharing it for fun here. But that isn’t bad. Such is the seductive allure of AI.”
While coming from anyone else this opinion would be nothing to write home about, especially given that how it’s in line with most people’s feelings on he matter, what makes Brevoort’s stance on the creative world’s upcoming AI status quo particularly eye-brow raising is the fact that rather than going to the mat for Marvel Comics’ wide roster of talent and openly doing what he could to help establish some amount of internal guidelines and protections against the technology, he has instead essentially thrown up his hands and given in to the ‘If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” mindset.
And given both the public’s general misunderstanding of AI as well as corporate America’s hunger to replace any and all humans with robots in order to save a dime – Well, let’s just say that it’s hard to imagine Brevoort’s indifference coming across to said Marvel talent as anything but a threat to what little job security they have.
