Colin Kaepernick, a former NFL quarterback who mysteriously was pushed from the league after changing into a civil rights activist, has raised $4 million to launch a brand new publishing enterprise referred to as Lumi that goals to “democratize storytelling by offering creators with the instruments to independently create, publish, and merchandise their tales.”
Sounds nice, proper? However learn the subsequent sentence.
“Lumi leverages superior AI expertise to boost the artistic course of and guarantee numerous and genuine tales form our future.”
Uh oh.
Kaepernick was at San Diego Comedian-Con, wandering round Artist’s Alley and showing at networking occasions, evidently to speak concerning the enterprise. If he introduced up the time period “AI” in these encounters, he certainly would have needed to scramble out of the pocket, as a result of indignant comics creators are coming to sack him.
Information of Lumi has been floating round for some time, and Kaepernick tweeted about it on July twenty fourth. However it wasn’t till one other comics information web site put the phrases “ai” and “$4 million” in the identical headline yesterday that comics creators rose up as one and identified that opening up storytelling by stealing from human creators democratizes nobody however tech bros.
In keeping with a press launch, Lumi “empowers creators by offering them with the instruments wanted to independently create, publish, and merchandise their tales each digitally and bodily.”
Lumi’s mission is to democratize storytelling by offering instruments for creators to show their concepts into completed merchandise, in addition to distributing and merchandising these tales – reworking any creator into Disney. By leveraging superior AI instruments, Lumi enhances the artistic course of, permitting creators to deal with bringing their tales to life, whereas the platform handles all the logistics. Creators have had a major affect on AI, and they need to be a main beneficiary of its use.
Creators at present face important challenges, together with exploitation and lack of independence. Lumi addresses these points by offering an end-to-end answer for storytelling, resulting in extra monetary stability, artistic management, and possession of their work. Moreover, as AI continues to evolve, it’s important to make sure that the ensuing content material displays numerous and genuine views. By empowering creators to authentically create their tales, Lumi helps guarantee a extra equitable future for AI.
Though buried on the finish of the PR, the taking part in discipline for this transfer is comics: “The corporate plans to focus vitality on comedian guide and graphic-novel creators first, a market with the necessity for a number of artistic ability units.”
Earlier, Kaepernick tweeted:
My new firm #Lumi is empowering anybody to be a storyteller, no matter their ability set. Lumi lets you create, publish, and monetize your tales multi functional platform.
How can we try this? By creating entry to:
Finish to finish story creation
Easy AI instruments
Bodily and digital publishing
Constructed-in merchandising
The perfect half is CREATORS OWN ALL OF THEIR WORK!
It’s all the pieces a creator must construct and scale their tales, with having to depend on private connections into Hollywood or having to bankroll a full group.
That is how we degree the taking part in discipline. That is how we create entry and alternative for the world to inform their tales.
Lumi is about to show each storyteller into their very own private Disney.
Join now to start out creating ↓
Kaepernick has turn out to be a hero to many for calling out racism in sports activities and elsewhere. I’d prefer to suppose that he was searching for one thing to do (he launched a publishing firm a number of years in the past) and obtained caught up in AI fever as a result of it’s nonetheless straightforward cash, and hasn’t actually thought this by way of. As a result of that is some rip-off degree stuff. We’re all already empowered to inform tales “no matter our ability set” and everyone knows some individuals are simply higher at telling tales than others. Bringing in AI – which scrapes content material created by precise people and is already being confirmed the second coming of Pets.com – to assist the hapless attempt to attract like Daniel Warren Johnson is only a rip-off.
A Fb publish by Khary Randolph means that Kaepernick has been informed a number of occasions that AI is just not the way in which:
To be clear, I used to be one in every of various artists that had conferences with Colin a couple of months in the past. He informed me broadly what his AI platform was about. He talked about that it was about eradicating “gatekeepers” and the way he wished to profit folks from underserved walks of life. I informed him that whereas I used to be a fan of his, I couldn’t assist this as a result of these “gatekeepers” had been folks like me who had put our blood, sweat and tears into our craft. Arduous work, a pencil, and paper is all you must make comics. I let him that his product was going to harm us longterm.
So if anybody is asking whether or not Colin Kaepernick is conscious of the misgivings artists have with AI, please consider that he has been made conscious. And I do know for a incontrovertible fact that I’m not the one one who did so.
However there’s one other joker on this deck. Lumi’s fundraising was led by the enterprise capital agency Seven Seven Six, which was based in 2020 by Alexis Ohanian, who has dabbled in comics many occasions earlier than. Most lately, he helped elevate $9 million for Zestworld, which flamed out after not doing a lot of something however placing out a couple of digital comics. In keeping with the Lumi pr, Ohanian has “been a staunch advocate for tech-forward storytelling,” if by staunch you imply losing $9 million on a failed enterprise. However he does preserve coming again for extra, and that’s completely staunch.
As somebody who retains common tabs on Web Comics Discourse, I can report that the anger at Kaepernick’s embrace of AI was common amongst comics creators. It’s uncommon to see such a unity of opinion. I can’t even quote all of them, so a couple of examples, taken from Twitter and the replies to Randolph’s publish.
Liana Kangis: Kaepernick leaping fields actually making an attempt to demolish no matter artistic jobs are left on this trade. Sorry dude however time and time once more, we obtained into this trade for the craft, not the money- and we’ll show that our story telling is healthier than AI’s each. single. Time.
Mark Brooks: Colin Kaepernick has raised $4 million to fund AI comics. He might have used that cash to fund dozens of comics by extremely expert POC creators to point out he stands behind his phrases with actions. As a substitute he’s going to actively steal from them. Unhappy.
J.H. Williams: Disgusting. As somebody who skilled being marginalized himself, I’d’ve thought he’d know higher. I’m now anticipating these traders will lose all the cash they put in…
Ben Templesmith: I’ll have simply left some reasonably irate feedback on Colin Kaepernick‘s twitter account after discovering what he thinks of working comedian professionals. Apparently we’re filth. Gatekeepers & worthy of nothing however being stolen from. This joke doesn’t respect the medium. No thanks.
Cheryl Lynn Eaton: If you happen to suppose that black artists are going to assist AI robbing them of not solely profession alternatives but additionally the work they’ve already produced simply since you’ve thrown up a black figurehead–one who has NOTHING to do with comics, thoughts you–you might be CRAZY! (extra in hyperlink)
Scott Morse:Simply days in the past I watched him stroll by and I informed pals at my sales space, “He’s a superb dude—I’ve obtained pals which have labored with him.”
I can solely think about that somebody fed him some data missing in ethics.
Nonetheless, pals: don’t. AI ain’t the identical as drawing with ink and a brush.
Daniel Kibblesmith: I’m respectfully asking everybody to get out of comics in the event that they don’t benefit from the bodily act of creating comics. I’m not out right here making an attempt to interchange the NFL with Madden simulations.
Alice Mechi Li: That is so disappointing. For $4 million, Kaepernick might have began his personal comics studio and paid 40 artists $100k to work for a yr — means greater than many artists ever make. He might have employed struggling marginalized creators and empowered them to inform the tales they by no means had the time or funds to inform.
As a substitute he’s placing $4 million into the arms of tech bros to steal artwork from from hardworking creators and put them out of labor. Critically upsetting.
Ray Anthony Peak: There are some which can be fast to erase what he did within the racial equality area on account of this transfer. As a Black man, I’m not doing that. HOWEVER, as a working artist and know you and others defined the state of affairs to him but he nonetheless insisted on transferring ahead with AI as a substitute of EMPLOYING y’all!?! My respect for him is vastly diminished and each endeavor he takes from right here on can be thought of suspect.
And on and on and on. Lumi and AI storytelling are an enormous flop with the comics neighborhood.
In fact, there can be skill-deprived hopefuls who give this a shot. UGC (Consumer generated content material) is big today. However up to now this simply appears like one other tech-driven mess that may additional enshitify the pages.
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