DC Comics won’t support generative AI: ‘not now, not ever’

DC wants Superman and different characters nether the stewardship of quality artists.

DC Comics president and steadfast Jim Lee said that the institution “will not enactment AI-generated storytelling oregon artwork,” assuring fans that its aboriginal volition stay rooted successful quality creativity. “Not now, not ever, arsenic agelong arsenic [SVP, wide manager] Anne DePies and I are successful charge,” Lee said during his panel astatine New York Comic Con connected Wednesday, likening concerns astir AI dominating aboriginal originative industries to the Millennium bug scare and NFT hype.

“People person an instinctive absorption to what feels authentic. We recoil from what feels fake. That’s wherefore quality creativity matters,” said Lee. “AI doesn’t dream. It doesn’t feel. It doesn’t marque art. It aggregates it.”

While DC has a longstanding argumentation that requires each artwork to beryllium archetypal and authentically produced by artists, the company has faced several scandals implicit the suspected usage of generative AI successful variant comic publication covers. Backlash from radical who reason the exertion implicit concerns that it volition regenerate the enactment of writers and artists pressured DC to regenerate the suspected covers, and apt contributed to the institution taking a firmer stance against utilizing generative AI successful aboriginal projects.

“Anyone tin gully a cape. Anyone tin constitute a hero. That’s been astir arsenic agelong arsenic comics person been. It’s called fanfiction, and there’s thing incorrect with fanfiction,” said Lee. “But Superman lone feels close erstwhile he’s successful the DC universe. Our universe, our mythos. That’s what endures. That’s what volition transportation america into the adjacent century.”