John Horsley10:23:38
Yeah, I would restart.
Uh, where is my Epic time?
kenric10:23:44
Delete.
Delete that one.
Quick time.
Okay.
John Horsley10:23:56
Do I have the option to record this thing? Where the hell's it at?
kenric10:24:02
It even says this meeting is being transcribed.
John Horsley10:24:04
Yeah, I turned on note taking.
kenric10:24:08
So, do we need to do the whole…
John Horsley10:24:10
No, we don't have to.
Alright, recording in Zoom. Are you recording on, on, uh, local?
kenric10:24:16
Yeah, so we're just doing local recording, we don't have to do the memo notes, right? Right.
John Horsley10:24:19
Yeah, yeah, no memo, nope.
kenric10:24:21
All right.
John Horsley10:24:21
All right. Ready? Three, two, one.
kenric10:24:26
Oh, I gotta start over. No, I'm recording. Never mind.
John Horsley10:24:29
Oh, I I push. I I push. Stop. So you have to stop, too.
kenric10:24:31
Oh, shit, okay. Let me…
Sorry.
John Horsley10:24:36
Can't go anywhere with you.
kenric10:24:38
I know.
Why don't you buy a new mic and cry about it?
John Horsley10:24:43
No, I'll buy into making your cry about it.
kenric10:24:45
All right.
John Horsley10:24:49
All right, three, two, one.
Now do do the fucking intro.
kenric10:24:54
All right.
Two, two. There it is. There it is.
John Horsley10:24:57
And…
And do it… no. Do it… do it right, goddammit!
kenric10:25:04
Hey! We're… What?
John Horsley10:25:05
When you stopped doing the intro, I got so annoyed.
When you stopped doing the intro, when it went to, like, the calmness, I was like, this is… go back to the right stuff.
kenric10:25:16
I had people complain, like, it's too much!
John Horsley10:25:19
Fuck them!
I like it. Do it. And go.
kenric10:25:22
All right, welcome back to Spoiler Country. I'm Kinnick Ring, and that is Mr. Horsley, and today on the show…
Well, it's…
We're going to talk a little bit of AI, aren't we?
John Horsley10:25:36
AI, computer stuff, yeah, yeah.
kenric10:25:39
Yeah, be a little geeky on this one. I was perusing the old social media.
And, um…
I don't know. I'm not going to say anybody's name, even though I actually agree with him in a lot of ways. I don't think I wholeheartedly agree.
Um, with what he's saying.
John Horsley10:25:57
I agree. I agree to an extent. Yeah.
kenric10:25:59
Yeah. Um, what did he… I want to say exactly what he said.
And then we can talk about it.
John Horsley10:26:05
He'll know, and he'll know, he'll know exactly who it is, too.
kenric10:26:08
Yeah, and that's fine. I mean, it's, it's, like…
John Horsley10:26:09
So I'm pretty sure he listens to this show every now and then.
kenric10:26:13
Yeah. Uh…
I can…
John Horsley10:26:19
I have it right here. I can read it to you.
kenric10:26:20
Where is it?
John Horsley10:26:21
I have it.
kenric10:26:21
Oh, yeah, you go ahead and read it.
John Horsley10:26:23
It says, if you used AI art for promotion, use it for writing. Stop lying.
kenric10:26:30
Right. And I can see…
I can 100% understand what he's saying, and to a large degree, I agree.
John Horsley10:26:37
Yeah.
kenric10:26:42
And I think… but I think it's in context of…
John Horsley10:26:42
Yeah.
kenric10:26:46
If you're using AI for promotion, and still passing it off.
as you… not saying that you're using AI for their stuff, then, yeah, you're gonna… you're using it for everything.
John Horsley10:26:59
Well, it depends on what…
kenric10:26:59
And saying that you're not.
John Horsley10:27:01
it depends on what you define AI for promotion as, right? If you're using AI as promotion to create your promotional graphics, to create all your promotional write-ups and everything.
kenric10:27:09
Yeah.
That's what I'm thinking of.
John Horsley10:27:13
Then more than likely, but, you know, if you're using AI to…
Help you with layouts on your, on your promotional stuff, because let's be honest, not everybody is good at making a.
eye-catching promotional graphic, or know somebody who can do it, and so they get ideas from… now, if you're just making it do it, not making… and not learning from it.
I don't like that. I'm fine people using AI to learn. I'm not fine people using AI for art like I don't like that. I like people using AI to write their stories for them. I don't like. I like AI doing the creative process of stuff.
kenric10:27:38
Right.
Well, you're… well, the fact that the AI is going through a training…
it's gonna choose a style of writing. It's gonna choose a style of art. And so you're effectively just stealing from whoever… whosever style that it's chosen to emulate.
John Horsley10:27:53
Yeah. Yeah.
Right, right. But if you're using AI.
to…
Like, assist you with, like, admin work.
Like, that's what it's meant for, right, in my opinion.
kenric10:28:12
Well…
Yeah, well, I think you and I come from a different school of thought, because we're forced to use AI, for lack of a better term, at work on a daily basis. And if you don't use it, and you don't learn it, you're not going to be there very long.
John Horsley10:28:19
In business.
Yeah.
Yeah, in my profession, there's no way I can't use it. But again, I'm not using it for… I'm not using it to make art. Yeah, I'm not using it to make art. I'm not using it to make graphics. I'm not using it to write stories for me or write plot points for me. I'm using it in business and for programming and for…
kenric10:28:32
Yeah, you can't…
You won't have a job.
Yep. Yeah.
No.
John Horsley10:28:44
Uh, like, documentation and, and, like, summarizations and stuff like that, and…
kenric10:28:48
Note-taking, action lists, you know…
John Horsley10:28:50
Note take. Yeah. And the the biggest thing, the biggest thing that I train my team on for using AI is like.
AI is a tool to use. You can't trust it 100%. You have to… you have to review what it's… what it does for you, whether it's code… whether it's… whether it's, like, checking your code, or it's summarizing an email, or it's, uh.
kenric10:29:00
Nope.
Yep.
John Horsley10:29:08
Summarizing data like I work in the tax space, right? And.
AI is notoriously bad at calculating taxes, and it just is.
kenric10:29:16
Well, because it probably doesn't know down to the deep… the nth detail that… because you guys go from, like, federal to state to…
John Horsley10:29:20
Well, that's the thing, is…
kenric10:29:25
City, county, and it's like all of the layers that are there.
John Horsley10:29:28
Well, yeah, and sales tax in general is so incredibly complex.
Um, that AI just…
kenric10:29:36
So stupid, it should not be. Yeah.
John Horsley10:29:38
It shouldn't be, but it is. It's one of the most complex math things out there, which is why.
kenric10:29:43
Math things, all the math.
John Horsley10:29:43
Companies make billions of dollars, all the math things. So like.
on the team, you know, we use AI, um, to, like, for efficiency and for data processing and stuff like that, uh, but I'm always like, yeah, we use it, we do it, but you gotta check what it's doing. Um…
and and I like to use. We use AI at work, not necessarily to like.
Process that the data for like, you know, run this person's taxes for them. We use it to help us create.
That was to create and maintain programs that we write to do that for us. So then it's done programmatically, not through AI, because.
I have found the difference is AI will, like, change the math it's doing on calculations, just because it thinks it's right, versus when it's programmatically, I can control exactly what it's doing, because I know in these situations.
kenric10:30:23
Yeah.
John Horsley10:30:29
with these variables. It's always going to do this, whereas AI AI makes assumptions, and it's those assumptions you can't trust, but using it to build the programs and to adjust the programs that do the math is where the power comes in. But yeah, like you were saying in.
In my field, specifically, like…
we're not an AI… my company's not an AI company, we're not like a… we're not gonna replace people with AI, but our focus is we're using… we use AI in what we do to enhance what we're currently doing.
kenric10:31:01
Well, in the corporate world, AI tool sets are basically the new outlook.
John Horsley10:31:07
Yeah, you have to use it.
kenric10:31:08
you can't… you know, every… if you have a white-collar job, for lack of a better term, and you're in a corporate world, you are affected… yeah, you are affected by AI, whether you want it to be or not, and if you don't learn it, and you don't start using it.
John Horsley10:31:15
Or greater.
Green color.
Yeah.
kenric10:31:23
You're not… there's a bloodletting that's coming.
In the corporate world. Yeah.
John Horsley10:31:27
It's already happening. It's already happening. It's stupid. And I don't, I don't agree with it. I saw, actually, I saw a quote that I want, I noted town to bring up on this to talk about it because it made sense.
kenric10:31:35
Yeah. Okay.
John Horsley10:31:37
Um, all these big companies, like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, are laying people off in the thousands, and replacing them, and should have just replacing them with AI.
kenric10:31:42
Yep.
John Horsley10:31:45
And I've read a couple of developers are talking about, and they're like, look.
Yes, a developer can use AI and get 10 times more work done in a day than he was beforehand.
But that AI by itself cannot do 10 times more work, because there's nobody to tell it what to do.
kenric10:32:03
Yeah, thank you. Yeah.
John Horsley10:32:03
You have nobody… you have nobody orchestrating what the AI is supposed to do, and when you lay off all the people.
kenric10:32:08
Well…
John Horsley10:32:10
The AI is not going to be able to do all that stuff. So you need to have.
kenric10:32:14
I think the… go ahead, sorry.
John Horsley10:32:16
Good. I was saying, so you have somebody that does it.
kenric10:32:17
I think the content.
I think the concept, though, is creating what's called AI agents.
agents like, uh, Anthropic and, and OpenAI and all these other, and they all have these agents that you can build that has, that are autonomous in, in what they do. And you can have a few people.
John Horsley10:32:39
Yeah.
kenric10:32:42
do the work of 100 people, because they can set these… they can write out these set scripts of instructions for these guys just to go out and do all the work. And I think that's what they're banking on. The problem is… is that…
John Horsley10:32:51
Yeah.
kenric10:32:55
If you don't have the right people in place and don't have the oversight to make sure things are correct, you can, you can run amok. I'm in telecommunications and you know, obviously companies are wanting to use AI and it's going to get into all these different levels.
John Horsley10:33:02
Yeah.
kenric10:33:10
of the network, and of subscribers, and what they're doing, and…
I, I, I, I'm always concerned that it could be, uh…
Customer impacting and then, you know, but I have strong feelings about a lot of things on the way, uh, things are done. Like, I feel like if you're a service based company and you are make generating money off the backs of whatever country you're in.
Like, if you're in the UK, and you're… 99% of your customer base is UK-based, or if you're in America, and 99% of your customers are things, I don't think you should be allowed to outsource more than, like.
5% of your workforce.
You shouldn't be going to third-world countries and, and all of your, you know, most of your workforce is there because, just because they can.
John Horsley10:34:03
Yeah, it's cheaper. It's cheaper.
kenric10:34:04
You know, and it's like, but you're making all your money off of these other people, and you're not employing them.
John Horsley10:34:09
Yeah, yeah. Well, I talked to Kaylee about this all the time, and it's because I've, you know, we've all been at companies, you know, that have laid off people and replaced them in India, you know, like, I had a good friend of mine at a previous job who.
by himself.
Wrote one of the.
biggest engines they use for calculate… for data, um, and then 2 years later, they laid him off and replaced him with a team of 6 in India for less money than they're paying him.
But it's like.
kenric10:34:36
Yeah.
John Horsley10:34:39
I don't think you should be able to call yourself an American company if most of your workforce is overseas. And I 100% think that if you are an American company and you're going to go overseas to India, to the Philippines, to wherever to.
Hire somebody, you either need to…
Well, I need to pay them the same rate.
kenric10:34:59
Pay a head tax or pay a giant head tax.
John Horsley10:35:00
Well, either…
Yeah, you need to pay the point in India, the same pay rate you're going to pay somebody in America, or you pay the difference.
kenric10:35:10
Yeah. Okay.
John Horsley10:35:10
in taxes like you should not be able to go and replace one American job with, you know, 4 or 5 people in India, and you know all that savings does not get passed on anybody else just gets passed on the company, because, you know, these companies don't lower their prices because they save money on employees.
kenric10:35:27
Nope.
John Horsley10:35:27
I just that doesn't happen like the fucking like.
kenric10:35:29
Nope. If anything, they try to raise until they find that spot where people stop paying, and they'll keep it there until they feel like they can do it again.
John Horsley10:35:35
Yep.
Well, it's like the whole tariffs refunds, right? All these companies are getting refunds for the tariffs, but the companies didn't pay their tariffs. The customers did because the companies raised their prices. And so now all these companies are getting money back and they're not giving to the customers. I do love that.
kenric10:35:46
Yeah.
Nope. And they're not lowering those taxes. They're not lowering those prices either.
John Horsley10:35:54
No, no, I do love Card Against Humanity though. They sent out an email to all their customers back when it was first ruled to be illegal, basically saying like it said, we are putting in for the refund. If you bought something from us, we are going to send the money straight to you. We're not keeping shit.
This is your money.
kenric10:36:11
Cards Against Humanity did that?
John Horsley10:36:12
And they said, if, yep, yep. They said, if they, they said, if any money comes back, we'll send it back to all of you guys. Cause we did, cause it's not, this is not our money.
kenric10:36:13
That's cool.
Yeah. Okay.
John Horsley10:36:21
And that's what every fucking company should be doing like they should.
kenric10:36:24
Yeah, yeah, actually, the government shouldn't even be giving it to them, they should be putting it into tax refunds.
John Horsley10:36:27
No.
Yeah, she all wanted all the refunds for all the because it's not because it's not the company's money, you know. It's it's it's it's our money. But that's a whole different tangent.
kenric10:36:33
Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
But…
Getting back on… yeah, that's a whole different tangent. Get ourselves in trouble. Getting back on the AI…
thing.
John Horsley10:36:48
Yeah.
kenric10:36:48
You know…
the…
The independent comic book world is strictly against it.
You know, I don't think I… and the people that are for it, that are using it, um…
John Horsley10:36:58
I…
kenric10:37:03
They are quickly shouted out.
You know what I mean? And I get it, because a lot of, you know, dude, I'm on year two of working on book three and four for a supernatural baby detective, because it takes me forever.
to write it out, and to storyboard everything, and have it the way I want it to look. And now, on issues 3 and 4, I'm really trying to think about the scene, and then rewrite it, because I'm noticing…
Like, I'm watching different things, and I'm reading different things, and I'm starting to get annoyed when somebody has an irrational reaction to something. Not that… and it's, like, nuts. Okay.
John Horsley10:37:44
Oh, uh, yeah.
kenric10:37:49
For example, if you've watched the series from…
John Horsley10:37:53
Good show.
kenric10:37:53
I watched From when it first came out.
and then I lost my MGM account, because I… I just… it was like… it was on MGM streaming service, and then I think during the time, or right before it happened, they got bought out by Amazon, and then my… and then they got mixed it, but then my… the MGM account went… it was all this weird stuff. Anyways…
John Horsley10:38:03
Yeah.
kenric10:38:15
I I I couldn't.
Yeah. So I had to do it through, um…
Amazon, and I watched the first two seasons, and then I thought it got canceled.
John Horsley10:38:25
So did I. So did I.
kenric10:38:25
Because it took, like, 2 years for season 3 to come out, and now season 4 has just started, which is great, but… so I'm behind, so I'm watching season 3. So, because I didn't watch it for, like, 2 years, I went back and rewatched season 1 and 2, so I could remember everything that happened.
John Horsley10:38:28
Yep.
Yeah.
kenric10:38:41
And.
I think it's the first episode? The very first episode, or the second episode. The daughter, Julie.
They have this whole thing, and I'm not gonna go into what the whole thing's about, but they have to choose where they're gonna live. Either they're gonna live in town, or they're gonna live in Colony House.
Right? Which is up on the hill, which is this big mansion, and blah blah.
She just got into this horrific accident. She just had all this stuff happened.
She's with her family. She's only 17.
And they let her choose if she's gonna live in town or in Colony House. Her little brother, her dad, and her mom all choose in town, and then she chooses Colony House. It made no sense.
John Horsley10:39:16
Right.
Yeah.
kenric10:39:24
And it came.
John Horsley10:39:25
Well, it made… it made no sense, because they weren't, like, they weren't in, like, a big argument or a fight, she just chose differently, and there was, like, no real explanation.
kenric10:39:31
she was being a typical brat as a teenage girl. And the fact that these adults, like, no, no, she made a choice, it's like, uh-uh.
John Horsley10:39:34
Yeah. Yeah.
kenric10:39:42
That's my kid, and my kid's going where I'm saying they're going.
Especially when they're only 17, and at the time, they don't know that they're stuck in this weird pocket universe thing.
John Horsley10:39:46
Okay.
Right.
kenric10:39:52
So, it's like… it just doesn't make sense, you know what I mean? Make it make sense. And so, I'm like, um…
John Horsley10:39:57
Right.
kenric10:39:59
It bothered me. So now I'm thinking, and that scene specifically made me go back and think of things, and make me want to rewrite certain things and look at how characters are reacting, and then is it in line with how their characters have been built up to that point?
You know, thinking of their history that you might not know that dictates their decision making. Right. I know it because I built the character sheets for each person that I'm that I'm doing. And I got to make sure that they that they're making sense as they walk through this storyline.
AI?
Won't do that.
John Horsley10:40:37
No.
kenric10:40:37
it's not building a character backstory, unless you're… I mean, you can do it, you can feed all that stuff into it, and… and… and make it… and make it work, and I would…
if the person that's using it knows how to use it, you're not gonna be able to tell it came from AI.
John Horsley10:40:55
Yeah.
kenric10:40:56
Not on the writing.
None of it's done correctly and ran through and things. But it takes… I think it's soulless, and it takes the joy of what you're doing out of it.
John Horsley10:40:58
Right, and… yeah.
It does, so like…
I mean, as you say, if someone uses AI in art or in writing, it's easily detectable. Like, you can see it.
For the most part, right away.
kenric10:41:21
If they're lazy about it.
John Horsley10:41:23
Right, even if you're not lazy about it, like, if it's a single image of art, right, that's easy, it's… sometimes you can… they can… they can get it towards… it's harder to detect, but if they're making a whole comic in AI with sequentials, like.
kenric10:41:32
Yeah.
John Horsley10:41:36
you're gonna be able to tell, because unless they're extremely diligent, when they generate those images for each panel and page, there's gonna be variances, and more so than just art variances. And, um…
like, I am fully against AI and art and AI in, like, writing and scripting. I am…
kenric10:41:53
I just, I don't see the point in it.
John Horsley10:41:56
I don't, it's, well, so the point people will say is, is like, well, I'm a young struggling writer and I can't afford an artist. So I used AI to make my comic.
Okay.
That's fine, but, like, you're not… like, you're missing a whole huge chunk of what the creative process and what creating a piece of work like that is, because…
You know, you'll hear arguments like, oh, using AI is the same as like using Photoshop, which is using a tool, but…
It's not… it's more than that, because when it comes to creative processing stuff, it's…
Pulling from sources from other creators.
kenric10:42:28
Yeah. Okay.
John Horsley10:42:29
Not as inspiration, but to copy them. And…
kenric10:42:31
Yeah.
John Horsley10:42:32
Like, I've heard people argue online about AI, like, oh, well, you know, every artist needs inspiration. I'm like, yeah, they use inspiration to hone their.
kenric10:42:39
Right.
John Horsley10:42:40
For the… as they should. Um…
So, I don't think…
I mean, AI's not going anywhere, right? It's not disappearing. It's gonna stay. Like, it's here. Like, people aren't gonna go… especially because AI helps people make money. AI's… people aren't gonna go, oh, let's get rid of AI because it's bad for creative people. Like, that.
kenric10:42:57
Oh, no, the Pandora's box is open.
John Horsley10:42:59
Yeah, it's open. But I think as a creative world and as creators like you and I are and a lot of our listeners are.
Like.
If you're going to use AI.
for anything in your creative process.
Be open about it, don't hide it. Um…
understand that that's gonna give you an asterisk on your work, right? You're gonna be Roger Maris in 61 and 61, you're gonna have an asterisk, right? Like, use AI for this. Now…
kenric10:43:19
Yep.
Right. There's an audience out there, too, that don't care.
John Horsley10:43:31
If you are…
Yeah, there's a huge eye that does not give a shit. And that's fine. And that's fine. I don't think like…
kenric10:43:35
Yep.
John Horsley10:43:40
I don't think we should shun people who use AI for art or for writing, like, but I think it should be…
kenric10:43:46
I'm not going to respect the medium as much, that's for sure.
John Horsley10:43:47
Agent…
No, I'm not… I'm not gonna respect what they created as much. I mean, I might read it and go like, well, this is… yeah, I can tell, or whatever, and I… actually, if I know it's AI, I probably won't buy it at all.
But…
there's a space for everything, and just because I don't like it doesn't mean they shouldn't do it. I don't want them to do it.
You know, neither here nor there. But I think this is going to piss off some people. I know that by saying this out loud.
There is a space in the creative world for AI to exist.
And for creators to use AI, but that's not in creating their artwork, and it's not in writing their stories.
kenric10:44:22
I think you can use it for organization.
John Horsley10:44:24
Organization. Yes. So that's where I'm going. Organizing stuff or like one of the things that I've used AI for because I don't have time to go back and read.
kenric10:44:26
Yep.
John Horsley10:44:33
6,000 pages that I've written and created, or, you know, I don't have time all the time to go back and read the last 27 issues of Jolene Only that I've written and made.
I have all the scripts, I have a Notebook LM set up with all of my scripts, you know, it's a private… Notebook LM is like a private Google thing, where it's… it's.
kenric10:44:49
Right.
John Horsley10:44:50
It only has access to what you have put in there. I did research on it, and hopefully it's correct.
Um, but I have all 26 scripts in there as different PDF files, and if I'm, like, I'll be writing, I'll be like, I think I've talked about this before. I can just go to that and say, hey, in what issue, what page did I talk about.
Join me normally on a soapbox, and it'll come back and tell me where I did things that, um, which helps me make connections as I'm writing more, or I can go… one thing that's fun to do is, like, you know, I know what I think about my characters, right?
kenric10:45:19
Right.
John Horsley10:45:25
I know how I think, like Joman only or Calvarina or Irv or them, they're how they are.
But one thing that's fun to do and is just to go like, hey, analyze these issues and tell me.
what, uh, the motivations for this character are, what are, you know, what they're talking about, and then just kind of read what it says back, and then I can go back and reread those issues and say, oh, is that what I am…
you know, pushing out? Is that what I am? Is that what they're actually saying? You know, stuff like that. I use it a lot for, like, to research into my own stuff, you know?
kenric10:45:52
Right.
Right.
John Horsley10:45:59
And, uh, I use it to create programs for myself to automate all the boring shit. Um…
Like with the use of FastAPI, React, TypeScript, Claude, and some AI stuff, I've built an entire…
I showed you last time I built an entire web app that allows me to.
once I have it drawn, and I use Notion to track everything, what I'm doing, I can just post it to the web, web comics, in one fell swoop. I can post all of my comics at once that are done, ready to go, without having to go through an.
manually do them. And I think using AI in those aspects for the automated, the backend stuff and the.
kenric10:46:40
Well, you're using it in an administrative context.
John Horsley10:46:40
Oh.
Yeah, I think I mentioned context.
kenric10:46:45
It's not part of your actual creative development in any way.
John Horsley10:46:48
No. No.
kenric10:46:49
Yep.
There.
John Horsley10:46:51
Oh.
I did. I did have an idea for an AI comic.
But it's not an, yeah, I'll talk about it in a minute, but it's not like an AI comic, but it's an AI. So I wanted to do, I had an idea for an issue of Jolene Only where.
kenric10:47:06
Yeah.
John Horsley10:47:06
And.
Oh.
Actually, I'll talk about it now. What I wanted to do with this, I wanted to…
kenric10:47:10
That's great.
John Horsley10:47:12
I wanted to have… I was gonna write the whole issue.
Uh, all 24 pages, and write the whole issue, how I was gonna do it, and then I was going to feed it into AI.
And have it rewrite the issue.
And then I was going to have it read the issue like two or three times just so it gets more and more like ridiculous. And then I was going to go through the probably each iteration and then my original script and then combine them a little bit, combine the ridiculous shit out of the AI.
And then just make commentary on why you shouldn't use AI for writing and creative stuff throughout the issue.
kenric10:47:42
Yeah.
You should put it through different ones.
John Horsley10:47:48
I talked that idea to…
Right, that's what I was gonna do, different AIs. I talked about that idea, I talked about that idea to somebody, um, and I can't remember who it was at the moment, but this is, like, a year or two ago.
kenric10:47:53
Yeah. Okay.
John Horsley10:48:00
Actually, no, I know who it was now, but I won't say their name. And they basically told me that.
that that was, you know, using AI to recreate your creative stuff, and then you shouldn't do that, and it's horrible, and, you know, the whole thing, and I'm like…
But you're missing the point. The whole point of that is, is to make commentary on how using AI and stuff is not okay, and here's why. Like, that's the whole point, it's a commentary on it.
kenric10:48:20
Yeah, I think so.
John Horsley10:48:23
Like, I get it, because, you know, you're using AI to make it, but it's not.
the use of the AI isn't the point. It's the point of it is, is this is why you shouldn't do.
kenric10:48:31
Well, it would be an interesting exercise if you created the whole comic.
Yourself.
And then…
had AI rewrite it.
And then have the next AI rewrite it and have the next AI rewrite it. And you use that as like you, you put it out as one big book. The first one is, is the original. And then this is what it is. Or you can do it as a you wouldn't even have to put it out. You could do that.
John Horsley10:48:50
Yeah.
kenric10:48:58
And have it free, and have it as a social commentary of, this is what it's… this is what you're doing.
You know what I mean?
John Horsley10:49:06
Yeah. Well, yeah. And like, well, I could. And I would, because, you know, all all the joint issues get put out on the website.
For free. You can buy the issue, but all the pages get put up for free to read.
kenric10:49:14
Yeah, so. Yeah.
Yeah, it'd be… I think it'd be interesting. You're not… yeah, especially if you put it out for free, you're not charging anything, you're not… you know what I mean? And people would see the difference.
John Horsley10:49:19
Yeah.
Yeah.
kenric10:49:26
Which would be interesting to see.
John Horsley10:49:27
It's, uh, um…
It's on my list of things to do once I get past my… Probably I've got two storylines for Jolene Lee I'm still working on, but it'd be after.
kenric10:49:37
Well, the sad thing is, is it'll take you a week to do, or, you know, it'll take you a while to get yours done, the original script drawn and everything done, and then it'll take you 2 minutes to do the rest.
John Horsley10:49:48
Yeah, yeah.
And that's that's the funny part. But I mean, the other ones wouldn't be as would be definitely not as good.
kenric10:49:52
Yeah.
Yeah. Okay.
John Horsley10:49:58
Or maybe or maybe it'd be better, because, you know, who knows? Gentleman only is an interesting story.
kenric10:50:02
So, I think for me, the takeaway on this whole conversation is there's some nuances, AI's not going away, you need to learn to live in a world that it is there, you're gonna have to, uh, live with that.
Um… don't use it for… I don't think we should be using it for creative processes, um, especially for… in the art world, uh…
Creative writing, um, art, actual…
drawing, you know, painting, all that kind of stuff. I don't think it should be used in those contexts. Um…
you know, it's… it's touchy to mention if you've used AI tools, because people just assume that you're using it for the creative process, and… and…
John Horsley10:50:40
Right.
kenric10:50:45
I don't think that's true, you know what I mean? Um, I think what… what our original thought process… the original quote that we mentioned at the beginning.
I think he's specifically referring to people that are using it in promotion and then trying to say, I don't use it for it because that's part of the creative process to me, how you're promoting your book and how you're you're showing it and how it is.
John Horsley10:51:09
Yeah.
kenric10:51:11
That's all part of it. And if you're using a tool like AI that embellishes and then steals, for lack of a better term, from other creators to promote your stuff, then you probably are…
Using it to write.
John Horsley10:51:27
Here's a thing to remember, though, too. Like, if you are writing and drawing or have a team and you are creating your artwork comic, you know, all not using AI.
And then you hire a company to do your marketing?
kenric10:51:42
Yeah.
John Horsley10:51:42
For you, they're going to use AI.
kenric10:51:45
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the thing, dude. All these companies are using it now.
John Horsley10:51:46
Like, you're not going to hide. Yeah, you're not going to get a marketing company who's not using AI to make your marketing materials. So, like, you have to remember, like.
kenric10:51:52
Oh, that is so true now.
Moi.
John Horsley10:51:56
What's better, you using AI yourself to make your marketing materials, or paying a company to do it for you? Like…
kenric10:52:02
Well, you just asked a morality and ethical question right there. And it's something that I think we all have to look at each other and think about that.
John Horsley10:52:03
They're just gonna do the same shit.
Yep.
kenric10:52:11
Either, because if you're hiring somebody… unless you're hiring an independent person that's only one guy that's doing all of it, then I could get it.
John Horsley10:52:15
Yeah.
Yeah, that's, yeah, and that's different, but if you're hiring a company, they're using AI, they're.
kenric10:52:21
Like, a real good company that's been around for a long time, that knows how to market? Do you think Marvel's not using AI to market their stuff?
John Horsley10:52:28
Oh, all of those companies. All of them are.
kenric10:52:28
Or DC, or image, or…
IDW or any of them.
John Horsley10:52:35
Yeah, all those companies, all those companies use AI. They do. I can promise you that now.
kenric10:52:40
Yeah, hopefully they're not using it in the books.
John Horsley10:52:40
But they use it, but they use it, but…
No, I don't. There's been some talk. There's been some like people caught using AI in the in the books for Marvel and DC. But.
kenric10:52:51
That's crazy.
John Horsley10:52:52
If they're for the most part, they're using it in the smart way like for it. But yeah, oh, and there's my camera went off. So it's time to go.
kenric10:53:01
Well, you could just turn it off for a second and turn it back on.
John Horsley10:53:04
Oh, it came back. It turned off, came back. Let's see if that works. Turned off.
kenric10:53:10
Give it a minute.
John Horsley10:53:11
Weird.
kenric10:53:12
I mean, we could talk while you're, uh…
John Horsley10:53:14
There.
kenric10:53:15
Yeah, I, I, I think it's a, it's a weird…
John Horsley10:53:16
it.
kenric10:53:19
It's definitely a. It's definitely a weird time, man.
John Horsley10:53:22
It's a weird time. We're over here now.
kenric10:53:25
There you go.
John Horsley10:53:26
On my not as good stream cam.
kenric10:53:28
It still looks decent, though.
John Horsley10:53:30
Yeah, it looks different. It's all right.
kenric10:53:31
Well, no, I'm just saying Zoom has really upgraded their…
Camera work.
John Horsley10:53:37
Up their game, man. Yeah.
kenric10:53:38
Yeah.
John Horsley10:53:40
Cool. So, yeah.
kenric10:53:41
Yeah, well…
It's probably a good time, anyways.
John Horsley10:53:45
We're gonna we're gonna we're gonna get so much shift this episode. The takeaway people gonna get isn't the takeaway we're given. They're gonna go like, Oh, well, Kendrick or John like to use AI in their comics like, that's not what we're fucking saying.
kenric10:53:55
No, no, I don't use it for marketing. I don't use it for creative processes. And honestly.
John Horsley10:53:57
Bye.
kenric10:54:02
I don't think I've… I haven't used it for anything within… within my creative process, or even my organization, because I already have everything organized of how I need it. And that was…
John Horsley10:54:10
Yep.
kenric10:54:12
Yeah, but…
John Horsley10:54:12
The only thing I use it for is what I mentioned. I use it for like the big stories. I'll have it search for me and find things for me, because I don't want to go through and read 5,000 pages to find where I forgot something at, you know.
kenric10:54:13
It.
Yeah.
Right. Yeah, it's all weird, man. I mean, it's…
It's a tool. You just have to use it the right way.
John Horsley10:54:34
Yeah?
kenric10:54:35
You know.
but it's not hitting any of the writing, any of my shitty writing, it's not hitting any of the artwork that I'm gonna…
John Horsley10:54:42
Your writing is not shitty. I like your writing. Shut up.
kenric10:54:44
My shitty writing. Anyways, um…
you know, I would never use it for any kind of visual material, or, or, uh…
Nothing visual, nothing language based, nothing of writing would ever be touched by AI in something that I'm creating.
John Horsley10:55:04
Yeah.
kenric10:55:04
You know what I mean? Even on the promotional side, um…
like, if I'm… have my own stuff, and I can dictate the promotion.
then I'm always gonna err… I'm always gonna go on the side of having a human do it.
Simply because I want the experience. I love the team. I love working within a team and being on a team, which you're not going to get. When you use AI at work, you can start to feel like you're kind of in a vacuum. You're not communicating with people.
John Horsley10:55:23
Yeah.
Yeah, same.
kenric10:55:39
You're not… you know what I mean? It's like, oh, just do this. And the scary thing at work is a lot of times you feel like you're just training this thing to take your job.
John Horsley10:55:48
Yeah. Yep.
kenric10:55:49
So, you know…
I don't need to do that in my personal life on top.
John Horsley10:55:55
There's a…
Real quick, we got, like, I got a couple minutes left where I gotta go, but, uh, there's a lot of, uh, people who are sabotaging AI at work, so it can't take their job, and, um, there's a lot of pushback from that, which is, like, that's…
It's very punk rock.
kenric10:56:12
Yeah. Yeah.
John Horsley10:56:12
I, uh…
I like to make sure at work. So before I before I agreed to use AI at work, I had a talk with our.
C-level team about it, and, um, I was like, what is our goal with using AI here? Because, like, I'm not going to use AI, or make my team use AI, if we're just going to replace them with AI. Like.
kenric10:56:30
Yep.
John Horsley10:56:31
If that's anywhere close to the goal, then I will refuse right now and you can just let me go. I'm not doing that.
kenric10:56:37
Yeah, yeah.
John Horsley10:56:37
Um.
and the we have one talk, and there and.
It was mostly they they. : I'm in a smaller company, and and their process is like, Look, we don't want to replace anybody, but we need to be able to not hire a ton of people we don't need.
And I'm like, I get that like we need. I said, it's basically we need to. We need to streamline the processes we're doing, not replace somebody's job like, okay, if we're just streamlining. And we have. And we have tons of work to do. And we're not like trying to lower, you know, make my team smaller because my team's already small.
kenric10:56:54
No.
John Horsley10:57:10
Then we'll use AI in spaces where I think we should use AI, but I'm not using it. I'm not going to replace, do what's used for everything because I'm not going to AI and automate people out of a job.
kenric10:57:21
Right? Yeah, yeah, no, that makes sense. I unfortunately don't work for a small company. And.
John Horsley10:57:26
Yeah.
kenric10:57:27
I don't have those that luxury because, you know, yeah, they'll just they'll just replace the whole team. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah.
John Horsley10:57:29
Yeah, you don't have that choice.
That's right. Bye.
kenric10:57:36
So, we have to play a game. And that's okay. I mean, it is what it is. And honestly, I… if I can…
John Horsley10:57:40
It is.
kenric10:57:43
If I can make it another 6 years, 7 years, and get the kiddo through high school.
and out on her own in some capacity, then it won't… I won't feel as…
John Horsley10:57:55
Yep, yep.
kenric10:57:56
I'll be like, okay, if I lose my job, I'll find something. It might not be what I want, but I'll, you know what I mean, I'll have something going on.
John Horsley10:57:59
Thank you.
Yeah. And with that, we're out.
kenric10:58:06
We are out. Thanks for joining us.
Tune in next time when John…
Pierce is something.
John Horsley10:58:14
Sure. Live in the air.
kenric10:58:15
Sure.
John Horsley10:58:17
Petite. See ya.
kenric10:58:22
Oh, that's funny.
John Horsley10:58:23
We made that. But like we, we have like 10 s left, and I'm gonna stop recording.
kenric10:58:27
On your camera, or on the Zoom?
John Horsley10:58:30
On Zoom, yeah.