Will the Robots Replace Us All?
It's One Thing for Your Comic Book Project to Compete With Other Indie Projects... Another When You're Competing With AI-Powered Spam
A shocking email hit my inbox yesterday morning.
Here at ComixTribe, we’re in the middle of another successful Kickstarter launch for a pivotal new issue of SINK called Just Desserts, so my day was already busy with activities to promote the latest crime horror book from writer John Lees & Alex Cormack.
While I was updating the campaign to reflect another stretch goal unlocked, I opened an email from Matt, a listener of my ComixLaunch Podcast and backer of SINK with the headline “Kickstarter AI projects?”:
There's 8 new projects by first time creators and it all feels bot / AI
generated from start to finish. At a minimum they all seem to share the
same campaign format, the creators have zero backing of other projects,
very short time frames and then there is the telltale AI art for all of
it. Even giving them the benefit of the doubt that these are legit the
smallest amount of research would tell them what the bare minimum is
needed for a project to succeed. Assuming fake what would be the end
goal for doing this? It all seems weird. I appreciate your thoughts.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t know what he was talking about, and was about to ask for links, but then I wondered how easy it would be to identify the projects he was talking about. So I went to explore Kickstarter…
And within minutes, I had easily identified half a dozen live Kickstarter projects that were obviously soulless and clearly employing generative AI to mimic a real project, but without any real creators behind them.
I made a YouTube video going through a bunch of these projects, and pointing out all the tell-tale signs of how it’s clear that these are fraudulent, AI-generated projects.
Now, just to be clear, because I know AI-art is a hotly debated topic, with former NFL-QB Colin Kaepernick earning the ire of comic creators recently by announcing a venture backed AI-based comic company that aims to “democratize storytelling by providing creators with the tools to independently create, publish, and merchandise their stories.”
{Cue the entire comics industry rolling their eyes and shaking their fists!}
While there are some creators out there who will make the case for AI being just another tool and it’s pretty clear that AI art will continue to proliferate, I want to be clear that the Kickstarter projects that I’m calling out as fraudulent is not because they are using AI. I’m calling them out because the entire project, from the story to the art used to the profile pictures and bios of the creators behind the project are all AI!
Here are links to some of the project I called out:
Cyberpunk Chronicles: Rebellion in the Neon City
Pretty AI image from The Forgotten Kingdom… but as Matt joked, “She has the neckbones of an owl!”
Some of the tell-tale signs of these fraudulent projects include:
Clearly AI generated images on the page.
Unrealistically large project goals for first time creators.
First time creators who haven’t backed any Kickstarter projects.
Generic creator bios, without any specific credits.
No actual photos of anyone on the creative team / no “human face” of the project.
No Kickstarter videos / Videos not related to the campaign.
Nearly identical Kickstarter project page format.
No project updates.
Limited number of pledges, similar pledge structure across all the campaigns.
No actual comic book page previews.
Now, there are certainly other signs we might point to that would make one skeptical of these projects. And it’s worth noting that any one of these might not, by itself, be evidence that a project is fraudulent… but when taken all together, it’s abundantly clear that these projects are all fake.
But They Aren’t Going to Fund So No Harm No Foul, Right?
As of right now, none of these projects look like they’re going to come anywhere close to funding. Most only have one or two backers, and it’s questionable whether those backers are real people or fraudulent as well.
But whether these projects fund or not, they’re still taking up valuable real estate on the Kickstarter platform. With 200-300 legitimate projects from indie creators launching each month, getting eyeballs on worthy projects is a challenge. Even a small % of fraudulent projects on top of that make it more likely that good projects get drowned out in a sea of fraud projects.
Furthermore, creators have been working for over a decade to build TRUST with backers that they’ll actually deliver on their rewards. We’ve had to overcome a number of high-profile projects that funded and failed to ever deliver, usually as the result of lack of planning or mismanagement. But to have dozens of projects proliferate on the platform that never have any intention of delivering will add an even deeper level of skepticism to crowdfunding… and could hurt all projects on the platform.
And finally, I’m a numbers and stats guy. On my ComixLaunch podcast, I’ve often done analysis on things like success rates, reward trends, pricing, and other things by looking at large numbers of projects on the platform and crunching the numbers. But the presumption is always that those projects are real projects by real humans and the data is good. The explosion of AI-driven soulless projects is going to tank the validity of future analysis, or at least add extra time and effort to crowdfunding studies if one must first purge all of the AI-spam projects from the analysis. Not cool, and something that could be avoided if Kickstarter screens these out before they ever go live.
What can we do about this?
1. Report the Bastards!
While Kickstarter will AI projects to use AI generated technology, project creators are required to disclose all uses of AI. None of these projects are disclosing AI use, so technically they are all in violation of that policy.
I reported a bunch yesterday, and already got a response from Kickstarter:
However, as of this morning, this project is still live and taking up space on the Kickstarter platform.
It is very easy to report any project on Kickstarter simply by scrolling to the bottom of any Kickstarter project page, and clicking the “REPORT THIS PROJECT TO KICKSTARTER” button.
The comics crowdfunding community may have to step up and be loud about cleaning up this community, and not standing for this garbage cluttering up the comics category.
2. Keep Backing Real Projects!
It can be an absolute turn-off for backers and comic fans to have to wade through fraudulent projects to get to books they can trust are legitimate. But for so many creators today, platforms like Kickstarter are the lifeblood of keeping the comic content coming.
So if you have favorite creators, know what they’re up against… and whenever you can, back, share, and celebrate great comics from hardworking independent creators on the Kickstarter platform.
-Tyler James (ComixTribe Publisher)
P.S. If you like crime/horror comics made by actual human beings for actual fans of comics, please check out the latest SINK launch from ComixTribe.
I agree with your key point which is that though the projects won’t fund it does impact discoverability which is the hardest thing about making it as a cartoonist these days.
Regardless of the new "statement" about use of AI, I think every comic creator on the platform should complain to kickstarter, the policy says that use of AI must be transparent and disclosed when they create the project, not after others complain - https://updates.kickstarter.com/introducing-our-new-ai-policy/