Colin KaepernickThe former NFL quarterback who was mysteriously kicked out of the league after becoming a civil rights activist has raised $4 million to start a company called Room Its goal is to “democratize storytelling by giving creators the tools to create, publish, and sell their stories independently.”
Sounds good, right? But read the next sentence.
“Lumi leverages advanced artificial intelligence technology to enhance the creative process and ensure diverse and authentic stories shape our future.”
Uh oh.
Kaepernick was at San Diego Comic-Con, hanging out in Artist Alley, appear at social events, obviously talking about starting a business. If he had mentioned the word “artificial intelligence” during these encounters, he would surely have had to pay out of pocket as angry comic creators wanted to fire him.
Lumi’s news has been Floating for a while, and Kaepernick The news was posted on Twitter on July 24. But it wasn’t until yesterday when another comics news site put the words “ai” and “$4 million” in the same headline that comics creators came out and pointed out that stealing the work of human creators to tell stories No one can democratize except technology.
According to a press release, Lumi “empowers creators by giving them the tools they need to independently create, publish and sell their stories digitally and physically.”
Lumi’s mission is to democratize storytelling by giving creators the tools to transform their ideas into finished products, as well as distribute and market those stories – transforming any creator into a Disney. By leveraging advanced artificial intelligence tools, Lumi enhances the creative process, allowing creators to focus on bringing their stories to life while the platform handles all the logistics. Creators have a significant impact on AI and they should be the main beneficiaries of its use.
Creators today face significant challenges, including exploitation and a lack of independence. Lumi solves these problems by providing end-to-end storytelling solutions that increase financial stability, creative control, and job ownership. Additionally, as artificial intelligence continues to advance, it is important to ensure that the content generated reflects diverse and authentic perspectives. By empowering creators to authentically create their own stories, Lumi helps ensure a more equitable future for artificial intelligence.
Although buried at the end of PR, the playing field for this move is comics: “The company plans to first focus its efforts on comics and graphic novel creators, a market that requires a variety of creative skills.”
Earlier, Kaepernick tweeted:
my new company #lumi Empowering anyone to become a storyteller, regardless of their skill set. Lumi enables you to create, publish and monetize your stories on one platform.
What should we do? By creating access to:
End-to-end story creation
Simple artificial intelligence tools
Physical and digital publishing
Built-in marketing
The best part is that the creators own all of their creations!
It’s everything creators need to build and expand their stories, having to rely on personal relationships with Hollywood or having to fund the entire team.
This is how we level the playing field. This is how we create opportunities and opportunities for the world to tell their stories.
Lumi is about to turn every storyteller into their own Disney.
Register now and start creating↓
Kaepernick became a hero to many for calling out racism in sports and elsewhere. I think he was looking for something to do (he started a publishing company a few years ago) and got caught up in the AI craze because it was still easy money and hadn’t really thought it through. Because this is some scam level stuff. “Whatever our skills,” we are all already capable of telling stories, and we all know that some people are better at telling stories than others. Bring in artificial intelligence – it will scrape content created by real humans and The second coming of Pets.com is proven – Helping less fortunate people try drawing Daniel Warren Johnson Just a rip off.
A Facebook Poster Carrie Randolph Showing how many times Kaepernick was told that artificial intelligence was not the way to go:
To be clear, I was one of many artists who met with Colin a few months ago. He told me roughly what his AI platform was. He mentioned it was about eliminating “gatekeepers” and how he hopes to benefit underserved people from all walks of life. I told him that while I was a fan, I couldn’t support this because those “gatekeepers” were people like me who had given their blood, sweat, and tears to our cause. All you need to make comics is hard work, a pencil, and paper. I let him know that his product could cause us long-term harm.
So if anyone asks Colin Kaepernick if he’s aware of artists’ misgivings about artificial intelligence, believe that he is. I know for a fact that I’m not the only one who does this.
But there’s another Joker in the deck. Lumi’s financing was led by venture capital firm Seven and Sevenliu, which was founded in 2020 Alexis Ohanian, I have dabbled in comics many times before. recent, he helped improve $9 million For the passionate world, The company did nothing but release a few digital comics and then died. According to Lumi PR, Ohanian “has been a staunch advocate for telling stories on the cutting edge of technology,” if by staunch you mean wasting $9 million on a failed venture. But he does keep coming back for more, and that’s very adamant.
As someone who regularly follows comics discussions online, I can report that comics creators are generally outraged by Kaepernick’s embrace of artificial intelligence. Such unity of opinion is rare. I can’t even quote them all, so just a few examples, taken from Twitter and responses to Randolph’s post.
Liana Cangis: Kaepernick jumping field literally Trying to destroy every creative job left in the industry. Sorry, man, but time and time again, we’re in this business for the technology, not the money — and we’re going to prove that our storytelling is better than artificial intelligence. single. time.
Mark Brooks: Colin Kaepernick $4 million has been raised to fund AI comics. He could have used the money to fund dozens of comics by highly skilled POC creators to show that he followed through on his promises. Instead, he would actively steal from them. sad.
JH Williams: nausea. As someone who has experienced marginalization himself, I think he would know better. I now expect these investors to lose all the money they invested…
Ben Templesmith: I may have just left Colin some pretty angry comments KaepernickHis Twitter account after discovering what he thinks about comics professionals. It seems we are dirty. Gatekeeper & good for nothing except stolen. This joke disrespects the media. no thanks.
Cheryl Lynn Eaton: If you think black artists will support artificial intelligence, not only taking away their career opportunities, but taking away the work they’ve already created, just because you came up with a black puppet – someone who has nothing to do with comics, please note – you’re crazy Got it! (more in the link)
Scott Morse:Just the other day, I watched him walk by and I said to my friends at my booth, “He’s a good guy – I have some friends who have worked with him.”
I can only imagine that someone provided him with some unethical information.
But, friends: don’t. Artificial intelligence is not the same as painting with ink and a brush.
Daniel Kibblesmith: If you all don’t like the actual act of making comics, I respectfully ask that you quit comics. I’m not trying to replace the NFL with a Madden simulation.
Alice matches Lee: This is so disappointing. Kaepernick could start his own comic studio with $4 million and pay 40 artists $100,000 a year for their work— Way More than the work of many artists. He could have hired struggling, marginalized creators and empowered them to tell the stories they never had the time or money to tell.
Instead, he gave $4 million to tech bros to steal art from hard-working creators and put them out of work. Seriously disturbing.
Ray Anthony Height: As a result of this move, some were quick to erase what he had done in the area of racial equality. As a black man, I wouldn’t do that. However, being a working artist and knowing that you and others explained the situation to him, he still insisted on continuing with the AI instead of hiring you guys! ? My respect for him has diminished significantly and every effort he makes from now on will be viewed as suspect.
On and on. Lumi and artificial intelligence storytelling is a major failure in comics.
Of course, there will be some who lack the skills and will be willing to try. UGC (User Generated Content) is huge these days. But so far, it sounds like another tech-driven mess that will further make the page more dynamic.
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