EDITORIAL: AI IS AN ABOMINATION TO FURRY ARTS

Dear Furiends,

Since Papabear's mailbox has been sitting empty for nearly two months now, I thought I would write a short editorial.

Yesterday, I received a letter from a young person who is part of a company that specializes in creating AI furry images (adult and SFW). They asked me if I would promote their service on my website and, in exchange, they would place an ad for "Ask Papabear" on their site.

I will not provide a name of the writer or of the company or its website (because I do not wish to give them free advertising), but here is their letter:

​"Hello,
We are a small team offering an AI tool to make fursona for the furry community. We're looking for blogs to add a link to them in exchange for an article on AI or furry fandom content that we write ourselves. I came across your site, which looks pretty good! Would you be interested in a one-off article for your blog? In exchange, we'll add a link for our tool in this one."

My reply:

Dear XXXX,

It is my personal belief that AI technology should not be used to supplant the creativity of the furry arts. My position is that what makes us human is our ability to create music, art, literature, and other such endeavors as a way of connecting to other people, expressing our souls, sharing our hearts, and bringing beauty and thought to our universe. AI can be very useful in such things as statistics, medicine, computer modeling, and the like, but when it comes to art, it contradicts everything that art is about.

Computers cannot feel pain. They cannot experience joy or love or hate or irony. They cannot create originality. They can only mimic and steal what other artists have done.

As Hayao Miyazaki said, "Whoever creates this stuff has no idea what pain is whatsoever. I am utterly disgusted… I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.”

The joy I find in the furry fandom is not in creating some shortcut to making some furporn to paw off to or to deny a hard-working artist a chance to make a living because I had AI draw me my fursona. The joy of the fandom is in creativity and sharing our hearts and souls through writing, drawing, crafting, filmmaking, music, and the sartorial arts. Many young furs like yourself [the writer is 24]--enamored as always by the latest tech--try to portray AI as "just a tool." No, this is not a paintbrush or even Photoshop software. AI learns how to paint (poorly, rigidly) by stealing from artists and learning from their works.

The furry fandom was founded in the late 1970s as a celebration of the creativity in anthropomorphic arts. Your furry AI generator is an abomination and an insult to the fandom, and I will not be a part of it or help you promote it in any way.

Sincerely,
Grubbs Grizzly

“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” 
– Stephen Hawking

“The misuse of AI could turn out to be the biggest risk we have ever faced.”
– Max Tegmark