The Korean webtoon business is at a vital juncture, aggressively pursuing the efficiencies of synthetic intelligence (AI) at the same time as creators resist the change citing severe authorized and moral dangers, in accordance with business consultants.
This creativity-driven business is without doubt one of the quickest to really feel the consequences of the rising know-how. Webtoon creators, whereas involved that adopting the know-how will compromise their originality, additionally perceive that failure to embrace it may result in exclusion from the market.
This rigidity was a key level of debate throughout the twenty fifth annual Manhwa Day ceremony on Nov. 3, the place stakeholders gathered to mirror on the way forward for Korean comics. Manhwa is the Korean time period of comics.
Hosted by the Korea Cartoonist Affiliation, the occasion, which drew over 160 business officers, featured a lecture that centered on the problem of AI integration.
On the occasion, cartoonist Kwak Baek-soo pushed for AI as a obligatory answer for creators dealing with fierce competitors. Kwak defined how the know-how helps cartoonists survive the hyper-competitive market pushed by main webtoon manufacturing studios that produce quite a few titles in a brief time period by hiring a number of creators for one work.
“AI helps with backgrounds, coloring and even story concept conception, permitting a single creator to beat the constraints of time and sources,” Kwak stated.
Cartoonist Kwak Baek-soo delivers a lecture on the usage of AI within the comics business throughout the annual Manhwa Day ceremony in Seoul, Nov. 3. Courtesy of Korea Cartoonist Affiliation
This aggressive push for effectivity is supported by Han Chang-wan, a professor at Sejong College’s Division of Comics & Animation Expertise who thinks that adoption of AI instruments when creating cartoon works is inevitable.
“I imagine AI just isn’t a alternative however a defining shift within the business,” Han advised The Korea Occasions. “AI is the only real technique for a solo artist to realize a aggressive edge in opposition to massive, multi-artist webtoon studios. AI instruments, that are more and more personalised, will enable creators to add thrice every week and even each day.”
Regardless of the clear advantages, webtoon artists stay extremely cautious. In accordance with the Korea Inventive Content material Company’s 2024 webtoon business survey on 800 webtoon artists, solely 18.3 % of respondents stated they’ve skilled utilizing generative AI, and solely 36.1 % stated they supposed to make use of it sooner or later. This contrasts sharply with the 63.8 % of webtoon companies that plan to make the most of AI know-how.
The resistance stems primarily from moral and authorized issues: 41.3 % of the artists stated an absence of AI expertise was the burden concerning authorized points corresponding to ethics and copyright. This was adopted by fear concerning the deterioration of the work’s originality as 31.3 % stated so.
Han stated this reluctance comes from the potential backlash webtoon artists may face.
“Naver Webtoon featured an AI-created work. When it grew to become public, readers staged a subscription boycott,” the professor stated.
An official from the native webtoon business stated social settlement continues to be missing on whether or not creations made with this know-how might be thought-about the creator’s unbiased work.
“There are numerous opinions amongst artists and readers concerning the acceptance of AI-produced content material with unclear origins,” the official stated on situation of anonymity. “Additionally, social and authorized consensus is but to be totally reached.”
