Osamu Tezuka's "Black Jack" To Get New Manga Series... Written By An AI

[stan BISH]

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2023-06-12/black-jack-gets-ai-manga/.199082

Black Jack Gets AI Manga

Osamu Tezuka's classic Black Jack series is getting a new manga co-produced by Tezuka Productions and artificial intelligence (AI). The new AI manga will launch in Akita Shoten's Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine this fall as part of the "TEZUKA2023" project and to commemorate Black Jack's 50th anniversary.

The AI is based on chatbot ChatGPT-4. The project utilizes technology developed under contract by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), a research and development agency in Japan. Keio University's Faculty of Science and Technology Professor Satoshi Kurihara and Tezuka Production's Makoto Tezuka (also known as Macoto Tezka) are also participating in the project.

Tezuka's original Black Jack manga centers on a brilliant maverick doctor who practices without a license. Tezuka published the manga in Akita Shoten's Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine from 1973 to 1984

-

i never read "Black Jack" but the idea sounds terrible (at least to me) i mean nothing stops me or anyone else from asking ChatGPT to write whatever the hell we want but that misses the point of why an story is interesting to the readers, is not just the content of the story but also the vision of the writer, that's why people has their favorite authors and can even feel a connection with their works, no matter how accurate an AI gets they can never emulate that

personally if the author of a manga i liked was to be replaced by someone else i would probably lose interest in the story let alone if they put an AI in charge

[Guest]

awful. as someone who is entering the comics industry, it's sickening the way people don't seem to realise that artists are people who actually want to do this because it's something we love - all we ask is to be compensated for our time and effort. why the hell is AI taking jobs away from artists, people who have done nothing to hurt anyone, and not being used to enrich human life? making art is an integral part of being human and the reason why art is so beautiful and valuable. god, it just makes me furious.

[stan BISH]

23 hours ago, nana_moon said:

awful. as someone who is entering the comics industry, it's sickening the way people don't seem to realise that artists are people who actually want to do this because it's something we love - all we ask is to be compensated for our time and effort. why the hell is AI taking jobs away from artists, people who have done nothing to hurt anyone, and not being used to enrich human life? making art is an integral part of being human and the reason why art is so beautiful and valuable. god, it just makes me furious.

if they want to continue with Tezuka's works why not hiring some artists to give their owns takes on his stories? that would be interesting

Tezuka may not had been the first comic artist but he definitely was the first Mangaka, he is even known as the "godfather of manga" and has been compared to Walt Disney for his influence in the manga industry, imagine all his legacy being reduced to just "data" to feed to an algorithm just so they can endlessly pump works inspired on him, i don't think he would be happy

what's worst is that the people behind the idea, Tezuka Productions, are lead by his son who apparently is not happy with "just" the millions of dollars on royalties he gets each year from his father's works

well at least the reception to the news has been overwhelmingly negative so maybe they reconsider going forward with it

Edited June 16 by stan BISH