AI-generated works flood FANZA. How do they affect artists?

In our very recent article, The Start of AI-Generated Doujinshi, we wrote about the concerning trend of AI-generated doujin CG sets popping up. 

Immediately after the incident caused a stir on Twitter, FANZA and DLSite posted their responses on how they will deal with the situation.

To recap the responses from FANZA and DLSite from our previous article:

“According to scenario writer Sasaki Shino, FANZA (owned by DMM) released a statement saying that they will be postponing the release of products that seemed to be AI-generated between October 8th to 10th as FANZA prepares policies to deal with AI-generated products. FANZA also noted that it plans to necessitate all AI-generated products to be labeled with an “AI-Generated” tag on its platforms along with a detailed explanation in the product description (including what AI image generator has been used to create the product).”

“Sasaki also posted a response from DLSite in regard to this issue. DLSite recognized that it has received a large amount of concerning messages from users about AI-generated products but they will “not be taking extreme measures of regulations” but will instead “observe the future development” of the situation at hand. However, it acknowledged the necessity for AI-generated products to be easily identified and will be postponing any release of AI-generated products from October 8th onward, until the platform is ready to deal with this issue.”

We have an update on the matter.

Artist Tukikagerou posted on October 12th that out of the 54 new products that went on sale on October 12 at midnight on FANZA, 32 products included the descriptions that they had been created using an AI image generator. 

In the subsequent tweet, Tukikagerou noted that if FANZA didn’t necessitate the mentions of AI image generator usage in the product description, it would’ve been one huge problem.

A closer look at the matter

 As FANZA promised in their recent policy update, it made a specific tag called AI生成 (AI Seisei) which means, “AI-Generated” and at the time of this writing (on October 13), there are already 78 AI-generated products on FANZA. At least this tag makes it easier for users to identify AI-generated products.

How about DLSite?

Here is an example of an AI-generated product from DLSite. Some descriptions in this screenshot have been blurred to protect the privacy of the seller.

Upon checking for tags, DLSite has not yet created an AI生成 (AI-Generated) tag on its platform. 

Users will have to check the product page individually to find out if a product is AI-generated or not, except for a few products that have “AI-Generated” in their titles.

Another way to check for AI-generated products on DLSite is to manually search for AI engine names like NovelAI, Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, and so on. 

It is apparent that FANZA has updated its platform in a more useful way compared to DLSite in terms of this issue. It is very likely that further policy and platform updates will be made as AI evolves further.

But handdrawn works are of a higher quality, right? How would AI-generated images affect other artists selling their works? 

As user sino6 points out, the speed at which images and works can be generated by AI means that AI-generated works will simply “flood the platforms” like FANZA and Pixiv, and in turn, decreases the visibility of real artists. If handdrawn art becomes the minority of art visible on the front page of a website, that’s a win for the machines and a loss for humanity.

50% of Touhou in just a few months

Exactly how frightening is this “flood of AI art”?

Since PIXIV began in 2007, there has been 2.4 million “Touhou” related art. Touhou is famous for being “copyright-free”, so a lot of artists feel comfortable in drawing Touhou characters.

Since people started posting AI art this year, the number of AI-generated art on PIXIV now numbers at 1.2 million images. There are “brand new accounts” made this month in October, that have already posted over 1000 images.

“Back of the line, human!”

https://twitter.com/Kohei_Seto/status/1581848764830318592

Another concerning issue, raised by Seto Kohei, is the concept of “release windows”. E-commerce platforms don’t want to release available products all at once. They want to space out different releases daily for their customers to constantly check in on their website.

The flood of applications of AI-generated works, means that works created by real artists will be “pushed back” on the waiting list, while AI-generated works “also queue up for release”.

Seto Kohei estimates that if AI-generated works are submitted at its current pace, the due to FANZA’s daily limit of releases, artists in the future might have to wait 405 days before their works can be released on FANZA after submission. (Obviously, this is simplifying the issue too much, but it gives you an idea of how many AI works are being submitted)

This can screw up a lot of plans. Many artists try to sync their works’ release window withh major events like Comiket, or try to organize releases to overlap with print releases etc. Being pushed back on a waitlist because of an abundance of AI-generated works will complicate things for real human artists trying to make a livelihood.

Other:

• AI-generated doujinshi is now being sold on DLSite.
• Will AI change the way we draw manga?
• Artist Consent Doesn’t Matter for AI!?
• AI art is becoming better. Will they replace human artists?

Did you know we have a catalog of FREE-TO-READ doujinshi and a collection of works available for 99 CENTS each? Check them out!

If you enjoyed this article, you can support us by buying our officially localized English Doujinshi on our Irodori Comics Store! Works are uncensored and DRM-Free for you to keep!

When you buy works on our website, up to 60% of the selling price goes directly to the artists as royalties!

Read more news articles here.