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Robert Kirkman is one of the most recognizable living comics writers, with his co-creations The Walking Dead, Invincible, Outcast, and more leaping off the comic book page (and making a big dent in the comics industry) and onto the small screen (and making a big dent in the television industry) with wildly successful adaptations and crossovers into mainstream pop culture.

Kirkman's career as a comics writer, screenwriter, and producer has spanned decades, which makes him fairly well positioned to comment on the recent changes (or attempted changes) in the comics and television industries - namely changes made by generative artificial intelligence (AI) being adopted by the creative fields.

Following former NFL star Colin Kaepernick's recent announcement of a high-profile new company intent on replacing the skills of comic creation (and its creators) with AI, something Kirkman said recently at San Diego Comic-Con rung out prominently.

"I am terrified [of AI in comics]," Kirkman said during his SDCC spotlight panel. "I think that AI is not AI. It's copying and stealing."

Kirkman, who is a co-owner of Image Comics, and the leader of the comics/movies/tv/games empire that is Skybound Entertainment, says the adoption of AI in the creation of content is "real bad."

"I see statistics where generative AI is generating so much stuff so quickly that 90% of the internet will be false information by a certain date," he said.

He's referring to 2022 report by Europol - the primary law enforcement agency of the European Union. In it, it states "experts estimate that as much as 90^ of online content may be synthetically generated by 2026." At the time, Europol's report said that "in most cases" online AI content was primarily generated for gaming.

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