Comic-Con Bans AI Art After Artist Pushback

Value of Effort, Skill, and Human Presence

• Many argue that Comic-Con’s artist alley is specifically about meeting the human who made the work; AI undermines that connection.
• Effort, years of practice, and “being present” in the creative process are seen as core to why art matters, not just the final image.
• Others push back that most people primarily care about whether something looks “cool,” not how long it took or how hard it was, and that time/skill don’t map cleanly to artistic value.

Authenticity, Intention, and Emotion

• Strong sentiment that art is about human intention, lived experience, and emotional expression; AI-generated pieces are likened to emotional fraud if passed off as human.
• Some say disclosure solves much of this: people may value handmade and AI pieces differently, but want honesty about origin.
• A minority view holds that if the output moves you, the tool (brush vs model) shouldn’t matter—as long as there’s no deceit.

Ethics, Training Data, and “Moral Rights”

• A recurring justification for bans: models are trained on artists’ work without consent or compensation, violating authors’ moral rights even if legally murky.
• Counter-argument: all artists “train” on others’ work; insisting AI must get permission from every influence would imply humans should too.
• There’s anger at the asymmetry: humans face harsh copyright enforcement while large AI companies quietly train on massive pirate archives.

Tools vs. Total Automation & Where to Draw the Line

• Many distinguish between assistive tools (Photoshop, “AI” upscaling, inpainting, linters for anatomy/color) and fully prompt-generated images where the user never touches pixels.
• Debate over whether prompt-users are “artists” or more like art directors/producers commissioning work from a system.
• Some expect AI assistance to become like spell‑check or autocompletion for art; others say current tools still don’t fit high‑end workflows without big quality tradeoffs.

Cultural and Economic Fears

• Worries that generative AI accelerates a flood of cheap “slop,” hollows out mid‑tier working artists, and turns environments into empty simulacra.
• A few frame anti‑AI sentiment as protectionism or status defense; others call that dismissive given real livelihood impacts.