In our recent history, starting back in episode 378, The F Plus started using computer generated (mainly DALL-E/Bing) images in our cover images. And by "The F Plus", I mean me, Lemon, specifically.
This was done for reasons of pure efficiency. At some point early on in the podcast's history, I made the decision to start doing custom images for every episode. Some of them, in my opinion, were pretty good1, some of them I think are quite bad2, the majority of them I'd describe as good enough. But with some exceptions, like 394, 212 and 204 (all drawn by Portaxx), the overwhelming majority of cover images were whipped up by me, trying to come up with something that was thematically appropriate, visually interesting, and hopefully ethically sourced.
Logistically, this ends up being an administrative burden to releasing an episode. The process goes...
- Collect all the raw audio files.
- Edit the body of the episode together, using whatever flourishes seem fun at the time.
- Then edit in the bumpers and music
- Then downmix the whole thing
- Provide chapter information
- Come up with an epsiode cover
- Put together the episode's page on the site
- Ballpit/Mastodon/etc
That can, at times, be cumbersome, and if AI could whip up a good enough image, that seemed like an efficiency gain. It was a decision that I took lightly at the time, but eventually was hearing the disappointment from others.
The fanart section was built as a tribute to a part of our audience I do value and appreciate. Visual artists listen to The F Plus and occasionally send me drawings, and I really love that. Further, I am sympathetic to the idea that computer generated images are predicated on using other peoples' work to make them unnecesary in the process. I get this, I write code for a living. This is at the very least something worth reconsideration and good-faith discussion.
In the case of episode images, it's not a matter of an artist being replaced with AI, but rather if the image sourcing method can allow for AI into the process. Meaning that my general tactic was to try to find royalty free images and work around them, then shifting to generating my own images and work around those. However, the result remains: A trend towards images that have that AI stink to them, and perhaps (although this might be gradiose) another signal that this sort of thing is okay.
Having explained the past, let me describe the potential future.
After talking about it a bit, we've started to adopt a policy of an episode image creator. That is, in the same way that an episode needs an editor, it should also have a person whose responsibilty it is to create the cover image. Our two most recent episodes 406 and 407 follow this standard, with cover images being created by Portaxx and Dyna Moe respectively. Neither of them were paid for this, and that also has to be part of the standard. Structurally, we operate the show as a zero profit pastime, we simply don't have money to pay anyone for their time, and only the money we do have is meant for fixed costs. Which is one way of telling you: Both Portaxx and Dyna Moe are terrific artists, I support any endeavor that would get them paid, and I appreciate them volunteering the effort.
Going forward, I want to avoid being reliant on AI images, we have a plan for doing that, and we'll do whatever we can to try to keep that from further fucking up our already fucked up schedule.
1: Personally, I think 224, 249, 258 and 335 are all pretty good
2: Bad examples? Let's see, probably 235, 218, 318, and 395 could all be better