Can AI replace manga artists in Japan? - Asia Specific podcast, BBC World Service

Recently, there's been a lot of buzz around AI tools which can turn you. into an anime character within seconds. Many users love it, but the technology is unnerving many of Japan's manga creators. The animation style is one of the country's most distinctive cultural exports, but some say the jobs of those who created are now under threat. Many of Japan's major publishing companies. accuse tech companies of copyright infringement. Illustrators worry about losing income or even their jobs.

But can AI also help manga thrive? I'm Mariko in Singapore and this is Asia Specific from the BBC World Service. Twice a week we bring you Asia Pacific stories. unpacked by those who know them best. Today I have manga artist Peppe, who's originally from Italy, but he moved to Japan ten years ago. I also have Darren Boey from Unmute in the studio.

He's an AI consultant. Welcome, both. Thank you very much. Thanks for having us. Thank you for having me. I'm very happy to be here. So, Peppe, let's start with you. Tell me why you decided to become a manga artist. and why you decided to move to Japan. I always loved Japan and the manga culture. and anime culture since I was a kid in Italy, and as soon as I discovered manga, I started drawing every day, making my own and little by little getting better.

And it was right around the time when you would have to choose. which university you want to want to go to in Italy. And I said, all in, I'm just going to go and study Japanese. and I want to study Japanese, and then I moved to Japan. And that's pretty much what happened. Well, you made it. You're now an established manga artist in Japan. And I want to ask you about what was your reaction to AI, because there's been quite a lot of buzz around it, especially when those AI tools can just turn people.

into kind of an anime character within seconds. What was your initial reaction when you saw that? I think, unanimously, everybody that creates art for for a living, it's not very happy to, you know, to realise that your job can be, can become the job of a machine in one day. But I can also, rationally, think about it more deeply.

and realise that it can become a useful tool in a way. I think it's all going to be about the way you're going to use it. Yeah. I actually spoke to somebody from the Manga Research Institute. His name is Takashi Kikuchi. And it's interesting because he basically said that the majority. of manga artists seem to be quite negative on the AI. So let's hear what he had to say. I can't think of any manga artists in Japan.

who openly support AI. Among the country's top creators, there is no consensus view and opinions are split. Some say their existence is threatened, while others are waiting to see if AI can be a useful tool. But on generative AI that learns published content like manga, the vast majority of them have very negative views on it, especially because they fear that their manga might be used. to train AI without their permission. That's theft. When OpenAI's Sora 2 was launched, for a couple of days,

a lot of content that it produced resembled Japanese content or images. like Nintendo's Mario, Pokemon, or manga such as Dragon Ball and Demon Slayer. That's when Japan's major publishers called. for OpenAI to stop using their creative works, or else they take action against copyright infringement. As for whether AI will result in job losses, illustrators are more concerned because their roles could be replaced.

So Darren, he was just talking about. possible job losses that illustrators manga artists are worried about. I guess the other big concern for the industry is copyright infringement. And Japanese publishing companies, they've pretty much made it clear. that they're not happy with generative AI. Can you just tell us where all these tech companies stand when it comes. to AI and copyright infringement? Yeah, I mean, what's happening in Japan,

it's not only a highly localised issue, right? Like, there is a almost a global push from all sides. of the creative industry against how AI is being used. So at least certainly in Japan, anyway, there already is a move. that's underfoot or underway, I should say, led by CODA, which is the Content Offshore Distribution Association. Now, they're leading a whole bunch of manga producers. to essentially looking for more transparency.

in how they're using manga to train the models. So I don't think, as I understand it, there's nothing. there's nothing punitive that's being suggested at this point. It's more a kind of like a show cause. Right? Like, let's have a conversation about what's going on. We want to understand how you guys are using it. What's been the reaction from OpenAI and other tech companies? Are they addressing this issue at the moment? There are a number of proactive steps, I guess the frontier models. So we're talking OpenAI, Anthropic Gemini.

and so on are taking in this regard. Some of them like OpenAI and Anthropic are pursuing licensing deals. So they are actually trying to go out and like saying, okay, fine, we will pay you so that we can use your primary information, your proprietary information to train our databases. So that's one thing. The other thing they're saying is, well, there's no public commitment to we won't use your database.

It's very much you have to kind of police. how you let us use your information. And that's a very important distinction. Peppe, you were telling us your opinions. Is that a commonly held view? You speak to a lot of other manga artists in Japan. Are they as relaxed as you are about the impact of AI, or are there others who are a lot more concerned? I spoke to one particular person that's leading, like the group of manga artists, they're going to put more.

and more AI manga in the future. And at the moment, it's just using for backgrounds. But he told me that soon he's going to start using it just for everything. And and he's just going to write the story. So, you know, I was a little bit shocked when he told me this, but just speaking to him, I could see that, you know, makes sense for the. for the assistant, the job that you usually just let your assistant do. And I feel like if you get the opportunity to use a tool.

that will save you three days of work, anybody will be okay for you to do that. I definitely got a sense by speaking to some. in the manga industry that opinions are definitely split, and Mr. Kikuchi from the Manga Research Institute, he actually said that for adult manga, so like pornographic manga, AI generated content so everywhere. because people aren't that fussed about whether it's created by humans. So yeah, I think it's already there.

But I wonder about the positive impact of AI, because when I was doing the research, I came across quite a lot. of articles about how the Japanese government is trying to use AI. to actually find AI generated fake manga online and. also they want to use AI to translate Japanese manga into different languages. So I mean, obviously governments across the region and around the world,

they have different views on how to embrace it, endorse it, or, you know, regulate AI. But there are positives of the technology on creative industry. as well too, isn't there? Yeah. So as we know, like Japan is working on that with CODA specifically, essentially training their own AI agents to go out into the internet. and look for pirate sites and also to recognise, so they're building. their own models to recognise pirated content that's out there.

And that's something that, you know, if you go back, if you go back a decade. or maybe even longer, it used to be a very manual job, right? Like you could only take down a pirate site if you knew that it was a pirate site, and which would probably involve a lot of people, you know, a very active reporting mechanism and so on and so forth. There's very a lot of human labour. But now imagine you've got like a model that can find it instantaneously. and you can have an agent that switches off the site almost instantaneously. or blocks it, right, almost instantaneously.

I mean, that's the perfect use for this, for this kind of tech. Darren, as you said, this is not just affecting the manga industry. You know, we're talking about workers having to upskill to look. for a job with AI as your potential competition. You work in the industry, you worked in journalism, which is also having its own battle with AI. Are there quite a lot of fears, do you think, when it comes to the threat that AI imposes on human beings as employees?

Yeah. I mean, yes, the short answer. So I guess my day job, so to speak, is I work with corporate communications teams, right. Essentially helping them to learn how to use Copilot in essence. And when I go in the first meetings that I have with these teams, are you can kind of see, you can pick out the early adopters. pretty easily because they're the ones that are pretty buzzed. and they're like, they're really keen to find out from me, like, how can we use this thing to accelerate what we do?

But then you can also kind of see the ones who are who do feel a bit nervous. about it because they're not engaged with the tools. They don't know what it does, and they think. that all they're reading is, you know, stories about how, you know, doomsday and they've watched too much Terminator and so forth. Right. Here's a story for you. I mean, I picked up on LinkedIn the other day. There's one company, a startup in Silicon Valley startup. They're a LinkedIn marketing agency. That's why it kind of caught me, because there's this AI powered LinkedIn marketing agency.

that's raised, I think like ten million bucks or something US. In an age of AI, I'm like a LinkedIn marketing agency? I thought those jobs were all going to disappear, right? Until I dived into like, you know, what they're doing. And they have essentially got like a core of content strategists. literally with five agents, right? Five AI agents. And they operate these things. And that's how they go off. And they produce these things. Right. So produce their outputs. And I said to people like, guys, this is the future.

This is the future of not only of LinkedIn marketing agencies, but I think like of content creation and a lot of respects, professional outputs. Peppe, how much do you think human creation is worth compared to AI generated content? To me, making a manga, being one of the last few art forms that. can really just be done by one person, just from scratch to, you know,

a finished product can just be done by just what I did with my last one. I just did it by myself. No assistance, nobody else. Story, drawings. Everything. So, Darren. Manga written solely by Peppe himself. Alone. No AI versus AI generated manga. How much more are you going to pay for Peppe's manga? Well, I don't know what he charges for it, but I'd pay money. for his stuff, so. Thank you. The line is pretty easy for me. I mean, but, you know,

that's because I, you know, I value not everybody's the same, but I value that human creativity. Right. Like expressions of creativity. Creativity in a sense of what makes us human, or very much a part of what makes us human. And I would pay for that in the same way that, I mean, these are not hand-stitched leather shoes, but I would pay for hand-stitched leather shoes, right? So or, you know, something that a barista makes as opposed. to an espresso coffee machine. You know what I mean? So that's where I place my value.

And I'm pretty sure that a lot of people in this world would also say the same thing. Yeah, and I think I would personally pay for that as well. And I think that's that's something that a lot of creators are hoping for. Thank you so much for joining me on Asia Specific, Darren and Peppe. Thanks for having me. Thank you for having me. I Hope I was able to express my thoughts properly, even though it was a tough subject, and you know. Can I just say, I've approached quite a lot of manga artists. Everyone said that, oh, it's a bit of a sensitive, controversial subject.

I shall refrain from talking about it. But yeah. So we're really grateful that you shared your thoughts with us. Thank you so much. You've been watching Asia Specific. from the BBC World Service with me, Mariko Oi in Singapore. If you have any questions or thoughts on what we've covered in this episode. or any other stories from the region, please leave us a comment below. You can also get in touch with us on email, asiaspecific. at bbc.co.uk and you know the drill.

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