WACOM, a Japanese brand for graphics tablets and other related products, got blasted on social media for using an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated imagery of a Chinese dragon for their 2024 promo banner for the Intuos Pen Tablet.
The promo banner was busted as ‘robotized’ when a certain Manga artist, Sonia Leong, pinpointed the “obvious AI bits” that would not be done by human artists who actually know how to draw Chinese style of dragons.
Leong discussed in the post how the imagery was edited effortlessly with ‘mis-positioned’ parts of the dragon such as its tail, fur, hair, or spikes, as well as its changed scale types and ubiquitous white bits of the background relics—which, as per her, Wacom users and artists can easily cover or delete. She also virtually laughed about the AI’s imagery ratio, feeling disappointed by the whole ‘robotized; dragon.
The surfacing issue garnered various reactions from social media users, dominantly showing disappointment in using Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the advertisement, in lieu of hiring a real and professional artist.
Artists’ supporters and artists themselves called out this ironic and ‘lazy’ act.
Wacom using AI is the wildest so far, they stand to lose the most from AI images. Who is going to buy your tablets if industry artists dwindle and kids grow up believing the art process is an inconvenience? They should be fighting tooth and nail against AI
— la la lyssa 💛CR Spoilers (@lalalyssh) January 6, 2024
I'll say it again. When you buy wacom you're paying a premium just for the brand name.
Huion and XPPen have come out with tablets of equal quality at a fraction of the price. It's 2024 and wacom hasn't realized that they're not the only tablet on the market anymore. fuck wacom
— ✦ katsuyakku ✦ | illust 🐓 (@Katsuyakku_) January 7, 2024
The saddest part of all of this to me is they didn’t even try to hide it, which means nobody among the Wacom marketing team knows a flying fuck about art enough to say “maybe we should at least try to polish this monstrosity”
It’s sort of insane to me the amount of ??? In it pic.twitter.com/JwUe6yA5aJ— Hina✨ (@Hinahaii) January 7, 2024
Great job @wacom for using AI generated image for your latest marketing campaign. For a company built on the the visual arts industry this ad feels akin to shooting yourself in the foot. Doubly disheartening as a Chinese seeing the dragon used in this way. pic.twitter.com/mjuV0y5zdz
— Hanzhong Wang (@ww123td) January 6, 2024
So in a nutshell, Wacom saved a couple bucks by using Ai instead of hiring an artist for their ad campaign but likely lost tens of thousands of loyal customers for it.
Genius move! I hope other companies take note ✍️ pic.twitter.com/DCyyR9iGLS
— Jonas Jödicke (@JoJoesArt) January 6, 2024
So Wacom wants to promote and encourage creativity to their artist community by not hiring an actually creative artist for their ads but using AI instead. The irony? This shit cannot be made up. pic.twitter.com/XJI1I6cOuX
— kimmy⁷ draws (@kimmy_art0912) January 7, 2024
Wacom hastily deleting their posts and hoping this blows over before they have to make an embarrassing statement about it. pic.twitter.com/LI6MbYTiNU
— Katch (@Katchdraws) January 7, 2024
yeah #wacom pic.twitter.com/0FwRj6zZMX
— Charo Miami 🌴🦩 ⮂ WastelandWeekend 🏜️ (@Charo_Miami) January 7, 2024
Everyone lookin' at Wacom rn. pic.twitter.com/SjUx2UEkv8
— Philtomato 🍅 (@otagoth) January 7, 2024
https://twitter.com/vashperado/status/1744418858964840474?s=20
what does Wacom expect to happen??
The lazy AI people will start buying their tablets and ACTUALLY start working on drawings themselves ??? pic.twitter.com/8SgjEBVLiy— ✨Charmu✨VGen Open (@charmilling_) January 8, 2024
….. and it starts the fall. pic.twitter.com/yDM91IKvrI
— Navid Lancaster (@navidlancaster) January 7, 2024
The original post of the ad posted via X (formerly known as Twitter) has been deleted by the brand itself.
On January 9, Wacom released an official statement, clarifying that it was not their intention to use AI-generated images. They went on to provide details about why the unfortunate incident occurred.
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