TL;DR: I do not use AI for anything I make myself, I do not allow others to use AI for any works related to Jinji, his characters or his world (except in very minor, limited circumstances), and I expressly forbid any use of my work for AI. Anyone consuming any official Jinji the Gengar material is reminded that all materials are the property of the original artists, and may be protected by copyright.

To the best of my knowledge, no works on the Jinji the Gengar website, or any other website officially recognized as hosting official Jinji content, utilizes AI in any way. This includes, but is not limited to: All Large Language Models (LLMs), all procedural image generators including Stable Diffusion, or any other tools that could be used to generate text, image, video, or any other content.

Jinji the Gengar strictly enforces a “No AI” policy. All written works, and all storyboarding I do for comic and artwork commissions, are painstakingly typed by my own personal hand, using ideas and inspirations that I have created or identified solely from my imagination alone. While I do use some writing aids occasionally to assist with spelling, grammar or sentence flow, these tools provide only subtle guidance, or advice for corrections to my work — and all such suggestions are carefully reviewed by myself.

This anti-AI approach is also something I apply to works created by other individuals for inclusion within the official Jinji the Gengar universe, any of its canons, or any material related to such. The artists I work with are aligned with my philosophy of “no AI”, and I both trust and carefully verify no such tools are ever used in any works I accept into the official Jinji the Gengar universe. Where I receive unsolicited works, such as gift art or fan works, I carefully review and inspect the work to determine the likely presence of AI tools. A minor exception is allowed where AI has been used to generate a detail which is not a primary focus of a work and does not otherwise detract from the actual work the artist themselves has done. For example, I may permit a work where a background detail or a character name has been AI-generated, as long as I am 100% confident of the actual focus of the art, or the description and personality of said character etc, being entirely the author’s creation. In all cases, however, wherever I have any reasonable doubt that something made for me may be AI-generated or otherwise fails to align with my stated policy, I will guide the creator of said work to this policy and discuss my concerns, and will refuse to publish the work without any satisfactory resolution.

The reasons for this approach are twofold. For one, I believe that artists developing and implementing styles and nuances to call their own is a key part of the creative process, and helps create an individual and unique personality which helps make stories shine and pictures pop. By outsourcing the creative process entirely or to a significant degree to a machine, this personalization is lost. This often leads, for example, to characters that don’t feel completely fleshed out or which lack a sense of genuine human individuality. It can also lead to scenes featuring unnatural-sounding language, or a distinct lack of warmth, if the AI uses a tone that differs significantly from the author’s own.

The other issue is that AI tools, especially but not limited to those I specifically mentioned earlier, typically utilize any input given to train themselves. Providing a story, or an idea for one, to a Large Language Model allows that LLM to remember and copy that same story or idea to help guide the suggestions or creations it offers later. The problem is, this copying is indiscriminate, and typically happens without any say of the original artist what they’d like to allow to be copied or how. This has led to AI regularly being utilized to facilitate art theft: Many writers, digital and traditional artists, animators and more have seen AI being used to create art and writings that are suspiciously similar in composition, style, or tone to their own. This threatens both the livelihoods of these artists and stifles future creativity.

For both of these reasons, Jinji the Gengar not only aims never to use AI tools in his works, but also strongly desires that other people do not use his works for AI purposes either. The Jinji website contains numerous security tools and mitigations to detect and prevent scraping of content from online bots, and I reserve the right to block access to human visitors I believe have been copying content to feed into AI. All content on the Jinji website is considered property of the original artists, and appear here with the express permission of said artists. For other services where my content may appear, such as DeviantArt, I utilize any tools offered by said services to mark said content as not permitted for AI use.

Should I ever change my stance on any of these things, I will clearly communicate such at that time, and update this document accordingly.