kristy bowen | horror writer & book artist

The first time I encountered AI generated images was in the fall of 2022. I was in Rockford when my dad was in the hospital and my brother -n-law was sharing funny images on his phone  (I'm pretty sure they were silly cats..lol..) and the tech seemed rife with potential, especially in creative capacities. By mid 2023, there were rumblings about the generators--both good and bad, and their base operations being entirely driven by existing content on the internets, which many artists were bucking against as stolen materials. Others were fearing the sociopolitical ramifications of fraudulent images and video that seemed a real possibility with these platforms.  Others were simply using the software and making funny headshots and photos. I even saw a few creators who embraced it wholeheartedly, a couple artists who already worked in digital media, and a handful of horror content creators that I grew to really like making pretty cool and spooky stuff. Horror, I've found is already ...