David J. Lee is Chief Working Officer (COO) and Chief Monetary Officer (CFO) for WEBTOON Leisure, the place he oversees international company, monetary and operations groups for WEBTOON, Wattpad, and Wattpad WEBTOON Studios. Mr. Lee can be serving on the boards of WEBTOON Leisure. A seasoned shopper and expertise business govt, he brings over 25 years of expertise throughout a wide range of finance management roles.
Previous to WEBTOON, David was the CEO of Inevitable Tech whereas serving on public firm boards for AppHarvest, Benson Hill, and Zevia. Beforehand, he was the COO & CFO of Unimaginable Meals, the place he efficiently led the corporate’s launch of the Unimaginable Burger and its nationwide distribution.
WEBTOON is the world’s largest digital comics platform, house to a few of the largest artists, IP, and fandoms in comics. As the worldwide chief and pioneer of the cellular webcomic format, WEBTOON has revolutionized the comics business for comedian followers and creators. Right now, a various new technology of worldwide comedian artists have discovered a house on WEBTOON, the place the corporate’s storytelling expertise permits anybody to turn into a creator and construct a world viewers for his or her tales.
How does WEBTOON strategy the moral improvement of AI, notably in gentle of issues from artists about AI doubtlessly changing human creativity?
At WEBTOON, our strategy to AI is centered round enhancing, not changing, human creativity. Creators are on the heart of every part we do – their success is our success. Because of this, it’s essential that we prioritize moral AI improvement to make sure our instruments assist creators with out undermining their inventive imaginative and prescient or livelihood. We use AI to spice up productiveness, improve creativity and safeguard creators’ work. With over 24 million creators globally, our mission is to democratize storytelling and assist Creators generate income, not automate the artistic course of.
Are you able to elaborate on how instruments like Shaper and Constella are designed to help creators with out compromising their inventive integrity? What particular suggestions from creators led to the event of those instruments?
First off, these are instruments nonetheless in improvement. Once we’re constructing new expertise to assist the artistic course of, it’s essential that we take our time, seek the advice of with creators, and perceive how these improvements can truly make their lives simpler.
Like all of our instruments, Shaper and Constella have been constructed with a creator-first mindset. We all know that our creators dedicate great quantities of time to creating webcomics for readers to take pleasure in, and these instruments may also help streamline their course of, with out compromising the distinctive inventive type of every creator. For instance, lots of our creators have indicated that their biggest ache level is the repetitive sketching concerned in serialized content material, like when a personality modifications a pose or clothes and the artist wants to start out the sketch from scratch. Whereas nonetheless within the testing part, Shaper permits creators to construct 3D character fashions to be able to change a personality’s poses seamlessly and with out the necessity to sketch every pose. One other experimental product, Constella, powered by proprietary AI expertise, will enable conversion of those 3D character fashions in varied poses to pure wanting 2D characters within the creator’s personal drawing type. Used collectively, creators can considerably scale back drawing time in comparison with handbook strategies. And as creators are free-up from a few of the labor intensive duties that go into making a webcomic, we’re empowering them to spend extra time storytelling and creating the wealthy and distinctive worlds that readers love.
With AI being more and more built-in into artistic workflows, how does WEBTOON be sure that artists’ mental property is protected, particularly within the context of AI-generated content material?
Defending creators’ IP is one among our prime priorities. Our AI-powered anti-piracy device, Toon Radar, actively combats unauthorized use of our creators’ work by embedding invisible person identification information into webcomic photos to assist block unlawful uploads. Along with our AI-powered anti-piracy work on the platform, we additionally led the cost in preventing piracy in 2024, taking authorized motion towards pirate websites all around the world.
How are WEBTOON’s AI fashions educated? Are there measures in place to make sure that the AI instruments do not inadvertently use artwork or content material from creators with out consent?
This can be a nice query and actually will get to the core of our moral and Creator-centric strategy to innovation. We’ve educated our AI fashions utilizing information units which might be within the public area or licensed underneath artistic widespread licenses. As a matter of firm coverage, we don’t use WEBTOON titles to coach our AI fashions with out creator consent. It’s additionally essential to notice that we don’t promote any person or content material information to 3rd events to coach AI fashions.
How do you see AI evolving within the artistic business? Do you envision AI ultimately changing into an indispensable device for artists, or are there issues about it lowering the necessity for human enter?
There’s an extended historical past of expertise altering how folks create. It wasn’t that way back that comedian artists did all of their work on paper pages. However right now most artists use some form of digital sketching device.
We take into consideration that sort of technological evolution after we’re constructing new instruments. Artwork and human imaginative creation and storytelling are why we exist as an organization. Our founder Junkoo Kim began WEBTOON as a result of he’s a passionate lifelong fan of comedian artwork and artists. So something we do goes to assist these issues: we’re right here to assist folks make and share unimaginable artwork.
Nevertheless it’s additionally clear that AI goes to have a significant impression on each business – and the way corporations strategy AI can be seen as a selection between utilizing this expertise to decrease or uplift artistic communities. Whereas expertise could possibly assist sure repetitive or time-sensitive duties, the guts of creation – storytelling, originality, and a webcomic creators’ artists type – will all the time come from people. At WEBTOON, our aim is to make sure that we’re investing in AI expertise that helps creators, whereas protecting the artistic course of firmly of their palms.
With instruments like Shaper and Constella lowering drawing time, how does WEBTOON preserve a stability between bettering effectivity for artists and preserving the distinctiveness of their work?
This is a vital problem for us and for all Inventive Industries. A comic book is a gigantic quantity of labor, and it’s arduous to really perceive what goes right into a web page. A reader sees a number of panels, some dialogue, and delightful photos. However all of that takes plenty of effort and time! Coloring is a job unto itself in making comics. That stunning web page exploding with colour doesn’t simply occur. It’s an extended, exact, and deliberate course of. If we may also help make that course of simpler for a Creator and scale back time spent, that’s a win.
That is the sort of mindset we deliver to all of our improvements. In truth, we’re at present experimenting with an AI Painter Software, that’s aimed toward lowering coloring time. All of our improvements are about offering instruments that may make a creator’s life simpler, so it may be simpler for artists to make artwork and inform tales. Shaper and Constella assist in comparable methods, making creators’ processes simpler and lowering how a lot time they spend on completely different elements of their storytelling.
In what methods do you imagine AI may also help artists push the boundaries of their creativity? Are you able to share examples the place AI has already led to sudden inventive improvements?
That’s actually not how we take into consideration AI. Artists already make universes with their work. We host tens of millions of comics on our platform and the creativity I’ve seen is boundless. Creativity doesn’t want AI to assist it push boundaries, and we depart artwork to artists.
However AI and expertise can assist an artist’s course of, and that’s the place we could be useful. If we may also help an artist scale back the period of time they need to spend on part of their work that appears like work, that’s an awesome consequence and use case for AI and the strategy we’re taking at WEBTOON.
Past Shaper and Constella, how do you see AI shaping the way forward for WEBTOON’s platform and the broader artistic business? Are there any upcoming AI initiatives you may share?
Past creator productiveness, we all know that AI goes to play an enormous position in the way forward for content material discovery. WEBTOON continues to speculate on this space and we lately launched a brand new model of our AI-powered content material suggestion mannequin in Korea, which notably elevated person engagement within the months following its launch. Greater reader engagement helps artists thrive, obtain widespread assist, and make a residing doing what they love. Utilizing AI to succeed in followers in higher methods additionally helps construct fan communities and, doubtlessly, opens doorways to different variations on Netflix, and many others.
With AI persevering with to advance, many artists are involved about being changed or their work being stolen. How does WEBTOON plan to handle these issues and foster a collaborative relationship between expertise and creators?
Everywhere in the artistic industries, artists are involved about misuse and theft of their mental property. And like TV, movie, and different artistic industries, as webcomics have grown in reputation, so has piracy on-line. Webcomics take vital quantities of time and dedication to provide, so it’s extremely disheartening when these supplies are stolen on the artist’s expense. We have now all the time been dedicated to safeguarding artists’ rights, which incorporates stringent insurance policies and technological options – like Toon Radar – that actively combats unauthorized use of our creators’ work.
To foster collaboration, we see AI as a device for our artists, not a alternative. AI can tackle repetitive duties or assist streamline manufacturing processes, permitting creators to concentrate on what actually issues—their distinctive storytelling and inventive voice. By offering AI instruments that help with duties like scene technology, colorization, and even interactive content material improvement, we intention to present creators extra time to innovate and push the boundaries of their craft.
In the end, our aim is to construct a future the place expertise enhances creativity, with creators firmly answerable for their inventive imaginative and prescient, and AI as an enabler of recent prospects somewhat than a risk.
Thanks for the nice interview, readers who want to be taught extra ought to go to WEBTOON.
