Artists use AI to create the fat, black characters they claim sci-fi, fantasy 'worlds are lacking'

Artificial intelligence (AI) artists are taking to the digital space to create "fat, black, and queer" characters for the sci-fi and fantasy space. In a report from Buzzfeed, AI creators discussed why they feel there is a need for this type of representation. 

One of the artists, Alex Smith, 47, said he was immersed in everything sci-fi growing up saying,  it "is kinda like my church." He said it connects to him spiritually, he noticed that it doesn’t have much "Black (or queer) representation."

Talking about "fat" representation Smith said, "It just astonishes me that fat people in general are treated and depicted as second-class citizens in science fiction works, or they're made to represent something like greed, lust, or villainy."

Smith told a story of a time he was looking for a guest reader for his reading series Laser Life, and the first story he received "depicted a villain who was fat. The character's fatness was described in loathsome terms and was considered an obvious indicator of their villainy. It’s really disappointing."

Smith went on to create a fat, black, queer character named Marcus, who he described as "kind of a smart alec. A big, cuddly nerd who thinks he’s a little bit gangster. He likes studying moths and ants and tries to see what about the lives of insects can be replicable in human life." Smith said he created Marcus to show sci-fi creators that "hey this is what your worlds are lacking."

Another artist, 38-year-old Jervae, creates art of fat black people using the Discourd-based AI program Midjourney. She said, "It sort of sucks to know you are undesirable and underrepresented in the real world and the fantasy world as well." 

Jervae noted that she has to be as specific as possible when using AI because the system automatically wants to make characters thin. She said "When I first started recreating myself in Midjourney, I realized that I couldn’t just put in the word ‘fat.’ I have to write things like ‘very, very fat, with a double chin and wide nose’ and ‘a very, very large belly.’" if she used "anything like ‘beautiful’ or ‘pretty,’ it automatically makes me thin and/or have eurocentric features."

The Buzzfeed report claimed that the AI generators may be "imperfect and rooted in white supremacy" but the artist saw them as "important tools for self-expression and proper representation."