David J. Lee is Chief Working Officer (COO) and Chief Monetary Officer (CFO) for WEBTOON Leisure, the place he oversees world 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 client and expertise trade government, 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 Unattainable Meals, the place he efficiently led the corporate’s launch of the Unattainable Burger and its nationwide distribution.
WEBTOON is the world’s largest digital comics platform, house to among the largest artists, IP, and fandoms in comics. As the worldwide chief and pioneer of the cellular webcomic format, WEBTOON has revolutionized the comics trade for comedian followers and creators. At this time, a various new era 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, significantly in mild of considerations 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 all the things we do – their success is our success. Because of this, it’s essential that we prioritize moral AI improvement to make sure our instruments help creators with out undermining their creative 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 profits, not automate the inventive course of.
Are you able to elaborate on how instruments like Shaper and Constella are designed to help creators with out compromising their creative integrity? What particular suggestions from creators led to the event of those instruments?
First off, these are instruments nonetheless in improvement. After we’re constructing new expertise to help the inventive course of, it’s vital 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 had been constructed with a creator-first mindset. We all know that our creators dedicate super quantities of time to creating webcomics for readers to take pleasure in, and these instruments might help streamline their course of, with out compromising the distinctive creative type of every creator. For instance, a lot of our creators have indicated that their best ache level is the repetitive sketching concerned in serialized content material, like when a personality adjustments a pose or clothes and the artist wants to begin the sketch from scratch. Whereas nonetheless within the testing section, Shaper permits creators to construct 3D character fashions in an effort 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 permit conversion of those 3D character fashions in numerous poses to pure trying 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 among 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 inventive 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 in all our high priorities. Our AI-powered anti-piracy instrument, Toon Radar, actively combats unauthorized use of our creators’ work by embedding invisible person identification knowledge 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 in opposition to pirate websites all around the world.
How are WEBTOON’s AI fashions skilled? 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?
It is a nice query and actually will get to the core of our moral and Creator-centric strategy to innovation. We’ve skilled our AI fashions utilizing knowledge units which can be within the public area or licensed beneath inventive frequent 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 vital to notice that we don’t promote any person or content material knowledge to 3rd events to coach AI fashions.
How do you see AI evolving within the inventive trade? Do you envision AI finally turning into an indispensable instrument for artists, or are there considerations about it decreasing the necessity for human enter?
There’s a protracted historical past of expertise altering how individuals create. It wasn’t that way back that comedian artists did all of their work on paper pages. However right this moment most artists use some kind of digital sketching instrument.
We take into consideration that type of technological evolution once 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 help these issues: we’re right here to assist individuals make and share unimaginable artwork.
But it surely’s additionally clear that AI goes to have a significant impression on each trade – and the way firms strategy AI will probably be seen as a alternative between utilizing this expertise to decrease or uplift inventive communities. Whereas expertise could possibly help sure repetitive or time-sensitive duties, the center of creation – storytelling, originality, and a webcomic creators’ artists type – will at all times come from people. At WEBTOON, our aim is to make sure that we’re investing in AI expertise that helps creators, whereas maintaining the inventive course of firmly of their fingers.
With instruments like Shaper and Constella decreasing drawing time, how does WEBTOON preserve a stability between bettering effectivity for artists and preserving the distinctiveness of their work?
This is a crucial difficulty for us and for all Artistic Industries. A comic book is a gigantic quantity of labor, and it’s laborious to really perceive what goes right into a web page. A reader sees a couple of panels, some dialogue, and exquisite 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 shade doesn’t simply occur. It’s a protracted, exact, and deliberate course of. If we might help make that course of simpler for a Creator and scale back time spent, that’s a win.
That is the type of mindset we carry to all of our improvements. Actually, we’re presently experimenting with an AI Painter Instrument, that’s geared toward decreasing 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 help in comparable methods, making creators’ processes simpler and decreasing how a lot time they spend on completely different components of their storytelling.
In what methods do you consider AI might help artists push the boundaries of their creativity? Are you able to share examples the place AI has already led to sudden creative improvements?
That’s actually not how we take into consideration AI. Artists already make universes with their work. We host thousands and thousands 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 help an artist’s course of, and that’s the place we might be useful. If we might help an artist scale back the period of time they must spend on part of their work that looks like work, that’s a fantastic final result 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 inventive trade? Are there any upcoming AI initiatives you may share?
Past creator productiveness, we all know that AI goes to play a giant position in the way forward for content material discovery. WEBTOON continues to take a position on this space and we lately launched a brand new model of our AI-powered content material advice mannequin in Korea, which notably elevated person engagement within the months following its launch. Larger reader engagement helps artists thrive, obtain widespread help, and make a dwelling doing what they love. Utilizing AI to succeed in followers in higher methods additionally helps construct fan communities and, doubtlessly, opens doorways to different diversifications on Netflix, and so on.
With AI persevering with to advance, many artists are involved about being changed or their work being stolen. How does WEBTOON plan to deal with these considerations and foster a collaborative relationship between expertise and creators?
Everywhere in the inventive industries, artists are involved about misuse and theft of their mental property. And like TV, movie, and different inventive industries, as webcomics have grown in recognition, 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 now have at all times 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 instrument for our artists, not a substitute. AI can tackle repetitive duties or assist streamline manufacturing processes, permitting creators to concentrate on what really issues—their distinctive storytelling and creative voice. By offering AI instruments that help with duties like scene era, colorization, and even interactive content material improvement, we purpose to present creators extra time to innovate and push the boundaries of their craft.
Finally, our aim is to construct a future the place expertise enhances creativity, with creators firmly accountable for their creative imaginative and prescient, and AI as an enabler of recent prospects quite than a risk.
Thanks for the good interview, readers who want to be taught extra ought to go to WEBTOON.
