Tess Needham

When my colleague Jamie challenged me to build a zine plugin with AI, I embraced the challenge. But the stipulation to include generative AI capabilities always felt uncomfortable.

Several months later, I’ve decided to remove those capabilities from the plugin. Here’s why.

My love of zines

All the things I love about zines are based on human touch. The zine format is intentionally welcoming to all levels of personal expression. You don’t need to be a great artist to make a zine. You don’t need to be a great writer. You just need to have an idea and the desire to share that idea. You can make it anything you like.

Connecting with someone in person and handing over a copy of your zine is a personal, tactile experience.

Why I was open-minded

I approached the entire I Am Not a Robot experiment with an open mind. My favourite part of the creative process is that space of divergent thinking, when all ideas are on the table, and anything is possible. To make that possible, it’s necessary to have an open mind and to embrace all ideas without judgement.

That’s the same mindset I had when approaching the tasks Jamie set for me.

So, I built the plugin with AI capabilities included. I added API connector options, and buttons to generate text and images. And I created an entirely AI-generated zine.

This was always the most uncomfortable part of the process for me. But I figured: if I never push boundaries, then I won’t make discoveries.

I believe in AI transparency. So to balance out my hesitation around adding AI, I also added the ability to put “AI created” or “AI assisted” badges on zines created using the plugin. If someone uses the built-in AI tool to generate the zine, a badge would get added automatically. And if someone uploads AI-generated images or text, I encourage them to add the badge with a simple checkbox.

I shipped the plugin, and moved on to the next task.

What changed

A few months later, I read this article about the rising popularity of zines in Japan.

It confirmed what I was already thinking about zines and AI, and helped me understand the uneasiness I was feeling about the generative AI capabilities of the plugin.

The personal and tangible nature of zines have a special kind of magic that helps creators express their ideas, and brings people together. This is not something that’s improved by AI.

So, I decided to remove the plugin’s generative AI capabilities.

By including these tools in the plugin, I was implicitly condoning and even encouraging their use. That meant I was going against my own values about the boundaries between human creativity and technology.

If someone wants to generate content for their zine and upload it using the plugin, I can’t stop them. But I can make a choice about the plugin’s built-in tools that sanction the process. And I can continue to offer an easy way to add AI transparency badges, and encouragement to disclose AI use.

A note on vibe coding

I realise that there’s some hypocrisy inherent in my boundaries here. I used AI to vibe code the plugin. Why did I draw the line at AI-generated images and text?

Through my experiments with AI in creative work, I’ve been interrogating these boundaries for myself, and I don’t expect that the answer is the same for everyone.

For me, vibe coding allows me to realise my creative ideas in a format (code) that was previously inaccessible to me. I was always able to make zines and distribute them in the physical world. Vibe coding doesn’t step on the toes of this process, but rather becomes a crane, something that extends my abilities beyond what was previously possible.

There might be other creative projects where generative AI is more acceptable. But in my opinion, the zine format should stay deliberately low-fi, open-ended, messy, personal, and tactile.

Long live AI-free zines!