Shonen Jump publisher Shueisha is launching an interactive manga recommendation service powered by AI – a concept that manga and anime fans seem quite skeptical about.
On X (formerly Twitter), Shonen Jump news hub @WSJ_manga shared a post about Shueisha's upcoming DEAIBOOKS service, designed to simplify the process of finding new manga to read. After users download the app, a virtual librarian named Aihara Pitari will help them narrow down their choices from more than 5,000 popular manga titles. While the concept is fairly simple, community members have begun discussing potential flaws — from programmed favoritism toward certain titles to explicit suggestions appear automatically in the user's feed.
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Artificial Intelligence is still a controversial topic in the Anime & Manga industry
AI is a topic of interest in the anime community for many reasons. In this case, much of the doubt stems from a lack of trust in the reliability of the AI, which can sometimes produce unexpected and/or unwanted materials. “[I] I'm a little concerned about who messed with its functionality and [leading] to annoying things like from introducing a slice of life manga to a NSFW manga. Stuff like that. Hope to be proven wrong,” wrote user X. Others have expressed similar concerns; one commenter came up with the input script, “recommend me series like My Hero Academia” and then asked the AI to give them a porn title in response. Comments like these for sees a notable lack of trust in AI technology, even when it is being used by a major publisher like Shueisha.
Other X users questioned whether the service was unfairly biased against certain brands or genres. In particular, some people worry that relatively niche genres such as boy's love or girl's love may be overlooked in favor of more famous or popular genres. “I couldn't find a suitable queer love story but here are 50 isekai,” one writer quipped. Others cite the possibility that AI will essentially contain a programmed bias towards specific game titles. “Maybe they will only recommend what they want to be featured instead of what you might like…” another wrote.
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In Japan, Shueisha's AI-powered DEAIBOOKS service will launch on April 25. However, Shueisha has not yet announced any plans to release the service internationally.
Source: X (formerly Twitter)