When a comic is described as “a 40-page exploration of thinking and perceiving, a love letter to the brain (and hate mail to AI) that champions the beauty of thinking for yourself and how it is the most powerful thing you can do in the face of so-called AI” it pretty much guarantees itself a review spot at Broken Frontier. Alexandra Gallant-Lee’s Brains is a damning indictment of technology that, as we are all aware, steals human creativity without permission, attribution or compensation, devastates the environment, and is fundamentally and oppressively anti-worker in design and intent.
Gallant-Lee’s approach to Brains comes from her own reflections on how we are being sold the concept of AI as advantageous on the bizarre premise that doing less, thinking less, and knowing less is somehow something desirable. Through the on-page avatar of Frogby, a blood cell with a crush on the brain, Gallant-Lee explores ideas like the joy and humanity pf creativity and the very human thought processes that fuel it. Something that can obviously never be replicated by theft-tech like generative AI.
Brains is, as the title obviously implies, a celebration of human thinking over the plausibility generators/plagiarism machines that are being falsely forced on us an “inevitability.” It’s a deep, immersive trip into everything it is to be human. Into everything that makes our creative achievements aesthetically beautiful rather than soullessly regurgitated. It’s a testament to true consciousness over the superficial void of artificial “intelligence” and an eloquent and elegant visual essay on why we should be rejecting that existential threat on every level.
Using expressive visual metaphor and dreamy uses of applied colour Gallant-Lee takes us into a world of the mind that is connective, accessible and carefully considered. Brains is a concise and unarguable rebuttal to anyone inexplicably arguing in favour of this malevolent technology and a reminder of the joy it is to be truly human.
Alexandra Gallant-Lee (W/A) • Self-published, $6.00
Review by Andy Oliver
