Review of Drawn to Extinction

One of the best books I’ve read in recent years

And I read a lot, so I don’t say that lightly

There’s a difference between a book that makes you nod briefly and consider something else, and a book where you sit there nodding like a toy dog on the dashboard of a car covering thirty miles of bad track on punctured tyres.

AI is a contentious issue at the best of times, particularly in the field of creativity.  I have friends on both sides of the equation, those who all but evangelise the benefits of AI, and those who would happily pour their drink into the computer in the manner of RJ Macready if it would prevent one more piece of badly prompted artwork from reaching the world.

This book is a series of thought pieces about what actual creators think about AI and the nature of how it has changed the landscape.  More than that though, because we’ve all heard the arguments on both sides of the story, and regurgitating those would make for a very dull read, but this book doesn’t do that.  Everyone gets a short essay in which they give their perspective, their thoughts, and more importantly, their feelings on the matter.

“Asking if AI could create a good comic is like asking if a jukebox writes songs.  It plays what it has been fed, but it can’t feel the room.”

Dredd, at the start of the America Storyline

On the subject of if something is written by AI

“A glimpse of a future in which artists are trapped in a perpetual cycle of proving their own humanity.”

On the nature of human creativity

“AI will never be the reason that someone changes their life and all comic nerds have been infected by a panel that never leaves them.” 

This statement for me is something I’d never considered, and yet I have four comics in my study, each of them older than my son, preserved carefully in each case because of the message that I read in them when I was young, two of which I've copied a page from.

Marshall Law, mourning the death of Lynne, the woman he loves.

“As of November 2025 there are more AI generated pieces of content on the internet than human ones…”

On the one hand, some part of me expected to hear that, on the other hand, that it’s now a fact is somehow worse.

The Author of the book has openly worked in AI for many years and is well respected in those circles, so it’s not that he’s solicited the opinions of people who would innately be sympathetic to what he’s done previously, but rather actively sought the opinions of everyone.  The telling point of this book and the reason why it speaks clearly to those of a creative nature, is that every story in here, every essay, doesn’t speak of hatred for AI, it speaks of fear, and not just fear of AI taking their jobs, although that is something that all of us have had to contend with.

Fear for the future…

The work that went before is what trained AI to do what it does, but there will never be something that exists from AI that didn’t exist before, not without human assistance, you can regurgitate, but not innovate, and while the works produced by AI are undoubtedly impressive, they lack a human touch.  Some will say that the human that wrote the prompt is the human touch, but all they’re doing it reaching out to use another humans work do to it for them. 

That’s not creativity, that’s commissioning without paying…

The wholly human message coming from these pages is heartening, from our dismay to our contempt, to in some cases our admiration for the emergent genie, every angle is considered. In particular that the younger generations will abandon effort and creativity on the forecourt of ease and speed.

This book is one that every creative, established or prospective, should investigate.

Thanks to the author for the free copy in return for the review, as always, my thoughts and words are my own, and in the face of this particular book, that is most important, no incentives were offered or accepted.