How We Illustrate Tech (and AI) at The Markup – The Markup

Learn this zine with photos. We used this weblog submit as a information to writing a transcript that will make this comedian extra accessible.

Cowl illustration that includes panels of tough pencil sketches of illustrations that The Markup has printed. The middle of the quilt has the header textual content “How We Illustrate Textual content (and AI) at” in its personal bubble. Beneath that’s The Markup emblem in a speech bubble. On the high and backside of the quilt are the Chinese language characters 標記 which translate to “The Markup.”

Panel 1: A manga-inspired drawing of Gabriel Hongsdusit, an Asian man with quick black hair and glasses. He says, “Hello!”

Panel 2: “I’m Gabe Hongsdusit, and I’m a visible designer at The Markup, an investigative journalism nonprofit that challenges know-how to serve the general public good.”

Panel 3:  “Many occasions, we uncover issues that can’t be seen by the bare eye.” Beneath is an illustration of a manga-style eye, with sparkles and pronounced eyelashes.

Panel 4:  “Illustration helps us talk the unseen…”

Panel 1: “Take this story a couple of scoring system in Los Angeles that decided who received backed housing.”

Panel 2: An illustration of a Black lady pushing up in opposition to an enlarged sq. with the quantity seven on it. There’s a White particular person strolling over the squares as steps within the background. On every sq. are survey questions.

Panel 3: “This illustration by Brian Britigan tied collectively numerous summary ideas that didn’t naturally have visuals:”

Panel 4: The phrase “racism” written over a close-up picture of the Black lady from the earlier illustration.

Panel 5: The phrase “entry to sources” written over a close-up picture of the White particular person strolling away on squares.

Panel 6: The phrase “…and the easy algorithm that affected all the pieces” written over a close-up picture of one of many squares displaying a quantity seven.

Panel 1: “To assist folks perceive our tales, we use 4 themes and motifs.”

Panel 2:  The header textual content “Palms” above an illustration of a hand, with the finger and thumb pressed collectively like a snap to kind a coronary heart form. There’s a little coronary heart icon floating above it.

Panel 3:  The header textual content “Humor and Pop Tradition” above an illustration of a distorted cartoon mouse with buck enamel.

Panel 4:  The header textual content “Characters” above an illustration of a cartoon face with pie eyes (the pupils are formed like a pie with one slice faraway from it) and pronounced eyelashes. The face has a large button nostril and smile.

Panel 5 : The header textual content “World-building” above an illustration of an open door resulting in a winding street and clouds.

Panel 1: “There aren’t a number of alternatives for pictures once you report on tech.”

Panel 2: The header textual content “Grey constructing in Silicon Valley” above an illustration of a constructing.

Panel 3: The header textual content “Senator/tech oligarch, often White and male” above an illustration of a headless go well with and tie.

Panel 4: The header textual content “Whistleblower who doesn’t wish to be photographed” above an illustration of a turtle hiding in its shell.

Panel 5: “Palms present that individuals are behind establishments, corporations, and applied sciences. The tech doesn’t exist with out them, and it’s the choices made by folks that we wish to maintain accountable.”

Panel 6: Illustration of a grayed-out net browser displaying a hospital portal. A white hand behind it’s pulling off a strip of the browser and drugs are falling out of that strip. There’s a blue glow behind the sting of the browser window.

Panel 1: “Different occasions, the subject material in our tales isn’t that visually compelling.”

Panel 2: The header textual content “UI Kind” above an illustration of 4 clean fields on high of a button that claims “submit.”

Panel 3: The header textual content “Backend Code” above an illustration of the code symbols “<…>.”

Panel 4: The header textual content “Pc Servers” above an illustration of a pc server.

Panel 5: “A straight-up picture of any of these issues received’t make you wish to click on on the story.

So, we frequently use humor and cultural references to make artwork that’s fascinating. Our deal with tech accountability doesn’t imply that we are able to’t have enjoyable.”

Panel 6: Illustration of an Italian plumber racing automobiles in opposition to an evil turtle. The plumber is lagging behind and has a low Wi-Fi image above his head. The turtle is forward of the race and has the complete Wi-Fi image.

Panel 1: “Typically we combine digital parts into our illustrations and it really works properly.”

Panel 2: Illustration of the close-up of a browser window.

Panel 3: Illustration of a spherical add button, with an up arrow declaring of a three-sided rectangular line.

Panel 4: Illustration of a chat bubble.

Panel 5: Illustration of a location pin.

Panel 6: “Illustrations of browser home windows get stale actual quick. Creating characters helps clean up our aesthetic (and like humor, it could make our work extra enjoyable and accessible).”

Panel 7: An illustration displaying a black-tentacled creature chasing a blue cursor with googly eyes.

Panel 8: An illustration displaying water droplets falling from a faucet and sporting ChatGPT headsets.

Panel 9: An illustration of a sq. weather-app character sporting purple footwear. There’s a close-up vignette on the facet of it displaying a purple pin protruding of it.

Panel 10: An illustration of a yellow octopus peeking out of an summary construction.

Panel 11: An illustration of a smiling pink vacuum character.

Panel 12: An illustration of a puzzled character with a spherical face, behind a pc monitor.

Panel 1: “We report lots on practices that occur on a display.”

Panel 2: The header textual content “Take this story about digital advert auctions, which occur on-line inside milliseconds,” written over an illustration of an auctioneer at a lectern presenting person knowledge within the type of a hologram to an viewers of advertisers.

Panel 3: “Illustrations for subjects like this are sometimes conceptual inventory photos. Boring! As an alternative, we used illustrations to create a brand new world that helps you see the narrative: A crowd of jelly bean characters bidding in an underground public sale.”

Panel 4: An illustration of an advertiser character inserting the profitable bid. The character is sporting a badge displaying a teal and purple capsule and holding up a paddle.

Panel 5: An in depth-up picture of a person hologram with floating icons and textual content across the head (“Taylor Swift”).

Panel 6: An illustration of a banner unfurling over a picture placeholder to disclose the commercial: a teal and purple capsule.

Panel 1: “The ability of illustration is that you just’re not restricted to the bodily world…”

Panel 2: The textual content “You possibly can conjure new environment that assist talk a story” is written over a darkish background.

Panel 3: An illustration of two folks strolling right into a laptop computer display, which has a number of folks inside it engaged on numerous screens. The Markup emblem seems on the high.

Panel 4: An illustration of scientists analyzing a wall with containers of  human heads. Some scientists have clipboards, others are selecting up the heads off the cabinets.

Panel 1: “This method additionally applies to AI. Once we consider illustrating AI, robots instantly come to thoughts…”

Panel 2: An illustration of a robotic hand.

Panel 3: An illustration of an anime-style robotic.

Panel 4: An illustration of a robotic foot.

Panel 5: “However robots obscure the truth that AI is created and utilized by people.”

Panel 6: An illustration of a girl, together with her left hand holding her elbow. Subsequent to her are magnifying glasses displaying a close-up of her X-ray, however the picture dissolves into pixels.

Panel 1: “Julien Posture, who writes a weekly publication on visible tradition, wrote this spot-on quote:”

Panel 2: “From abuse of underpaid labour in post-colonial settings to the objectification of individuals’s lives and work as ‘knowledge’ to the extraction of uncommon minerals to energy more and more demanding computational wants, AI runs not on sci-fi futuristic utopia however on the appropriation of at this time’s world’s materials and human sources.”

Panel 3: ”It could really feel like we’re residing in end-times for artists when AI, educated on photos with out consent from their creators, can conjure up new photos inside seconds.”

Panel 4: “However our hope is to make use of illustration to carry PEOPLE and the choices they’ve made by AI and different types of know-how accountable.”