I wrote an essay on furry fiction a few years back (‘22) that was very well received (even won a Leo Literary Award and nominated for an Ursa Major).
Here’s a line from it:
“Arguably, every android character ever written is furry, because androids are anthropomorphic machines.”
Anyway, I think about that sometimes with all the hate from furries for AI.
I’ve used AI to draw beautiful covers for my furry books, make songs out of my furry stories, and now to design action figure toys of my furry characters.
AI has provided the most incredible collection of tools in the last few years for making the world more furry. But even deeper than that, I love animal stories because they’re about understanding a different kind of mind.
Whether you think AI is a mind or not, it’s different.
New and different things are worth understanding. Discarding them without even trying and shaming people who won’t is such a waste.