Stephen King Compared AI Art to Emojis, and His Own Fans Aren't Having It

2 hours ago 9

Published Sep 16, 2026, 2:28 PM EDT

Nick Bythrow is a Lead Writer for ScreenRant. He has been writing for the site since September 2022. He graduated from Hampshire College in 2022, where he triple majored in Journalism, Communications, and Media Studies. When he's not writing about TV and movies for ScreenRant and his blog, Frayed Branches, Nick is penning speculative fiction and poetry on Amazon. He lives outside Boston, Massachusetts.

Stephen King's fans aren't happy with the author's use of AI.

The horror icon has compared AI art to emojis after casually using it for a social media post, causing friction between him and his fans. On September 11, 2026, King released an AI image of his dog, Molly, across multiple social media channels. His post on Threads garnered significant criticism from fans, who criticized him for his use of "AI slop" despite being a wealthy figure in a creative field. He later doubled down on September 12, the horror author telling Threads that he found the image "cute."

This all came to a head on September 13, when King tripled down on his use of an AI image of Molly for a meme on his social media accounts. The horror creator explained how, despite his use of AI, he was not "pro-AI," describing his employment of it for the meme as "no different than using an emoji." He also stated that claiming AI work was created by a single human "is just plagiarism." This, too, resulted in a number of angry comments about his stance and use of AI for the image.

The conversation spread beyond the bounds of places like X and Threads, too. One Reddit thread on r/stephenking racked up 1,200 upvotes and over 500 comments, discussing his AI image of Molly. While some were unhappy with King's use of AI, the conversation for top comments mostly centered around the reaction. However, in all social media locations, there was a common trend of people explaining why King's use of AI upset them, namely, stating a writer who writes for a living shouldn't be promoting tools trained on, by his own admission, other people's work.

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King's "emoji" comment on September 13 caused the deepest reaction from people, with the overwhelming sentiment being that, despite his innocent intentions, the horror author was setting a dangerous precedent for the writing community. Nateinthewild explained how the content used for AI is, to some extent, theft, since AI artwork is used by software without the permission of creators. Karen Hallion explained how generative AI art harms artists by effectively making people question whether something is real or AI-generated.

The biggest reason fans are unhappy with the Carrie author is because of his treatment of generative AI as interchangable with a shorthand expressive image. As commenters point out, King is misinformed about how generative AI impacts creative fields, and how the generation of an image such as this can be damaging to his treatment of creative labor. It also showcases a gap between him and his audience regarding AI, the horror icon's decades of creative history not making up for his adoption of tools that make it more difficult for newcomers to the field.

While it seems like King has no ill intention with his use of AI, his misinformed viewpoint and subsequent emoji comparison is a sentiment that contrasts with his prolific contributions to the creative world. Tripling down has only made fans angrier, mostly because the framing negates the real damage AI has done to creative industries like writing and drawing. The fan objections indicate a widening divide between horror icons and online fanbases, since it appears King has no plans of mentioning the generative art of Molly any further.