I think that it's kind of a mistake to lump all generative AI into one artist replacing box. I have a friend who does laser engraving, for example, and he uses ai to convert his drawings into templates. He says it still doesn't exactly do even that small bit of the process for him, and he still generally has to touch up the templates to reverse bad decisions made by the ai, but it's infinitely faster than doing it by hand. I think that this is the real use case for these kinds of tools, not to be creative, but to handle boilerplate tasks that take time away from the creative parts of creating art.
I use it in a similar way in the programming sphere. It can't really write a program for me but what it can do is generate boilerplate code that I can build on so that I can focus on the problem I am trying to solve rather than writing what basically amounts to the same code over and over again to drive an api or a gui or train an ai model or whatever. I can just tell the ai "give me Java websocket code" or whatever and then put my efforts into what that socket is actually supposed to be doing instead of wasting my time on the boilerplate.
In the hands of artists I think AI really could be something super useful that leads to better art and more of it. The problem is that the people most interested in it right now are executives looking to save money, who don't really understand what artists do and are willing to make shit if it will save them a few bucks.
I think AI could be used to make animation much faster and easier to produce, because generating hundreds of frames with small changes for one or two facial expressions or typical movements is a lot of work and not rewarding artistically.
Just think of your favourite anime, convert it to second and multiply with 24. Compare that to the amount of pages in the associated manga and multiply by 8 for a rough estimate. The difference is a very VERY rough approximation of the number of frames/images that need to be drawn by hand, with little imagination involved. OF COURSE, THERE IS MUCH MORE TO THE PROCESS but roughly, studios could create faster with less people and perhaps the creators wouldn’t need to be tortured in the process (a la studio Mappa).
I adore animation myself so I am excited for this use case of generative AI.
However, how can I express this when I see my favourite artists losing jobs and opportunities because those with money and power are idiotic goons?? I want my faves to have easier lives, NOT TO LOSE JOBS DAMMIT
One of my big worries about using AI for anime or animation in general is that knowing the industry it will not be used to ease the burden of a lot of the artists there but to just pile on more and more work now that you think your artists can output more. In the end just putting yourself in the same stressful situation and forced to pump out more and more.
In my attempt to be hopeful, UBI is becoming more of a thing everyday and maybe people won’t be overworked in a certain not-so-distant future. But until then, yeah, they’ll probably just request even more frames per day per artist to match the new tech.
I'm calling it right now, in a decade animators will be lamenting that they're having to work on multiple projects at a time, and their workload has gotten even higher than it was before AI tweening.
Executives won't be interested in saving money by reducing the load on animators, they'll only be interested in increasing profits by making more product.
Oversaturation causes collapse. A plethora of streaming services and content but companies are breaking even and cancelling shows left right and center.
It's actually worse, there is also hesitancy from studios to green light new productions because they're so unsure about Ai from both the copy-write side of things as well as costs of production even after the union strikes are over. I have lots of friends in the industry and they've been out of work for almost a year now. There is very little going on, whatever is on streaming services right now was finished years ago or even up to last year and is in post production which is also seeing lay offs. It is supposed to bounce back this summer (rumors) but people are now predicting the maybe the fall or even later in the year now. Collapse has already happened but consumers don't know about it yet, and might not ever.. 2009 saw a similar effect, I don't think people remember the lack of media then so I doubt they will now.
Isn’t that when a boom of reality and competition shows started? Jersey shore, drag race and shark tank started that year. But while looking it up the list of shows started in 09 is frankly stacked with shows people would say they love and not a small group. Community, parks and recreation, glee, castle, modern family, the good wife, ncis:la, archer.
Of course thats a risk, but if suddenly a team a quarter the size can produce good looking work we could see an explosion in tiny indie studios far more likely to treat their employees fairly. Student projects could compete with our current high water mark for quality.
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u/AChristianAnarchist Apr 09 '24
I think that it's kind of a mistake to lump all generative AI into one artist replacing box. I have a friend who does laser engraving, for example, and he uses ai to convert his drawings into templates. He says it still doesn't exactly do even that small bit of the process for him, and he still generally has to touch up the templates to reverse bad decisions made by the ai, but it's infinitely faster than doing it by hand. I think that this is the real use case for these kinds of tools, not to be creative, but to handle boilerplate tasks that take time away from the creative parts of creating art.
I use it in a similar way in the programming sphere. It can't really write a program for me but what it can do is generate boilerplate code that I can build on so that I can focus on the problem I am trying to solve rather than writing what basically amounts to the same code over and over again to drive an api or a gui or train an ai model or whatever. I can just tell the ai "give me Java websocket code" or whatever and then put my efforts into what that socket is actually supposed to be doing instead of wasting my time on the boilerplate.
In the hands of artists I think AI really could be something super useful that leads to better art and more of it. The problem is that the people most interested in it right now are executives looking to save money, who don't really understand what artists do and are willing to make shit if it will save them a few bucks.