7 ms·
Netflix Japan announced that it used AI-generated art in a new short anime film
- gaterin 4y agoAnimation has always been about minimizing cost and time while looking passable, and those are exactly AI's strengths.
- wilg 4y agoThe cat's out of the bag on AI art. There's gonna be regular drama about it for the next few years and then it will just become part of life. Same with other applications of AI over time.
- gjsman-1000 4y agoIt’s funny… the more I look at it, the more it seems that the prevailing sentiment regarding AI was that white-collar workers thought it would take blue-collar jobs… and now it is looking closer to the reverse.
- wpietri 4y agoI think the class component here is underrated for sure. Technology has done a lot more do destroy blue-collar jobs over the last century, and so white-collar people have been pretty chill about it. But I think you're right that we'll see a change around that. ChatGPT, for example, is pretty bad at creating excellent prose with reliable information. But it's extremely good at creating a bullshit memo that nobody will really read or act upon. And I think there are a lot of people out there with bullshit jobs that will find themselves at risk.
- wilg 4y ago> Technology has done a lot more do destroy blue-collar jobs over the last century It'd be interesting to know if this is true. My gut says it might be the opposite. Maybe many "unskilled" jobs are moved out of the U.S. for example, but that's attributable to geopolitics not technology.
- wpietri 4y agoHere's some useful data for you: https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2016/employment-by-industry-1910-and-2015.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2016/employment-by-industry-191... But note that this is only non-farm employment. Currently about 1% of the US's population works in agriculture. At around the same time, 31% of people did farm work: https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2016/article/the-life-of-american-workers-in-1915.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2016/article/the-life-of-americ... I'll note that offshoring is also driven by technological change. In particular, cheap global shipping and communication. It's true a bunch of manufacturing jobs went to places with cheaper labor. But if those jobs had stayed here, there would still be a lot less of them because our higher labor prices make it more worthwhile to spend on factory automation. Another area where technology makes a big difference is in household labor. In 1910, 14.5% people were engaged in either domestic or personal service. Now it's 1%. We owe a lot of that to things like the washing machine and the dishwasher.
- wilg 4y agoBut what happened to the people who had those blue-collar jobs? Surely they didn't all die. Did they become white-collar workers? If so, wouldn't that be a good thing?
- wpietri 4y agoSure! So far we have always found things for people to do. That's probably good. But maybe not always. We are also seeing rising inequality and increased capital concentration. So there's a risk that we might head in the direction of, say, preindustrial England, where to survive people have to labor to make the rich happy. There's also the phenomenon of bullshit jobs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs As the relationship between labor and value becomes less and less direct, it becomes easier for waste to creep in. E.g., a manger who over-hires not because the new people are needed to do anything, but because their status rises with their headcount. So hopefully as all of these white-collar workers are forced to find new employment, we will find socially positive things for them to do. But I don't think it's guaranteed.
- wilg 4y agoMakes sense – physical labor is about robotics + AI, whereas mental labor is just the AI.
- gremlinsinc 4y agoActually a lot of physical labor didn't even need AI. A lot of things are just repetitive motion, which was way easier, now we have ai, ai + better facts + robots and add the ability to ai to create/iterate better algorithms for their own ai, and you basically get us to AGI and the singularity.
- rideontime 4y agoIs animation a white-collar job?
- kitsunesoba 4y agoIn the context of the Japanese animation industry, I don't think so. Animators there are worked to the bone for a pittance and are usually contractors, so they don't even enjoy the benefits a full-time employee would. Either way I think the difference between e.g. driving and animating is the passion component. For the most part, I don't think anybody really enjoys working as a bus driver for example… in many ways it's a brutal and thankless job. By contrast people who work in animation tend to really, really love animation and pour themselves into their craft. It certainly creates problems for drivers to have their job automated away, but for the most part nobody is being denied of earning a living with their passion in the process. By replacing artists with AI you're eliminating the possibility for many artists to produce art because they're going to have to find some other kind of work which will commandeer the majority of their time and energy instead, leaving little for creative pursuits. Ideally it's the menial and mindless things that get automated, so long as the displaced workers are provided for. It's squandering of human potential on a massive scale for people to have to do those things just to exist.
- labrador 4y agoI've tried to get people to care about professional drivers over the years without success. Now that it's their jobs, they care. Millions of Professional Drivers Will Be Replaced by Self-Driving Vehicles https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/millions-professional-drivers-will-be-replaced-self-driving-vehicles-n817356 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/millions-professional...
- wilg 4y agoI don't see why we need to lock in current professions. There weren't millions of professional drivers before there were cars. Jobs change over time, we shouldn't try to preserve them just to run a jobs program. If we want to make sure everybody has income, just give everybody income.
- edflsafoiewq 4y agoI don't think it's just about jobs. It's alright when the machines are driving the cars or running the factories, but when the machines are also painting the pictures, writing the poetry, composing the symphonies, what exactly are the humans for?
- krapp 4y ago> but when the machines are also painting the pictures, writing the poetry, composing the symphonies, what exactly are the humans for? Consuming. The machines will create culture, humans will consume it.
- gremlinsinc 4y agoI'd hope, we'd be there more to maybe pursue scientific/research endeavors. Sure the ai can do this too, or enhance it - but imagine if every living human being were a scientist, or engineer working on solving the nature of the universe, FTL drives, fusion, expansion of the human race into space, etc? No more wars, etc - just intellectuals working in intellectual fields pursuing whatever their curiosity takes them.
- chucksmash 4y agoI remember ~12 years ago coming across the concept of "the easy things are hard, the hard things are easy" (in the context of a robotics class). The example I remember from the time was the relative ease of translating the decision trees of pharmacists (who in the US today earn a doctorate degree before practicing) into code versus catching a softly lobbed tennis ball with a robotic arm. A kid in elementary school can do the second task using their own arm without giving it any thought, but creating a hardware/software system to track the moving object, estimate trajectory, extrapolate future location, decide which rotations/translations need to be applied about the joints of the shoulder/arm/elbow/wrist to move your hand into the right position to make the catch, and then to actuate your hand closed at the right time with the right pressure is quite involved.
- periphrasis 4y agoAnd because the passage of time implies progress, this will be inherently better than what came before. /s
- wilg 4y agoIt probably will be at least somewhat better, but not for this reason.
- LewisVerstappen 4y agoIt will be significantly better for everyone who consumes media. Imagine if you can get movies custom made to your own personal preferences?
- periphrasis 4y agoSo literally generic content replacing art? Just tell the machine what you expect and like and then your expectations can be satisfied on-demand! Sounds like cultural oblivion and I will hold my tongue on the quality of your aesthetic judgment.
- LewisVerstappen 4y agoYou should google the definition of generic. > Sounds terrible and I will hold my tongue on the quality of your aesthetic judgment. Thank god! Your opinion would devastate me! Anyway, I'm super excited to be able to prompt an AI to "create another kubrick movie in the modern era" or "make a seinfeld episode about living under covid" or something. A better large language model would generate a script 100x better than any of the current hollywood writers (who do a pretty piss poor job as it is...)
- shp0ngle 4y agoSome reality TV shows already feel AI generated. I don’t think people will notice.
- j-bos 4y agoCrediting a ai wrangler as "+ human" does seem like a cheeky slap in the entertainment industry.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- causality0 4y agoThe problems with AI-generated art seem like a catch-22. AI is inferior to human artists because it's not creative because it only remixes past work. But if you as an artist are doing more than remixing past work, why would you be afraid of being replaced by something that can't do what you do? If what you do is genuinely valuable then the market will reflect that and using AI tools will lose companies money instead of making it.
- pessimizer 4y agoAn ATM can't do everything a bank teller can do, but it can replace 90% of them and halve the wages of the rest.
- yieldcrv 4y agoand it also won't try to sell on me a mortgage application when it sees the balance in my bank account, and just finish my deposit or withdrawal at the same quick speed bye humans.
- unnamed76ri 4y agoI’ve often wondered why banks keep needing to open new branches. We have online banking and ATMs. The one real time I needed to visit a bank branch in recent years was to open a bank account for my son and it was an absolute CHORE the way the bank handled new account creation.
- poszlem 4y agoI upvoted your post, because that's how I feel as well, but that still reads as: "Tell me that you haven't spoken to a senior citizen without telling me..." It might be surprising to some, but old people actually also have needs and many of the modern solutions we create just do not work for them. Elderly individuals also have needs and often struggle with modern solutions designed for a younger demographic. My neighbor, who is elderly, frequently asks for help with his phone and struggles with the shift towards technology and the use of apps during the COVID-19 pandemic was especially painful time for him. He prefers to stick to traditional methods and is content with living a simple life, rather than adapting to new technological advancements. He will keep going to physical bank branches until they close the last one in our city.
- cube00 4y ago> To avoid paying artists? Not at all. It claims the move was to "help the anime industry" amid an ongoing labour shortage. Once the labour shortage is resolved they'll go back to paying artists right? Never let a good crisis go to waste The monthly Netflix fee won't be dropping so straight into the profit margin it goes.
- digitalsushi 4y agoImagine being an artist in 2040. You wake up, hop onto the work tablet, and you are paid to upload creative inputs into the Machine Learning backplane, so that various automations can use automated metrics from audience testing to learn what the next big product is going to be. You can't prove part of you is in the next movie, but deep down, you hope you were. The Company gives you a digitally signed token for your Boost-Resume, a sort of C.V. for artists that indicates a statistically likelihood your art was involved with a successful financial venture. At .065 yours is impressive and almost guarantees you a spot at any hourly wage backplane creative input "Art Unit Engineer", your official title. At Thanksgivings and Christmases, you can impress small children by slowly and poorly recreating their favorite franchises, although you do it less and less as their optics are increasingly monitored by automation for various infringements. Fortunately, you won't get in trouble, per se - merely docked in your paycheck with a realtime license fee for your ketchup and napkin doodles.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- aquinas_ 4y agoBased. Unfathomably based.
- LewisVerstappen 4y agoDon't think that'll even exist in 2040. Instead, it'll be more like... User wakes up and opens up the Netflix App. Netflix starts showing a bunch of AI generated movie trailers that are custom tailored to the user. User swipes right/left on which movie trailer looks interesting to him. If he swipes right, then Netflix starts generating the movie JIT as the person is watching it. If the person gets bored at all, then he can go back and swipe right/left on some more trailers.
- basch 4y agoEye tracking and heart rate monitor determine when the feed is losing your interest and adjusts accordingly. If it is a choose your own adventure movie, it wouldn't even need swipable trailers. It could just detect what part of the screen you looked at and push the story that way.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- yieldcrv 4y agoGiven how many animes don't have the budget to actually finish the anime, do the practical and economic thing.
- tumeo 4y agoGiven how many anime don't even need a big budget because they're already a bit saturated (such as isekai), they should cheapen those types of anime and allocate the remaining resources to the higher quality ones (in terms of story/narrative).
- aquinas_ 4y agoHot take: As someone who hardly ever watches TV/streaming, I’m glad the machine is destroying itself. People need to find a better way to live their lives than to come home from a shitty day job that wasted the first half of their day, and waste the next half watching dumb shit.
- LewisVerstappen 4y agoLmfao in what universe is AI-generated media going to reduce the amount of movies/tv shows people consume? It's going to do the exact opposite...
- 10xDev 4y agoTrue, instead we should be submitting our crappy "hot takes" on the internet.
- aquinas_ 4y ago[flagged]
- somethoughts 4y agoWhat's interesting is that between AI art generation and content platforms with monetization like (Youtube, etc.) - it could actually level the playing field for content creators creating actual high quality anime. Currently large studios likely have the upper hand because they can have teams of artists on staff to handle the background art, intro sequences and the supporting HR and management overhead. A truly talented artist with storytelling and a distinct visual art style would likely have to seek out such a studio to gain access to these capabilities. Now they will be able to just create and share their content - focusing primarily on storytelling and determining the visual style as well as marketing. Similar to how cost reductions in movie quality digital cameras has improved the short film, indie creators ability to match the quality of Hollywood films.
- basch 4y agoI am very disappointed in the reporting and discussion on this specific occurrence. In the trailer Netflix released, you can SEE what they did with AI. Skip to 3:07. https://twitter.com/NetflixJP/status/1620357552025538561?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1620357552025538561%7Ctwgr%5Ed018776b1de61607d9629229a5d39b19e6bd0aa4%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.creativebloq.com%2Fnews%2Fai-anime-labour-shortage https://twitter.com/NetflixJP/status/1620357552025538561?ref... First they input a pretty detailed hand drawn sketch. The AI turned the sketch into a rough approximation of detailed art, and then they iterated it a second time. Then they painted over the top, by hand, recompositing the elements in the process. (You can see the moon move.) What happened here is somewhere in the realm of previz and rotoscoping. The AI fleshed out details in the previz, and then it was painted over. That is a perfect application of technology, without cutting out the humanity. And yet the whole story is about "controversy." There is no analysis anywhere of the process. This feels a little more like a "proofreaders mad at spell check" moment in history. And it would appear that nobody participating in the discussion, watched the making of. What I see is a powerful tool that helped augment an artist. Visual effects is already a stressful race to the bottom industry. Tools and technology that make life easier and less stressful for creators should be applauded. This kind of democratization gives more people, (who cant afford teams) the ability to bring their ideas, dreams, visions, and creativity to life. There is plenty to be fearful of with the coming "everything is AI generated nonsense apocalypse, nothing is original anymore" but this isnt it. The AI (+Human) part of the credits is weird tho.
- basch 4y agoI had to look up what opinion of rotoscoping was at the time. If anyone has other sources, Id love to see them. "After producing three shorts that became massive hits, Fleischer would go on to create a whole series of shorts called Out of the Inkwell. He would even go on to make his own animation company called Fleischer Studios, which would in turn give the world characters like Betty Boop and Popeye. Walt Disney eventually adopted Fleischer’s Rotoscoping technique for Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (and other films thereafter) after the exclusivity patent expired in 1934. Disney would even have the cast act out the scenes required by the animators so they could be used for reference instead of using their own facial expressions or movements." "Despite Rotoscoping making animation much easier, Disney’s animators were not fond of the new style and referred to it as a crutch. When they did have to use the technique, Disney’s crew would often only use it as a minor basis for their work and often exaggerated proportions and heavily elaborated expressions to go beyond the scope. What the animators couldn’t argue however, was that Rotoscoping (especially for Snow White) allowed them to have consistency with the animation that would have been impossible otherwise, thanks to the live-action stand-ins." https://www.cgmagonline.com/articles/features/history-art-rotoscoping/ https://www.cgmagonline.com/articles/features/history-art-ro...
- AraceliHarker 4y agoNetflix Japan cites the use of AI as a reason for the shortage of animator talent, but the cause is that wages are too low and the use of AI is not a fundamental solution, and this will hollow out the industry in the future because new people who are not yet "creative talent" will not be trained. Incidentally, Rinna Corporation in the text is a Microsoft affiliate whose business is the chatbot 'Xiaona' developed by Microsoft Research Asia.