AI and the Future of Animation: Expert Insights from a Disney Veteran

Even if we keep AI out of the animation industry or minimize its use, the biggest threat to the animation industry in America has always been outsourcing. We can’t compete against animators in India who will work for a fraction of the cost

They cut the redwoods down and are now wondering why the birds dont want the new young trees even tho theres more of them.

AI has not once improved any kind of media nor help make artists' life and our job any better in the last 3-4 years, they are essentially just a cost cutting measure for higher up to lay off animators / game devs while churning out more slop, give me one movie / show that was made fully by AI and was actually good? Spoiler, you can't cause they are all garbage! Literally every AI slop animation you see are just generic basic slops stealing from anime / cartoon and live action with no interesting story or character, even a 10-year-old can come up with better, more original idea than AI ever could. 2D animation is still going strong through Indie animation on Youtube or stop-motion, look at the new Snow Bear short by Aaron Blaise, Glitch Production's shows, or Laika's Wildwood, Animation made by real animators are still alive and well and most people are very vocal against the use of AI in animation production, anyone with functioning brain and eyes can tell AI is still terrible and not capable of replacing real artists no matter how "improved" it has gotten because at the end of the day, Animation is an art form made by real human artists and no AI slop can replace that.

This is a great opportunity right now to make your own animation studio.

The problem is that animation is not expensive, the companies have plenty of money to pay animators, but with all the deals with A.I companies and the massive salaries and Bonuses to the motherfucking CEOS of course there will be no money. And no, animators and artists don´t need to find a way to use A.I, this fucking tech it is beeing shoved down peoples throats even though there is a massive pushback. Man, the boomer generation gives up so easily, urghhhhh.

Thankfully there have been so many indie creatives doing their own thing with success. That's the only way forward. Although the creative landscape will look different thanks to Gen AI, there will consequently be more of a craving for things that are real and human. Let the corporations sink in a sea of their own generated slop.

It's not a "tool". It's a service built on theft. And you can't protect an potentially valuable IP, if it's all ai-slop. Even the American copyright office dictates ai-generated-slop cannot be copyrighted, and can't get an Oscar. Also the growing backlash against ai is growing, and ai-free art is becoming more valuable as a premium. Animation that is completely free of ai-influence through the entire pipeline, or with some extremely limited exceptions, like pre-2021 ai services. "It's here to stay" means absolutely nothing to those value human art in a meaningful way.

I'm a former Classical 2D animator, and I 100% agree with him about the importance of us not running from AI and instead embracing it and finding ways to make it work for us. I've been experimenting HEAVILY with it for the last several months, and I'd say I've both lost my general fear of it and yet am still wary of the potential threats. The issue though is not unlike when 3D animation first made it's breakthrough; we classically trained and traditional artists are ALWAYS going to bring more tools to the board than the average person who can only type prompts. Since AI has now allowed schmucks to level up, we Artists, as Neil DeGrasse Tyson recently put it: just need to up our game.

I’m of two camps. These algorithms have incredible potential to create other tools for artists to use. But none of them exist. We are stuck with generative images from algorithms that are trying to run before they can walk. So I’m excited to see these tools that don’t exist appear. I’m not a fan of the generative algorithms that are trying to replace humans.

original things cant be made with AI

no he doesnt recommnd it . he has to say he does ..

Is AI even real art?

Nah, fuck AI. Disappointed to hear he's in the 'use it as a tool' group..

AI is just about greed and managers' disrespect for art and artists

Ai is built on blatant theft. I’m not interested in anything coming from people who are ok with that. There’s also the environmental impact. And the soulless result. So no… There’s a good 200 years worth of reading and shows, that were actually made with care. I’m not at all interested in Ai slop or those who produce it.

That sounds so stressful not only is being an animator super competitive and you have this pool of very talented people but you have to spend x amount of time managing all of your work and then you probably get feast or famine period not to mention Disney is cutting cost and benefits. It sounds like they are keeping Stateside animators for freelance whereas a lot of shops go out for overseas Talent

Actual storyboard animation people here... I'm getting freelance offers to fix bad AI animatics that are completely useless in the animation pipeline. Animation has always been super precarious. I don't fear it for now, I fear execs thinking it can do my job.

Artists are also responsible for their own problems. They never unionized, they are selfish and only care how to grab a job for themselves, they never showed to the system that they can be united, and now they are too weak, too fragmented and are been attacked by the same system once were so keen on serving without asking any questions. Sad, but they have made their own bed.

I’m also a classically trained animator and also believe he’s 100% correct. When I was in the fully in the industry it was always seasonal work. Working in animation is working on a fixed term contracts. You can’t expect studios to hold on to people when they have nothing for the artists to do. From the outside it looks like ai is taking over but from the inside it’s just how it’s always been and the numbers are high because there’s a higher number of creatives in the industry. The only issue with this system is that the quality of that show is dependant on the team working on it so if you let them all go you end up with a different team and a completely different vibe for the next project. I don’t believe ai will ever replace artist but I see it replacing or assisting artist in preproduction so that the team involved no longer need to be so many. What I’d hope to see in the future is Ai replacing the jobs of the business people ie producers and project managers and all that.

The argument about "well maybe more studios will appear and smaller teams can make stuff". That already happens. There are already solo film-makers making amazing films and putting them online. What are their audience numbers like though? What will their audience numbers be like in the future as more and more people are churning out their own films? How much money will anyone be able to make from their films when they do show them to an audience? We don't really need to guess, we can look at photography and video on social media as forerunners to this situation. The answer is: As cameras became ubiquitous, the value of photos and videos has dropped to zero for almost everyone publishing their photos and videos online. That's what will happen to animation and film. Everyone will be able to make their own 'content', most of it will be low quality and/or advertising and a small amount of it will stand out as being genuinely worth watching. But even that small percentage of quality content will be valued at close to zero, because the value of _all_ animation and film will have been brought so low by the abundance of do-it-yourself slop.