Hollywood film animators are saying that they are finding that artificial intelligence tools can reduce their production costs by an incredible 90 percent, according to a report by Bloomberg.
If true, the cost savings would also likely come at a cost to those who work in the animation industry by eliminating hundreds of thousands of jobs all across the world.
The report notes that a studio called WndrCo says it can make half hour shows for just a few thousand dollars apiece whereas the same content would have cost hundreds of thousands in decades past.
Cost cutting of this magnitude not only opens the doors for greater profits, it opens up opportunities for small companies or even individuals to produce professional-looking content that they could never have been able to contemplate in the past.
The intrusion of AI into the world of animation naturally has the industry worried that most employees will end up losing their jobs. Currently, animated content requires the highly skilled labor of artists, model makers, storyboardists, compositors, and a raft of other specialized workers. But few of these employees would be needed with an AI-produced product.
Animation has already been hit hard by the contractions coursing through Hollywood and thousands have already lost their jobs due to cost cutting, studio mergers, and technological advancement. Now, with the growth of AI, the industry is bracing for an even larger wave of layoffs and they are likely jobs that will never come back.
The new pressures have unions scrambling to try and implement rules to govern how AI can be used. But their efforts are rearguard and will likely amount to no real solutions in the long run. Workers and unions alike are fearful of a job loss apocalypse that might occur all at once instead of gradually, and the disruption will be massive, they say.
Supporters of AI, though, say the new tech is a great leveler and will open the doors for an untold number of new creators who will be able to bring their content into the world with so much less cost and effort that content will grow exponentially. They also say that if the old jobs go away, new opportunities will become nearly limitless with AI. They also add that audiences might find new content coming at a fast rate and at lower costs.
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