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Comment by RobKohr | Hacker News Reader

So basically they get paid peanuts and are overworked and so no one wants to do it.

Also seems like something AI could really cut into. You could have a master animator doing much of important thoughtful work and AI filling in the obvious as well as doing tweening (sound similar to programming)

Really, who needs a studio if you have the creative talent and ability to leverage AI for the grunt work. Or have a couple grunt work humans paid these rates to manage the tedious work of leveraging the AI to make it look seamless.

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AI image generation is just not there yet. Say what you want about Luddites and whatnot, but the quality is just not good - the amount of effort given compensation that (especially Japanese) artists put into anime styled imagery makes too little sense that AI can't compete, even in generation time if time for retakes are accounted for.

>AI image generation is just not there yet.

A Japanese Animator shared this recently. Seedance output over simple 3d models

https://www.reddit.com/r/accelerate/comments/1ue6uf2/japanes...

That's just texturing over a labor intensive 3D animation that doesn't seem like a production quality one. IIUC, geometrically correct 3D animations are basically worthless. You're already lost if you need perfect 3D renders as the reference.

>That's just texturing over a labor intensive 3D animation

>You're already lost if you need perfect 3D renders as the reference

The reference is far from a "perfect 3D render". That's a rudimentary 3D blockout. The characters are basic mannequins without specific geometry, and the environment is composed of untextured, flat-shaded boxes. The demo uses stock assets so effort meter is even more skewed in AI's favour but even if it wasn't, this is significantly less labor-intensive than hand-drawing every frame or creating a fully rigged, textured, and lit 3D scene for traditional production.

Seedance is supplying most of the visible production value: character designs, faces and expressions, linework, backgrounds, lighting, and a coherent anime rendering. It is even generating the secondary animation: the physics and flow of the hair and clothing, which the rigid 3D models completely lack. Far more work than 'just texturing' here.

To see this and imagine this it without seeing context and intention, outside of a production proper, is missing the point. Of ot doesnt do exactly what you envisioned with the ease of your current tools or better is pretty much useless. Ai art looks good for non artists, ai writing for non writers, ai medical advice… for non doctors.

I mean We're on here discussing something an experienced animator shared aren't we ?

You're not wrong. But there is a common perception that we value things made by humans more. The problem is that grunt work actually serves as a pipeline for industrial training. Even with AI, the distribution of value doesn't get resolved automatically.

Of course, I think it would be great if grunt work disappeared, but I believe skilled workers ultimately need grunt work. It's like saying that since AI automates everything, programmers don't need to know how to write methods. The core issue here is that grunt work, which AI excels at, plays an educational role in our society.

Of course, I admit my thinking is quite old-fashioned. This educational model could change. But I'm not sure whether that would be good in the long run. It could be beneficial in the long term. Humans evolve, after all.

I'll reserve judgment on that part.

> Of course, I think it would be great if grunt work disappeared, but I believe skilled workers ultimately need grunt work. It's like saying that since AI automates everything, programmers don't need to know how to write methods. The core issue here is that grunt work, which AI excels at, plays an educational role in our society.

It's not just educational. The more thinking you offload to AI, the more your own skills degrade [1] - and it makes sense, intuitively. If you repeat tasks, you gain experience and get good at it... but if you cease that repetition, eventually your skills break down.

[1] https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/15/1/6

We do not value things made by humans.

Hand-made anything tends to be a Veblen good, which means it's there to signal status, which means it's expensive.

But expensive doesn't work in mass-media. So a hand-drawn anime isn't going to be more profitable than an AI-animated one.

As for education - possibly, but this is the end of a process that started with digitalisation. I'm a huge fan of hand-drawn pre-Illustrator graphic design, especially 1960s-80s. I think it has a liveliness and freshness that post-Adobe design is missing.

But I'm not the usual audience, almost no trained designers can hand-draw lettering today, and neither the industry nor buyers/consumers seem to care.

Likely the same thing will happen with AI. It will just become the new normal, with skills to match.

> We do not value things made by humans. Hand-made anything tends to be a Veblen good, which means it's there to signal status, which means it's expensive.

I read this as we do value things made by humans, we just don't incentivize the mass market to prioritize handmade things

> We do not value things made by humans.

There are plenty of people who do. A minority perhaps, but your absolute statement is wrong.

> Hand-made anything tends to be a Veblen good, which means it's there to signal status, which means it's expensive.

Many people don't give a shit about status signaling, but do care about supporting people and their craft. Some folks have a a niche making something by hand, but far removed from the concept of Veblen goods.

The world isn't as flat as you're making it out to be.

It seems to me the problem is not having to do grunt work but that it's impossible to make a decent living at it even though it's widely agreed to be a necessity to develop higher level skills. By 'decent living' I mean being able to support yourself and have adequate rest and so forth.

>It's like saying that since AI automates everything, programmers don't need to know how to write methods.

It would be like saying it is financially unviable for professionals to write their own methods.

My impression is that a lot, if not most, anime was always cheap. Lots of stills, few frames, and CGI as soon as it got remotely good enough (and often before). Like Hanna-Barbera cheap. That was my impression when I used to be moderately "into" it 25-ish years ago, but judging from youtube channels like Mother's Basement, it hasn't gotten better.

It makes sense that they would be the first to use AI for whatever they can get away with.

> My impression is that a lot, if not most, anime was always cheap. Lots of stills, few frames, and CGI as soon as it got remotely good enough (and often before). Like Hanna-Barbera cheap. That was my impression when I used to be moderately "into" it 25-ish years ago, but judging from youtube channels like Mother's Basement, it hasn't gotten better.

Individual frames of anime, they generally had a lot more 'packed into' the frame. This is part of the reason the motion wasn't great; they were spending most of their time budget of big flashy frames.

Disney, when they made animation, was more focused on hyper stylized characters that moved in a very specific way. There's an entire book on how to make animation 'The Disney Way." Some friends of mine ended up working in animation, and that's how I learned about this.

I really despise this kind of thinking, this "optimization" that only serves to benefit the people at the top who hoard the fruits of other people's labour. Why is your solution to underpaid/overworked animators to just eliminate them entirely, instead of just treating them fairly?

People DO want to do these things. They're overworked and underpaid, but they still do it, because they're passionate about it. Not just about the end result or the money, but about creating things.

I continually see AI proponents fail to recognize this across all art forms, for example the Suno AI idiot:

"I think the majority of people don’t enjoy the majority of the time they spend making music." [0]

It's ridiculous nonsense, and this widespread eagerness to throw away quality and human talent for convenient, soulless slop has made me increasingly disillusioned with the tech industry.

[0] https://www.vice.com/en/article/ai-music-boss-says-musicians...

If AI is making our anime anyway, why do we need an anime industry? Let's just get rid of it and we'll all generate our own shows to watch. Why should I pay a platform for someone else's slop when I can make my own?

Business leaders and AI chuds seem to be forgetting that if AI can meet the needs of their business, then we no longer need the business.

It's already happening. Individuals are already creating multiple-minute elaborate AI videos. Fanfics will soon no longer be merely text or crude images.

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