Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools with text, images, videos, voice, and music as inputs and/or outputs have been the daily hot topic for the last few years. While these AI systems, such as Midjourney, ChatGPT, DeepAI etc. will assume a progressively significant role within the creative sectors in the forthcoming years, there is also the big fear that the rise of AI may pose challenges to or even displace artists and will dominate the anime industry (Jiang et. al., 2023).
Artificial Intelligence systems like Midjourney create images based on textual input. They can even create new styles, colors, shapes, and generate high-quality art, in which human artists can be limited. Besides, they can provide artists the latest modern trends and help them in the creative process of generating a new idea (Armanbay, 2023).
However, current image generation systems like Midjourney enable anyone to generate a great number of images in just a few minutes and can even develop a child’s book in about an hour, whereas human artists have studied and practiced many years to deliver the similar work. As a result, many jobs of artists could potentially become unnecessary. As an illustration, Netflix Japan has recently released artists from its employ, opting instead image generators for animation production. The company uses the excuse that there is ‘labor shortage’ within the anime industry and they therefore cannot hire any artists. Not only economic loss, but also copyright and plagiarism are severe concerns of artists. Many artists have experienced finding their work in the dataset of several image generators without their consent (Jiang et. al., 2023).
In my opinion, I didn’t fully understand the significant negative impact AI tools could have on artists, and I think the future of artists’ work raises the question: “Will there be any rules or regulations to safeguard artists’ work so they can continue their profession, or will AI completely replace the anime industry?”
References
Amanbay, M. (2023, 4 april). The ethics of AI-generated art. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4551467
Jiang, H., Brown, L. T., Cheng, J., Khan, M., Gupta, A., Workman, D., Hanna, A., Flowers, J., & Gebru, T. (2023). AI Art and its Impact on Artists. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3600211.3604681
