Will AI help reduce "crunch time" in the anime industry?

One area where I can see AI being of massive help is rotoscoping for both animation and live action photography (in fact AI powered tools are already used for rotoscoping/background removal in live action, not sure about animation) It's usually a very tedious process and AI has shown that it can do it fast and effective. A dedicated tool that can be fed with style sheets can be even more effective.

@Theo1899

Another person who sees the potential of AI?

Glad to see that!

Also, you're completely right.

You don't have to answer this, but do you think AI can be more helpful than harmful?

Lol no, all it will do is reduce the number of workers needed. Those who don't get fired will still be required to crunch.

No. Predictions of a 15 hour work week were made in the presence of numerous technological advances for the last century, that theoretically should have lower the amount of time people spent working. However, this is a limited way of viewing work and technological in general. Work is partially a socially bonded and politicized mechanism, rather than just the result of the free market creating demand for positions and industries.

In short? The 40+ hour work week is partially a result of societal attitudes and existing systems of governance, rather than strictly a necessity across all industries. It is not a technological issue, it is a social one.

I agree that companies will likely just cut down on people working rather than pay people a full wage for what they feel is less deserving of it. If we only need 10 people to spend 10 hours drawing frames, then people, not the hours, going to be cut, Comfort of the worker is a secondary consideration, and work is perceived as something needing to be strenuous to be considered work worthy of pay.

@PeripheralVision

A mindless parrot of David Graeber, I see.

@DreamWindow

I believe there is a quite a bit of truth in what he said and written. I mean, if I had to design a society to transition from one where people worked a certain number of hours and paid based on those hours to where a majority of people are working less while still being what are called living wages, it would be a complete nightmare.

It is no secret that in some industry, employees often fought against automation because the truth of the matter is that people would be laid off, and honestly? It is just much easier to either put off automation or keep the hours the same regardless, but this is just conditional UBI with extra steps. It shows in our rhetoric.

I am offering a simplified version here, but I don't think he is actually wrong to suggest that part of our attitude towards working is societally based. Many parts of our culture are. Is there any significant different between a 17 year old and an 18 year old? Yet so many more people pretend an 18 year old is so much more significantly acceptable than 17 year olds.

@PeripheralVision

Well, right, because one does not "design" society. Society is merely a collection of individuals acting in their own self interest. A grand design or planned economy is not necessary - people will seek out employment and wages of their own volition. The assumption with AI is that it will automatically cost people their job, and that UBI is necessary to combat this, which is just not true. While it's true that it will cost some people jobs, the same can be said for literally any technological advancement. People move on, and they find new things to do. No involvement or societal design is needed.

That's interesting that you say they "fight against automation", because depending on who you ask, the corporations benefit greatly from automation. If that's the case, then why are they bothering hiring people in the first place? It's ridiculous to say that they are "putting off" automation, when there is nothing holding back companies from fully implementing it, if they really wanted too. Perhaps automation is not a factor, perhaps they are hiring the workers because their work is valuable to them in some way. In the same way that the worker is seeking out employment because the payment is valuable to them. This is what has always happened, and it's unlikely that there will be such a drastic shift that UBI is necessary.

@PeripheralVision

A mindless parrot of David Graeber, I see.

@PeripheralVision

Well, right, because one does not "design" society. Society is merely a collection of individuals acting in their own self interest. A grand design or planned economy is not necessary - people will seek out employment and wages of their own volition. The assumption with AI is that it will automatically cost people their job, and that UBI is necessary to combat this, which is just not true. While it's true that it will cost some people jobs, the same can be said for literally any technological advancement. People move on, and they find new things to do. No involvement or societal design is needed.

That's interesting that you say they "fight against automation", because depending on who you ask, the corporations benefit greatly from automation. If that's the case, then why are they bothering hiring people in the first place? It's ridiculous to say that they are "putting off" automation, when there is nothing holding back companies from fully implementing it, if they really wanted too. Perhaps automation is not a factor, perhaps they are hiring the workers because their work is valuable to them in some way. In the same way that the worker is seeking out employment because the payment is valuable to them. This is what has always happened, and it's unlikely that there will be such a drastic shift that UBI is necessary.

This is very much true, so I often found it confusing how people believe a free market would lead to some ideal equilibrium where everyone's needs is taken care of. In fact, much of actual capitalist writing does not pretend inefficiencies do not exist in free-market societies or that there are not losers in a free-market economy, but rather that such an economy are the best (But not perfect) means of allocating limited resources.

This is a bit more difficult to believe since ideal free markets generally have to have among other things a low barrier to entry and perfect knowledge; my current workplace is filled with administrative oversight that quite frankly stifles the work of my peers and myself, and I have to wonder how much do they understand the intricacies of what I need for my position? It is Chinese telephone, something I witness in the private sector.

The ideal free market rarely exists anyway. If I told some of my higher ups I needed something or someone to be hired, far too many of them would accept it unquestionably or scrutinize me for it. Heck, if I were in those positions I'd be the same. Ayn Rand wrote that intellect drove the economy, and I have to say I disagree with that notion for the most part.



This is definitely where we differ in our conditions Dream, because if I agreed here we would agree everywhere else. I believe there will come a point where automation and AI will render a substantial part of the population without a job. Perhaps this sounds elitist, but not everyone should go to college and pursue degrees in fields that do not have the job market for it.

You are rational in being skeptical based off of past history, but I think this idea of AI costing people their jobs has intuitive merit; technological advancements have often led to new industries. Horse-drawn carriages replaced by automobile factory workers, train conductors becoming flight attendants.

I think the distinct difference here with AI not seen with other technologies is that while AI and automation will help create jobs, those jobs will be far fewer in number and much more sophisticated. I look at my old workplace and I think "if we replace people with automation, where will all my former coworkers go"? I don't think the union guys I work with are being mistaken or luddites. Like anyone else, they fight for their own survival.

It is in fact, more akin to outsourcing, rather than a mere technological advancement. We have seen how outsourcing devastated various countries.

I mean, I don't know where people who load trucks and drive them will go if they are replaced by machines that are far more efficient and can do those jobs independently. Other industries, perhaps, but what if those industries become automated as well? How is this functionally different than outsourcing to China, which did cost a loss of jobs in America? It might have lead to gains in China, but what if instead of the Chinese, it was robots? Now no humans have gained these loss jobs, and the jobs created as a result of this new industry are not enough to replace what has been loss.

I parrot Graeber on these points because I cannot think of a better answer than to fight against losing work hours. Which is a key part of the Teamsters' platform; those of us who work at these factories or warehouses are guaranteed a certain number of hours in a deal reached with management, because otherwise workers would be paid far less.

From management perspective, more hours are seen as more tolerable than higher per hour wages.



So going back to this, I am not entirely sure how we would restructure society so that people would work less, even if there is less work to be done or if things could be done more efficiently. It is a nightmare to think about, and I can understand, based on my own experiences as a blue-collar boy, why we all want to do the least possible to disturb our status quo.

@DreamWindow making baseless assumptions is not a good standing in an argument, you questioned and assumed. But I’ll answer some questions with actual facts.

The reason companies can’t replace workers yet is that they will get public backlash on it(check out those that have done so, most dropped off in popularity already) and also those automation won’t work properly without any human interaction from time to time. Many industries already use automation for batch production of products, but an engineer and an operator is needed to make sure it doesn’t worn out or eff up, and it does eff up, they just don’t talk about it. The third reason is because some jobs are just too complicated to be taken by AI, but when I mean complicated, I MEAN THERE’S NOT ENOUGH DATA TO STEAL FOR TRAINING THEIR AI MODELS. This is the most crucial, how can you make an AI model when training data is rare. We don’t have automatic driving trucks around because we don’t have enough driving data for training AI…..

However we do have a lot of pictures and videos and texts and audios on the internet that can be used. Hope you get the point. When data is rare, the AI models are too incompetent to fully replace humans.

Oh and the ‘fight against automation’ thing, Same with politics everywhere, people are too busy fighting each other to fight against the the ones with power, the corpos that profits off the whole thing. If a lot of people voice their opinions against such actions when it first started, we would have a different story here… rather than giving up and saying, ‘there’s nothing we could do.’, at least stalling them till we die is an option.

I would like to know which capitalist writers you are referring too. You mention Ayn Rand later in this post, but Ayn Rand is considered a hack in free market circles. I would recommend reading the works of Austrian economic writers, such as Murray Rothbard, or Hans-Herman Hoppe. They do a much better job explaining exactly why free markets are a preferable alternative, in my opinion, rather than merely an ambivalent appeal to the status quo.



A low barrier is very important, but "perfect knowledge" is not a requirement to be successful in a free market economy. Simply trying something new can often be enough for a new industry to flourish. It is having the freedom to experiment and try new things, that drives change, and economic development. And also the personal accountability for any losses.



What you are saying here does not have anything to do with the free market... your relationship with your employers / administrators does not have any bearing on what constitutes a "free market", a similar structure exists in state run companies, except that the difference is, the administrators in a state run company are merely the caretakers of capital, rather than the owner. The free market merely means that private ownership determines economic calculation. The reason why the free market is preferable is because the owners of capital can reap the rewards, or losses of their investments, rather than the taxpayer, which creates incentives for the creation of new jobs and wealth.



Under what pretext would this be any different from, say, the new industries created by the industrial revolution? How can you be so certain that this one, in particular, is the straw that breaks the camel's back, when history has shown that this usually is not the case? You admit that the advent of AI will create jobs, like any other technology, but it remains to be seen exactly what the ratio will be between jobs created and jobs taken. It could very well be the case that AI creates more jobs than it takes.

I understand the skepticism, it sucks to lose your job. But we have also seen what can happen if certain industries actually go past their expiration. This happened in India, with traditional crafts industries. It became a protected industry, and yet it greatly impacted the economic development of the country. The only ones who benefited where the ones who saw immunity status. So while it's also rational to want to protect your own hide, it often takes everyone else down with it if industries become cartelized. It's best to not fear change, but embrace it.



Is it considered outsourcing, to acquire new capital, and thus, automate certain parts of a job, then? For example, I used to work in a manufacturing plant. Many years before I started, there were not nearly as much machinery as there is now. Many jobs that used to be done by hand, are now done by machines. Of course, we could have all been welding every single part by hand, rather than merely reworking the parts that the robot has welded. But the trade off is that the work would become more strenuous, and we would likely need to work longer hours for less output.

I understand your skepticism, but what I think you are missing is that the industries that exist, and the amount of jobs that can be created are not fixed. It's not merely outsourcing. Moving jobs to China is simply moving jobs to already existing economies, and industries. The reason that they do that, is because the labour is less costly. However, the difference with the advent of new technologies is that it also creates new wealth, which means that there can now exist industries and jobs that had never been even remotely possible before. Simply shuffling jobs around to, you use China as an example, does not.

You might be right, that a management position might want to focus on the work hours, but this is because he wants to protect his position as well. If there were no people to manage, there would be no manager. But from the position of the company, the hours are largely determined by how much labour it would require to meet their quota. If they could cut down on hours because they have the capital to do so, they very well might. At that point, it would be a matter of the worker to decide whether or not he's satisfied with those new hours. I think a cut in hours would rub people the wrong way. It's very possible that they could fully replace us, if they wanted too. But it would appear that they still value labour of the worker. And also, because the worker also wants to protect their position. Which of course, is rational from each individual perspective.



Let's say all of our current industries become automated. The capital acquired by the companies can do the vast majority of the work that labourers used to do, and the company cuts back on hours, and increases wages to the point where they can now pay the workers a larger wage for less hours. In that instance, R&D could put their efforts into new projects, considering less hours would need to be spent on manufacturing their current project. This can be taken in multiple ways by the workers. I think a large portion of the workers would be dissatisfied with this outcome, despite the fact that it could potentially benefit them. There would likely be resistance, which, is fair enough. But depending on how things go, it could shape the way that the company decides to pursue different projects, as well as the level of automation.

It's interesting that you mention the status quo, as I feel my position to be quite different from the status quo. I cannot relate to some of the older workers I was working with who want things to be done the old way. It seems to run counter to the mindset of creative destruction, and instead favouring a "head down" worker bee mentality. Which, again, is fair enough, from their perspective. It's not in their interest to think about these kinds of things.

That's strange because the person I actually responded too didn't seem to have any problem with that. You are the one poisoning the well, here.



Really? So, what you are saying is that they value human labour, because automation does not work properly without human involvement? That's interesting, because that just shows that there is still value in human labour. Making the claim that AI is a threat to the jobs rather moot. It sounds like this is not an issue.



Yes, I perfectly understand. What you are saying is that human labour has a quality too it that is valuable to the employers. Which is why they are hiring them in the first place. That's kind of my point, in that, I feel the AI fear is overblown.

Your rhetoric contradicts what you are actually saying. If the corpos are the ones with all the power, they shouldn't have any reason to value human labour. But it's clear that they do value the labour of the worker, even by your own admission. The quarrels of the workers themselves is largely irrelevant, since most of them are only interested in doing the job they were assigned.

Edit: Also thank you for your response. I was honestly not nearly as criticism about Graeber as I should have been. There are fact many things in the book that deserve criticism, such as his categorization of jobs, his data, as well as the limited scope of his book (Namely, what is a bullshit job). Honestly? It is a simplistic book that I still like but on a very complex topic.

Overall point? This was a fun diversion, but my main three ideas are that.

1. Automation and AI will make overall jobs scarcer.
   
2. This requires a solution. Either UBI or pay people using existing work structures to pretend to work.
   
3. The latter of the above already exists in some forms due to inefficiencies, both intentional and out of ignorance.
   

I will add them to the list (I am not well-read in this topic), but this is just economics 101. Most economists, like Gregory Mankiw, does not pretend that things such as externalities do not exist, or that resources are perfectly allocated, or that government has absolutely no role in mediating the economy. Yet too many people hyped up on AnCap-lite thinking, and think that all issues can be resolved with the free market, and are caused by a government that does not limit itself to copyright protection. (I am not accusing you of that, btw)

I will make my position clear. I think capitalism IS generally the best means of allocating resources, and the free-market is preferable to any command economy outside of very niche cases. Part of this is due to my belief that no governing body can perfectly understand such a complex system, and that allowing people to pursue their own self-interest (Rather, creating a system that accepts this axiom as true) is practical. I do not think it is perfect in the same way democracy is not perfect. I don't pretend democracy is perfect, but it is the best.



What has to be considered then is what the new technology intends to replace. Cars replacing buggies merely introduced one product for the next, or service. What does AI and automation hope to replace? Humans, it is in the name, "artificial". It is not meant to be merely a tool, but to "replace" humans, artificial intelligence.

It may create more jobs, but I am doubtful this would be the case when the point of such technology is in increasing efficiency by cutting down on human labor and error. What not requires batteries and months of experiments if not years requires only weeks, regarding a project on in-situ analysis of pharmaceutical production that I may actually work on in my current research.

Would it create more wealth? In a way I believe that, but what of the wealth distribution? People are not going to be paid to do "nothing". Yet the foundations of our society rests on people earning their keep. So it seems fairly likely that due to a number of reasons, jobs will be created, unintentionally or otherwise, that ultimately contribute little to their employer, and automation will contribute to the rise of this pseudo-work or to some form of UBI. Whatever the case, people will not remain unemployed and be happy.

This happens a ton in Japanese companies, and this is due to social attitudes regarding firing senior workers. Being given a fake position to be paid; often the worker is expected to retire, but firing or letting them go is out of the question. Such an attitude can persist in industries in different parts of the world.

My 4th belief then is the following.

• It takes considerably far less effort in some way to use existing systems of accomplishing something than having a newer system.
  

Historically, society has been iterations with slight variations between generations. So I believe in the scenario that if less "actual" work needs to be done overall, that our current system would be incentivized to create jobs rather than Friedman's negative tax rate, without really asking what those jobs even are or do. Workers are incentivized to do so because we cannot imagine anything better and we need to be fed, among other considerations. Employers are incentivized to do so for similar enough reasons related to cultural and societal values on work and prestige. Both have the general belief that unnecessary jobs are impossible to create.



It is a requirement for the "ideal" free market. If people could not compare prices, then proprietors of goods and services would have less reason to price their goods and services with the "true" market value. A similar sentiment applies to workplace structures, the consumer being the employer and the employee offering their services; a large enough one will introduce inefficiencies, such as unnecessary positions, partially due to the fact that no one is perfectly aware of what those under them and above needs (Though alternatively, this can be intentional, in the same way people on LinkedIn brag about being CEOs). Alternatively, corporate "accounting" can often neglect workers' comfort or long-term health, which are hard to account for.

Ex. If one is able to hire someone to do their job for them, two things need to remain.

1. Ability to do so for their position.
2. Ignorance of those above them.

In many positions, this is stupidly easy to do. Graeber has a point here. We assume jobs are created out of necessity, and therefore no unnecessary jobs exists. This is a circular logic. Administrative positions have exploded at private universities, after all, yet faculty hiring has not kept up. Paperwork is largely bullshit that keeps me from doing my actual current job. In the end, I see no functional difference in government bureaucracy and private corporate bureaucracy. Office Space is a great film.

The exact opposite has also occurred of "under hiring", though this is more worker externalities.



I worked in a warehouse by the Teamsters at UPS, which is older than Fedex and Amazon. This basically meant that unions were a largely integrated part of the company proper. The apprehension is there. No one should expect a company, a private entity, to bankroll us for doing nothing. So we largely resisted automation that is more commonplace in Amazon. We can do this because obviously, the immediate cost of a long-term strike and retrofitting warehouses would prevent the company being able to automate it in the first place.



Wealth does not simply come into existence, it is further consolidated in these examples. I mentioned Ayn Rand to bring up this point, because endeavor nor creativity are the drivers of the free market, but possession of wealth itself (Among others). What happens to the workers who are not getting paid? That wealth does not certainly go to them automatically, and all the more concerning for local and regional economies.

How could I argue a more prosperous future to the citizens of Detroit, Michigan, or Gary, Indiana? The same through line applies to automation that applies to outsourcing, the movement to labor less costly. There is more reason to understand AI as different than any other technology by its nature. It remains to be seen if all industries can be automated, but I certainly see many, such as my former position, as being susceptible to it.

It is a bit funny, how optimistic you are. In fact, I have heard many people, especially those who agree with Graeber or the idea of UBI, push forth this sentiment of yours regarding new industries; if we free ourselves from working long hours, can you imagine what we can do? A man gotta eat though, so what will feed him if the jobs runs out? My pessimism is based on the fact that many people in positions of power are more willing to cut costs than to take risks, and I have no faith that new industries will come into the fold that won't themselves be automated.

*Insert rant about how anyone can cut costs, and only geniuses can actually innovate*

We have seen this in anime, we have seen this in video games, this attitude of cutting costs instead of hiring sufficient workers. It is hard to account for worker well-being, mentally or otherwise.



It is hard to say. Based on my experiences..."More hours" and "Higher wages" are two different arguments, even if logically they should result in the same overall wages. It is easier to convince someone that I need to be here than to pay me more. Couple of reasons for this, including the aforementioned management/administrative ignorance, would be our social attitudes towards working, the perceived price of labor, among others. The last point is true; if employers wanted workers, they should be willing to spend for them, but too often have I heard positions go unfilled, both in government (Paying teachers more might attract more people in becoming teachers) and in the private sector.

I myself would argue for my necessity to the company, rather than my own needs. Robert Heinlen's Lazarus Long has said it is far better to appeal to someone's self-interest than their better nature. That to me indicates many things about how we approach work and our employers. Regardless, I don't expect a handout from any of my employers. I have to bring value or I have to make them think I bring value.



I see it as an extension of the status quo, because it relies on private enterprises to pay individuals the same overall wages for less work, existing systems in order to make sure people are fed. But...why would anyone pay me if work was so automated I was not needed?

Less work to be done generally equals less positions needing to be filled. It seems far more likelier that pressing social issues would make job creation a priority, even if those jobs were pointless or unnecessary, because we live in a society where jobs are necessary to live and thrive. After all, presidents pat themselves on the back of job growth and creation. Maybe we are viewing the same outcome through two different lenses. It is this very conundrum that stifles innovation.

You are correct in saying many projects die before leaving the cutting room floor, but not every can work in R&D on R&D.

Final note: I think Bullshit Jobs is worth a read, more than the summary given on r/antiwork. There are problems regarding how Graeber supports his beliefs, namely a lack of empirical data. It in fact lacks so much data. I read this after reading about the Foster-Industrial complex of Torn Apart by Upenn Professor Dorothy Roberts, which is a number of case studies and historical research on how companies have profited on separating children from their parents in the US due to social attitudes as well as financial incentives, and is definitely heavier on the citations. So I got more out of it than I might have otherwise.

@DreamWindow answering your questions again because you didn’t bother understanding what I wrote.
AI is indeed overblown, by corporations to make investors buy more of their stocks, so they can further make more research on their systems, which I’m turns creates fear of AI improving enough to take jobs.

About human labor being viewed as important by most companies… it’s not, they just can’t do without it yet, if human labor truly is valued they’ll pay their workers adequately(which is becoming a rare case). And about the corpos being powerful… just look at your politicians and how they make laws, that should help you understand why they don’t try to solve societal issues or care what AI does to the job market at the moment… because mostly they are the investors. They can’t just pull out when they can make even more money. If they’re to slap a ban on use of AI, they won’t have much of a new sure fire grift to invest on(the market becomes unpredictable).

Because something doesn’t function properly doesn’t mean it can’t be used. If an AI system is capable of about 60% of human efficiency, there will be a lot of companies that will gladly reduce their employees numbers and pay just so they can make more profit. The reason why human labor is still in use is because of fear of losing backing from their consumers, investors(politicians and other tech bros) and the politicians. Because once the consumers catch on and go for an alternative, the value of the company plummets, and the investors starts selling their stocks. AND SO SOME COMPANIES REPLACE THEIR WORKERS LITTLE BY LITTLE, A LOT OF LAY OFFS ARE HAPPENING AT THE MOMENT IN THE GAMING INDUSTRY, a lot of gamers don’t care as long as the game is good.

Mmmmm... i dont know if AI, but maybe they could rely more on technology to help artist work faster and make less mistakes. Maybe use models as references so they can just draw on top but with a clear guide so it is faster.

My problem with "AI" art, is that it is just taking a bunch of images and styles from the internet and then use parts and iterations of it to build something. As a result, it lacks a proper personality, an style. Thats why people recognize AI art sometimes: is just as generic as it can be, the mistakes and limitations are the style of the artists, and AI wont do it, it will just mix whatever it can find and then output a result.