Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Animation

Seven years ago, when I watched Sony’s Into the Spider-verse for the first time, I thought the animated film industry had never been in a better place. In particular, the revolution of blending 2D artistry with 3D models that the film exemplified demonstrated what I thought could be the final evolution of the medium. However, despite the huge commercial success of the film, the half-decade wait and reports of brutal working conditions in the animation team for the sequel, Across the Spider-verse, has dampened enthusiasm for more animated projects. Now it seems the next revolution in animation is already on the horizon, and the question is whether artificial intelligence will shatter the creative essence of the industry or be the solution to its existing problems. To gain insight into how animation studios are reacting to the change, I interviewed Scott Fitzsimmons, a recently retired executive for a leading Canadian animation studio.

To get a sense of the timeline, Mr. Fitzsimmons estimated that AI only became a major topic of discussion a year ago, when the potential of AI to power animation projects was beginning to become clear. While the tools are still evolving, unrestricted AI has reached a point where it can be used by individuals to complete projects in days that would formerly take whole teams months.

Mr. Fitzsimmons explained that there are three key stakeholders in the AI debate: business owners, consumers, and animators. On the business owners’ and consumers’ side, AI has the potential to greatly increase production capacity, allowing for the creation of more projects in less time. For feature-length animations in particular, the huge investment of time and money that has previously been necessary has historically made it hard for smaller studios to justify the risk, but with AI it may be more viable, thus increasing the variety of animated projects. This means more content for consumers to enjoy, and more profit for companies.  

The one sector resisting the AI revolution consists of the animators themselves, who fear that the change will lead to layoffs and creative stagnation. Because animators are ultimately the engine of the studios and have the power to walk away, businesses have thus far avoided making significant strides towards the use of AI. Perhaps the strongest argument of the pushback is the controversy of intellectual property rights. As powerful as AI is, it is not clear whether the training data used to make the most effective AI models should be considered a violation of ownership rights. While animators do give up the rights of their work to studios, individual studios don’t have a large enough base of potential training data, making the use of the internet necessary for large AI tools. As Mr. Fitzsimmons explained, the legality of this is an ongoing debate, and the decision of the courts will shape the future of the industry.

For me, the biggest takeaway from our discussion was the perspective that AI is not a replacement, but a tool of enhancement. Mr. Fitzsimmons believes there is always resistance to the development of new, groundbreaking technology and that AI may not be so different. One example is that AI can potentially be used not for initial work, but for small edits and adjustments down the road. A huge part of the overworking of animators on the Spider-verse films was the demands of the directors to constantly make small changes, and an AI tool that can make small adjustments, rather than fabricating entirely new images, could be very useful. Mr. Fitzsimmons also made a comparison to the advent of 3D animation, noting that the skills of 2D artists are entirely separate from those of CG animators. Presumably, the development of 3D animation was met with a similar resistance from 2D artists, and the hope is that history will repeat itself, with new technology not distorting, but expanding the industry.

Ultimately, the fear of a slippery slope in AI animation is a reasonable concern, but if approached with caution, I believe there is room for animators to take these new developments in stride. Presently, many creative professionals are forced to spend much of their time translating their vision to fit the will of the producers. Perhaps AI will become the new mechanism of this translation, leaving more time for the artists to work in their imagination. As brilliant as many works of animation are, maybe we’ll soon see an animator without AI like a painter without a brush, with the tool not replacing, but aiding the expression of artistic creativity.