In 2016, co-founder and director Hayao Miyazaki, responsible for beloved anime classics like Princess Mononoke and Kiki’s Delivery Service, made headlines around the world for his . “I would never want to incorporate this technology into my work,” Miyazaki told the software engineers who came to show him their creation. “I firmly believe that this is an insult to life itself.” Half a decade later, artificial intelligence and the potential role it could play in anime productions is back in the spotlight.
This week, Netflix shared dog and boy, an animated short that the streaming giant described as an “experimental effort” to address the labor shortage in the anime industry. “We use imaging technology for the background images of all three-minute video clips,” Netflix Japan said of the project on , according to a machine translation. The short is touching but was immediately controversial. As many Twitter users accused Netflix of using AI to avoid paying human artists.
A short film from the joint animation project “Dog and Boy” by Netflix Anime Creators Base, technology developer rinna Inc. and WIT STUDIO.
As an experimental effort to help the anime industry, which is short of manpower, image generation technology is used for the background image of all 3-minute clips of video! pic.twitter.com/GYuWONSqlJ
—Netflix Japan | Netflix (@NetflixJP) January 31, 2023
Others took issue with the way Netflix and Wit Studio, the company that produced the short film, credited those who worked on it. dog and boy. As you can see at the end of the video, the human animators were not only involved in creating the backgrounds for the short, but they also reviewed the AI’s work. However, the background designer is listed as “AI (+human)”. The credits continue with the listing of Rinna Inc, an AI art company, and a handful of AI researchers.
Many artists worry about AI devaluing their work, but that concern is particularly acute among anime creators. The labor shortage that Netflix points to is the result of unsustainable labor practices who see most animation studios in Japan essentially rely on unpaid freelancers to complete much of the work that makes anime possible.
According of the Japan Animation Creators Association published in 2018, , the workers who draw the frames that make a scene appear fluid earn about ¥200 (or less than $2) per drawing. Since many frames take over an hour to produce, the average intermediate animator can expect to earn around ¥1.1 million (or $10,000) per year. For context, in 2019, Japan’s poverty line was 2.2 million yen.
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