OpenAI just released Sora, a video-generation AI tool that creates hyper-realistic videos from prompts. While Sora is impressive, it is sure to add to the mounting concerns on potential job losses for VFX artists owing to the rise of generative AI.

Last year, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, the overarching organisation pioneering the inaugural VFX union, advised Hollywood to exercise caution in utilising AI within the industry.

Similarly, a major VFX studio owned by Netflix last year hired AI experts, raising a few eyebrows. The studio was looking for individuals with a comprehensive understanding of prompt engineering, experience in neural network image-generating space, and knowledge of the stable diffusion ecosystem, among other things. 

A recent report titled ‘FUTURE UNSCRIPTED: The Impact of Generative Artificial Intelligence on Entertainment Industry Jobs‘ underscores that generative AI is poised to instigate a substantial shift from conventional techniques to innovative processes. This transition is expected to recalibrate the demand for labour and capital across the entertainment industries. 

However, industry experts AIM spoke to hold a rather different view.

“When ‘The Lion King’ was originally created through hand-drawn animation 35 years ago, the production process significantly differed from the recent remake with Disney and Jon Favreau. In the modern iteration, we employed virtual reality (VR) to finalise the entire film. 

Subsequently, we immersed ourselves in animating it with photorealistic precision. The current production of ‘The Lion King’ utilised an array of advanced tools and technologies, involving a larger team compared to the production of the original film several years ago,” Biren Ghose, managing director – Asia Pacific, Technicolor Creative Studios., told AIM.

GenAI will make things easier 

Other industry experts also concurred with Ghose’s views. It is not just the VFX industry, but since generative AI caught the world’s attention with the launch of ChatGPT, concerns about jobs became widespread in many industries, ranging from engineering and programming to many creative fields such as designing.

Nonetheless, experts across various industries share a common perspective that generative AI presently lacks the capacity to fully replace humans. Rather, it functions as a tool to augment human capabilities. It holds true for the VFX industry as well.

Moreover, akin to past technological revolutions, AI is anticipated to reshape the job landscape, opening up new opportunities and avenues for employment. 

Notably, even in the VFX industry, the companies have been building proprietary tools for quite some time. Ghose explains that different projects have different requirements, and in some cases, VFX companies develop their own proprietary AI algorithms to support them in that particular project. 

Ghose believes that generative AI has the power to improve these existing tools and functions. For instance, “Imagine a landscape featuring a mix of greenery and buildings. When I capture this scene with the camera, visual effects today can enhance and extend the shot. With AI advancements, certain extensions, like modifying the skyline, may become more streamlined.”

GenAI can’t do VFX alone

However, to imagine that an AI model can do the work of a VFX artist or team is far-fetched. 

“In the next two years, AI’s capability to serve as a reference or an accelerator, expediting tasks in the realm of imprecise outputs, is expected to enhance productivity significantly. However, achieving the finesse and intricate detailing anticipated in the next one or two years, at least, may still be beyond the reach of AI,” Ghose said.

Other experts whom AIM spoke to on the sidelines of the Bengaluru GAFX 2024 did appear impressed by the quality of the text-to-image AI tools like Midjourney or Stable Diffusion or video-generation tools like Lumiere by Google. However, they, too, believe these tools still do not possess the calibre to support a VFX project independently. 

Moreover, another general consensus among experts is that AI currently lacks the logical reasoning and real-world knowledge that artists rely on for creative decision-making and problem-solving.

“When it comes to high-end artistry like what we do, in the short term, the human capability will not be replaced; however, in the long term, nobody knows,” Ghose remarked.

Copyright issues pertain

Ghose also adds that the quality of these tools depends on the data they are trained on. Copyright and AI are still ongoing issues, and many artists in the US and, more famously, The New York Times have sued OpenAI for using their content without permission to train AI models. 

Though Ghose believes generative AI will be a game-changer, chances are high that they will develop their own proprietary video generation model by training it with their own rich enterprise data.

“Large organisations like ours, with extensive experience and a wealth of expertise gained from numerous endeavours, will channel this knowledge into proprietary tools tailored to our specific needs. The nature of our work with esteemed clients prohibits us from feeding data into publicly available generative AI tools,” Ghose said.