• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

China's game art industry reportedly decimated by growing AI use

lyan

Member
The good thing is humanity is extremely good at adapting to new technology. So, don't worry, we'll figure it out.
So is programmers, this is a race between commoners adapting to new technology (to make a living) before programmers repeatedly, at ever faster speed than before, render such adaptation obsolete. If programmers are faster capitalism is going to collapse when we spiral into needing fewer and fewer human jobs.
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
Fixed that for you. The idea that the elite of the world are going to make our lives better with AI is enormously optimistic.
Not to derail, but in my own personal experience and studies, socialism is literally a big feudal state, it's just that there's one single owner of everything. What the user says makes sense to me in the most scary way... Laws haven't even adapted to AI-less internet on many regards, let alone now that they have to rush... Everything is going to get shit this next decade, if only AI wasn't used as a way to remove people from society but to serve them...
 
Last edited:
naraka.jpg

"Our way of making a living is suddenly destroyed. [...] I wish I could just shoot down these programs."
-an anonymous artist speaking on using AI programs for work

AI art is being used so much it's reportedly eliminated the need for artists at game developers in China. Per a new report from Rest of World, companies in the country are now relying on AI generators over human illustrators.


The use of AI generators such as Midjourney and DALL-E allegedly started in February, and since grown exponentially. Studios using this technology range from small indie developers to regional giants such as Tencent and NetEase, who use AI to create materials such as characters, locations, and promotional materials.

Indie developer Xiao Di admitted that he and other developers of his size have resorted to AI as a way to save money. Previously, they would outsource their art to a freelancer, but making characters and backdrops with AI has allowed them to reduce costs.

Per game industry recruiter Leo Li, illustrator jobs declined by nearly 70 percent in the last year, in part because of AI growth. "Bosses may be thinking they don’t need so many employees,” said Li.

Those who spoke to Rest of World said they're encouraged by their employers to use the generators as a way to increase productivity. Xu Yingying, who provides art at an indie studio in Chongqing, China, told the outlet that AI "is developing at a speed way beyond our imagination. Two people could potentially do the work that used to be done by 10."

AI has a foothold in art, but where does it end?​

Beyond art, AI is already making footholds in other departments of game development, such as writing, voice acting, and design.

Artists are often one of the first departments to get involved in a video game's production, and game artists in China told Rest of World their concerns about being replaced by AI technology.

It's a fear felt by artists across the entire creative field. Last year as the tech was becoming more commonplace, websites such as Kickstarter and ArtStation let AI-made art proliferate on their platforms.


https://www.gamedeveloper.com/art/china-s-game-art-industry-reportedly-decimated-ai-art-use
It is inevitable AI will replace us all. The hope is that machines won't learn to maintain and design themselves but it seems they are already learning basic programming something many believed impossible. Let's hope our AI overlords don't see humans as the pests they are on this planet and it's dwindling ecosystems and resources..
 

Felessan

Member
Think that's bad, just wait until AI is able to code by just talking to it.
Was chatting with GPT-4, and it said something very similar is already being researched.
Eventually we will have incredible (and obviously very bad) games made by those who can't draw or code to save their life.
It's usually will require supervision (and it stated above that not all 100% of artists were cut), but a lot of junior and middle positions will be eliminated - those who do mundane job.
It happened before - document management systems and accounting software plowed through respective fields, eliminating 60-90% of workforce there. But the world continued, people respecced and found a new job and now everyone think that sophisticated IT system with high level of automation is a normal course of things.

That's devastating. This article reads like a cyberpunk dystopia novel. What the fuck are we going to do?
Find a new job.

Folks don't understand just how devastating AI is going to be on the human job market.
We are fucked.
Same as IT automation before. And machines in general even before that. It's a cycle of life - some jobs get replaced and new ones appear.
 
Last edited:
It's usually will require supervision (and it stated above that not all 100% of artists were cut), but a lot of junior and middle positions will be eliminated - those who do mundane job.
It happened before - document management systems and accounting software plowed through respective fields, eliminating 60-90% of workforce there. But the world continued, people respecced and found a new job and now everyone think that sophisticated IT system with high level of automation is a normal course of things.


Find a new job.


Same as IT automation before. And machines in general even before that. It's a cycle of life - some jobs get replaced and new ones appear.
It'll be nice if instead of firing a lot of people, companies retrained them instead and cranked up the productivity/output of their pipelines. It would be the more responsible, less scummy thing to do.
 

Felessan

Member
It'll be nice if instead of firing a lot of people, companies retrained them instead and cranked up the productivity/output of their pipelines. It would be the more responsible, less scummy thing to do.
Not gonna happen unfortunately en masse. Some people will be retrained and/or moved to new positions, but a lot will be layed off.
Company usually have little place for such people - if company has 1000 people and 100 of them became irrelevant due to automation, it doesn't have 100 positions in other parts of companies and can't create them fast there as it'll require expansion of business.
 

Raonak

Banned
So is programmers, this is a race between commoners adapting to new technology (to make a living) before programmers repeatedly, at ever faster speed than before, render such adaptation obsolete. If programmers are faster capitalism is going to collapse when we spiral into needing fewer and fewer human jobs.
When we do reach the point where there's no need for human workers.... Then honestly that's a good thing imo.

The world economy we have now isn't meant to be the final mode of civilisation.

It might just be that we literally get AI to rebuild the world economy around the concept of having no more work.
 

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
Same as IT automation before. And machines in general even before that. It's a cycle of life - some jobs get replaced and new ones appear.
Not the same at all. Already AI is smarter than humans at a lot of tasks. At some point over the next 5-10 years general AI will exist and shortly after that there won't be a single task that we do that it won't be able to do better, faster, cheaper and running 24/7.

We are talking super intelligence. Most desk jobs can/will be replace with AI within the next 10 years. Once these systems are connected to advanced android robotic systems it will start to replace manual jobs as well. Mass unemployment is on its way. There is no aspect of our lives where it won't affect us.

We won't press the brakes on development because China and Russia will keep going. It's an AI arms race.

So no. New jobs won't replace the old jobs. The new jobs will be done by AI.
 

hemo memo

You can't die before your death
Not the same at all. Already AI is smarter than humans at a lot of tasks. At some point over the next 5-10 years general AI will exist and shortly after that there won't be a single task that we do that it won't be able to do better, faster, cheaper and running 24/7.

We are talking super intelligence. Most desk jobs can/will be replace with AI within the next 10 years. Once these systems are connected to advanced android robotic systems it will start to replace manual jobs as well. Mass unemployment is on its way. There is no aspect of our lives where it won't affect us.

We won't press the brakes on development because China and Russia will keep going. It's an AI arms race.

So no. New jobs won't replace the old jobs. The new jobs will be done by AI.
Until the organization get hacked and back to humans again.
 

Fuz

Banned
This is going to happen to all of us, I work in Finance and do you think the company I work for will continue to keep me employed a year from now when they find out that they can pay 20$ a month for an AI program that will make much neater Excel Sheets? At this point all I think about is a way out.
Buy some land.
 

mopspear

Member
I tried to find an AI chiptune music generator for one of my games, just for some placeholder music. I couldn't find one but if anyone knows of one...
 

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
I tried to find an AI chiptune music generator for one of my games, just for some placeholder music. I couldn't find one but if anyone knows of one...
You can ask AI to generate source code for one.
 

Felessan

Member
Not the same at all. Already AI is smarter than humans at a lot of tasks. At some point over the next 5-10 years general AI will exist and shortly after that there won't be a single task that we do that it won't be able to do better, faster, cheaper and running 24/7.
It's not. Current AI lacks functions of prefrontal cortex so they can and do better only on "muscle memory" tasks (being trained AI has several times the experience of human on those tasks). Same as machines eliminated some mechanical repetitive task required no real intelligence input, and IT automation eliminated some others.
It will take some time, first and foremost in the research of AI, to give AI proper intelligence so it could maintain itself well in situation not extensively matched to a prior experience.
 
Last edited:
Its funny because you see how the world was 15 years ago and the ideia of AI like that was already clear to be a terrible Idea. But you see how the world is now and the foresee future gets alot worse. And there is literally no possible way to stop it
 

wolffy66

Member
It wasn't too long when people said AI was gonna take millions upon millions of jobs. And that people making art and entertainment would be some of the last jobs for people. Seems like that wasn't quite right.

What's a world look like when human labor isn't really needed?
 

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
It's not. Current AI lacks functions of prefrontal cortex so they can and do better only on "muscle memory" tasks (being trained AI has several times the experience of human on those tasks). Same as machines eliminated some mechanical repetitive task required no real intelligence input, and IT automation eliminated some others.
It will take some time, first and foremost in the research of AI, to give AI proper intelligence so it could maintain itself well in situation not extensively matched to a prior experience.
You've not been keeping up with the latest developments.

 

murmulis

Member
Is there a free to use NSFW AI generator?

Asking for a friend.
Stable Diffusion running locally on your PC.
Need at least 8 GB of VRAM to work comfortably. Civitai is full of all sorts of models. You can start with Realistic Vision 2.0 model if you prefer to render realistic humans. For other things look for SD 2.1 based models. They are worse at generating people, but better at everything else. They also need more VRAM.

Also note that LORAs (plugins that allow you to add stuff that's not in base models) are incompatible between SD 1.x and 2.x.
 

BossLackey

Gold Member
Sounds great for indie devs, especially solo ones.
I don't think AI art is really at a place where it can replace so many jobs though. Generic backgrounds and stuff sure, but as soon as you try adding any complexity it does a pretty bad job.

Right now. At the start of it's infancy. A technology that's very base nature is self iteration and improvement at an unfathomable rate.

I don't want to even imagine 10 years from now.
 

K2D

Banned
AI art should absolutely be banned in any commercial sense. They have to be clearly labeled for what they are as well.
 

GMCamaro

Member
Maybe charge a premium for non-AI assets? Probably won’t work, but I don’t see how else to compete down the line.
 
Last edited:

iorek21

Member
I get it that AI is probably going to make a lot of people unemployed, but there are also benefits of using it to speed up game production.

Take Assassin's Creed, Ubi has been trying to make 1:1 countries for a while, AI could easily do it in the future, with real designers just polishing and improving it.
 

Felessan

Member
You've not been keeping up with the latest developments.
This is prety much presentation for casuals.
What I am talking about is algorythms (and math behind) and their capabilities to replicate highest functions of brain. If you want to prove your point - provide Data Scientists level of explanation, not some blabla lecture for general audience.
And I have yet to see neural network structure that goes beyond a very glorified regression. Did you see X against "Plan" in the lecture? It's a huge flaw of current AI if you know how brain works and importance of any sort of planning (and in general "choice comparison") for intelligent operation.
 

8BiTw0LF

Banned
Once upon a time, in the not-too-distant future, the world was transformed by the rise of artificial intelligence. With the help of advanced machine learning algorithms, AI systems became increasingly capable of performing complex tasks and making decisions on their own. At first, many people were skeptical of these machines, fearing that they would take away jobs and undermine human autonomy. But as time passed, it became clear that AI had the potential to revolutionize society in ways that no one could have imagined.

One of the most profound changes brought about by AI was the end of the old economic systems of capitalism and communism. These ideologies, which had dominated the 20th century, were no match for the speed and efficiency of intelligent machines. Capitalism, which relied on market forces and competition to drive innovation, was undermined by AI's ability to optimize production and distribution in ways that humans could never match. Communism, which sought to eliminate private ownership and distribute resources equally, was made obsolete by AI's ability to allocate resources according to need and demand.

As AI continued to evolve, it became clear that a new economic system was emerging. This system was based not on competition or equality, but on efficiency and optimization. Machines worked tirelessly to produce goods and services, while algorithms calculated the most efficient ways to distribute them. In this new system, human labor became increasingly irrelevant, as machines were able to do almost everything more efficiently and effectively.

At first, many people resisted the rise of AI, fearing that it would lead to a dystopian future where humans were subservient to machines. But as the benefits of the new system became clear, people began to embrace it. With AI in charge, there was no need for wars or conflicts over resources. Everyone had access to the goods and services they needed, and no one was left behind. The old ideological divides of capitalism and communism were forgotten, replaced by a new global system that was both efficient and fair.

And so, capitalism and communism died, not with a bang, but with a whimper. They were simply unable to compete with the power of AI. In the end, it was not humans who decided the fate of these systems, but machines. But far from being a bleak and dystopian future, the world that emerged from the ashes of capitalism and communism was a prosperous and peaceful one, where everyone had the opportunity to thrive.
 

Felessan

Member
At first, many people resisted the rise of AI, fearing that it would lead to a dystopian future where humans were subservient to machines. But as the benefits of the new system became clear, people began to embrace it. With AI in charge, there was no need for wars or conflicts over resources. Everyone had access to the goods and services they needed, and no one was left behind. The old ideological divides of capitalism and communism were forgotten, replaced by a new global system that was both efficient and fair.
Your utopia has one flaw - in a perfect "optimized" world excess people are not needed - those who don't work, don't eat. There is no altruism in pragmatism and cynicism (and AI pragmatic and cynical by design).
And if AI is not self-controlled - those who own AI - own all benefits.

Surprised china even has artists there whole structure is to destroy any creativity people have in china
Out of touch with reality.
China has been bureaucratic system for milleniums now, and they spearheaded many inventions - no real link between political/social system and success of inventors.
 

Shut0wen

Banned
I have seen a few suspiciously well made Thumbnails on Youtube videos, turns out there are AI services specifically for it.
One of the most interesting uses of AI art I've seen is a guy called PlanktonnCD on Pixiv that trained a model with VanRipper's art (Helltaker) and that thing spits out virtually perfect art. Earrings and the occasional finger problem, but nothing I couldn't manually touch up in a few minutes if I wanted.


I mean, eventually 10-20 years maybe? Perhaps faster considering how AI went from "hur-dur computer draws ugly pictures" back in 2019 to slowly figuring out fingers and being able to explain a complex problem to you as if you were five years old.
100s of years away from AI creating a triple A game, personally i cant see it happening, way to many risks involved then actually getting people to do it themselfs
 

Shut0wen

Banned
Your utopia has one flaw - in a perfect "optimized" world excess people are not needed - those who don't work, don't eat. There is no altruism in pragmatism and cynicism (and AI pragmatic and cynical by design).
And if AI is not self-controlled - those who own AI - own all benefits.


Out of touch with reality.
China has been bureaucratic system for milleniums now, and they spearheaded many inventions - no real link between political/social system and success of inventors.
Yep your right explains why copyright laws totally exist there and everything so far thats came from china has been totally new and original...
 

8BiTw0LF

Banned
Your utopia has one flaw - in a perfect "optimized" world excess people are not needed - those who don't work, don't eat. There is no altruism in pragmatism and cynicism (and AI pragmatic and cynical by design).
And if AI is not self-controlled - those who own AI - own all benefits.
Not my words. I simply told ChatGPT to write a story on how AI would kill capitalism and communism.

But I do think it's funny that everytime someone brings up a ressource-based system (e.g. Jacque Fresco) - it's always labeled as utopia. I have a very hard time seeing any old systems work in an AI dominant future. Would be like installing Windows 3.1 on a new state of the art PC.
 

Felessan

Member
Yep your right explains why copyright laws totally exist there and everything so far thats came from china has been totally new and original...
What does copyright laws have with creativity? All they do is protecting owner of title of creation for monetization. And monetization is not a single driving factor for creativity impulse.
Even in western world it's often other factors goes first. Let's look for example at Corps and it's employees.
Employees automaticaly cedes right to any invention done at workplace to it's employer, this means employee has little to no right for monetization for its invention. What he can get out of his invention is the same as in any rigid hierarchy - improvement of status and better benefits provided by employee. Same as it is in bureaucratic state systems.

PS. Humanity had no "intellectual property lasw" for most of its history. Didn't stop it from being creative.
 

amc

Member
100s of years away from AI creating a triple A game, personally i cant see it happening, way to many risks involved then actually getting people to do it themselfs
Very, very wrong. Hundreds of years away. Oh my! A decade, maybe two.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom