#26: AI's effect on Artists w/Finnian Macmanus

[@AndyWalsh]

I recently started working for Terraform. Great bunch of people. Let's hope we're still needed as human artists and don't get Terminated, Skynet style :D

[@lavatr8322]

Superb! , I am doing 3D since 1 year and really getting to know the industry and the process Is it the right time to get into???? _(because AI taking its grip)_ My main goal is to work on Films Also do I need to know Maya , Houdini to work in studios?

[@AndyWalsh]

@@lavatr8322 I'd say it's maybe easier to get into games vs film and likely more jobs. Focus on whatever modelling package you prefer and work on a tight portfolio. I've seen artists come in from Maya and have to switch to Max just like that. Or vice versa. Modelling is pretty much modelling. AI isn't really doing too much with modelling right now.

[@urpaljesus392]

Freenlance AI users are already taking jobs from concept artists, you're either gonna make way less, or you're gonna lose your job. the more and more ai advances the less we need rudimentary useless jobs that can be automated.

[@cr0uchingtiger]

@@urpaljesus392 They're not taking jobs from concept artists yet. It'll be a few years before that. Trust me, I do it for a living and not a single AI user in the world could do what me and my team are doing. It can take me hours to get one AI image where in that time I can grab a hundred ref pics from Pinterest and google that I can use. It'll get us eventually though, just not yet.

[@urpaljesus392]

@@cr0uchingtiger Huh? How in the hell is taking you hours to generate one image with AI ? You must be using shitty AI then like craiyon and etc. It takes me seconds to generate something that would take you a day or more to create and that's just from a concept, AKA the same way you would type ideas for your inspiration on Pinterest or Google, which is funny cause the big trope with the art community is that AI is stealing art, when at the same time the artists complaining are doing the same thing by what you're doing. Not to mention, I can then spend another 10 mins fine tuning it and getting completely different results, I literally sell prints of shit on Etsy cause people actually want to buy scaled images to put up as posters, this all takes me less than an hour to come up with 20+ images. Meanwhile there are "concept artists" dying to find freelance work.

[@Quinold]

I really love the point he makes with what makes a good concept artist. He says that just unique experiences you’ve had in life can influence your art and you as a person. You become more interesting and your ideas and art become more unique.

[@OOTO.]

Finally... a new Andrew Price Podcast :)

[@annaarty8014]

Great discussion! Thank you! Definitely wanna cry inside a bit about my insecure job as a junior artist.. but won. will do my best to find my place and evolve

[@polikocreation6102]

Crazy to know how big terraform just became in so little life span. I knew Finnian and his colleagues were crazy efficient artists, but still blews me out. We are talking about guys that were able to land intern job at Santa Monicas God of War before being 20 years old. People like them inspire me to never give up at concepting!

[@andrewpricepodcast]

Yeah Finnian is one of a handful of artists that scare me with how good they are. Even at 21 he sounded more switched on than most 40 year old's I know :P

[@AndresMagnone]

I love how at the beggining he´s just so immersed in the conversation he doesn´t even think about the podcast anymore 🤣 Fascinating stuff, Andrew!

[@QuestionMan]

I don't think it's necessarily HARDER to learn when you're older. Bur, rather, the slate is so profoundly more clean when you're younger. The young have nothing to lose, nothing to unlearn or abandon, and less susceptible to the sunk cost fallacy that will begin to plague them as they build and accumulate personal life assets.

[@wyro1741]

Thanks Andrew. As I listen to you and Finnian try to imagine the trajectory for visual production with new tools driven by AI it could be helpful in your future musings to look at the past trajectories of the simpler production media that was converted to digital and then layered with new creative tools -- digital audio and video production tools and software. Those new tools and software affected and inspired artists and output in earlier recent decades in slow and fast and wild and surprising and unpredictable ways. As you both point out in so many words: costs went down, high level creation became more personal. And the eventual effect was creativity exploded - though to produce most products from these new vast amounts of production it still does take curation, expert selection of what will sell, production standards administered by seasoned experts, and humans developing and executing marketing and promotion - especially for more esoteric creative products or situations that need special attention (resurrecting an artists's career in the music business, for example). But back to digital audio, digital video. It did take 20-30 years for each of those areas of tools to reach quality and real power at the lower cost levels - and even for the high end Hollywood music and film and TV people to embrace them at the production level. I guess you could also say computers as evolving creative tools could be seen this way too - it took so much time to drop the cost, add accessibility that eliminates hurdles to mass creativity, develop the smaller tech details to make these machines feel like creative tools and not glorified terminals, and really make them powerful creation tools. Anyhow, I'll leave you with a stat I read recently and compare it to something I have historical familiarity with. I was a FM radio programmer and in the 80's-2000's there were perhaps 100-200 releases total per month from the big recording labels in the US, maybe 10 times that many globally. Plus a slew of indie labels -- maybe another 100-300 releases per month, many very small and regionally distributed on vinyl. Today, thanks to the creative tools for recording and mixing audio that have been in place for the last 30 years, over 60,000 songs *per day* are uploaded to Spotify alone -- that's one per second(1). And I think you both have some sense of KZbin uploads (500 hours per minute(2). But as Andrew posits, only a tiny fraction of the music or KZbin videos or (fill in the blank media type) are truly popular - the rest are the long tail. The tail has gotten long, and there are many more creative products that are somewhat financially viable (if that's the desire - to be commercial). And there also could be lessons learned in how these creative tools unleashed (in combo with the connecting/distribution machine that is the internet) caused disruptive turmoil on every level of every industry within even the most tenuous reach of these tools. The entire industry structures built around recording and distributing and selling music, broadcasting any type of content, broadcasting itself, how production is done, how IP works, where and how what is considered good or sellable or popular is, who that is decided by, and what leads to anything becoming popular are all totally transformed. Yes there's still remnants of the old comfortable, popular forms and formats and structures, and they will remain for a long time (late night talk shows, network news, the concept of what a 'normal' 'film' or 'song' is). However if you simply consider the way TikTok is the latest media format to redefine: what is 'a video' (versus, say 5 or 10 or 20 or 40 years ago) ... we have ZERO idea where what Andrew and Finnian are discussing here will go. Thanks for taking a swing at trying to figure out what it might mean for 3D and a critical creative business segment I knew existed but did not know the current form of -- concept art. Thanks, Finnian, for such an articulate explanation. One way or the other - get ready for an explosion of complex and no doubt confusing, ever changing, long lasting transformation. and with the overlay of AI it's going to be really, truly unpredictable for a long time to come. Sources: (1) www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/over-60000-tracks-are-now-uploaded-to-spotify-daily-thats-nearly-one-per-second/ (2) www.globalmediainsight.com/blog/youtube-users-statistics/#stat

[@fabersoul]

Nice ones been waiting for this topic discussed with someone who's job is mainly concept art

[@ALX-zf3oo]

Finnian Macmanus, you prob won't see this but you're simple commentary about the average american's misunderstanding of the political system, medias capitalization of negative articles, and the importance 👏paying 👏attention. BRAVO SIR. Oh and all the insider 3D production and metaverse info too, that was super informative, thank you 😅.

[@ALX-zf3oo]

You're cool too Andrew! 🤷‍♂

[@ITSADARMAR]

Finnian is a great person. Love his work

[@AdrianVirlan]

What a cool conversation to listen to as I finish some work :D Thanks for this, guys!

[@archguide]

Aw Yesss! AP podcast!

[@atakayuz]

Amazing podcast Andrew, I love how you choose the perfect questions for people not in the industry but who want to get in one day.

[@Droxcy]

So proud of Finn we've lost contact but we all used to be in the forum scene 10-11 years ago and a lot of nights and fun times back in the day so happy his company has been kicking ass

[@Felipehez]

Very interesting conversation! I really look forward to a future where you can just imagine something like a movie and show it to others with AI. It shows that the most important skills are having a rich life experiences, imagination and creativity/design. A bit like coming back to writing in the freedom and expresiveness, but with all the plus of the visual and inmesive mediums

[@definitelynotnick2454]

I dont understand this idea that people keep repeating that "you can have an item that you can bring from game to game". Anybody who's part of game development knows all of the issues that you would run into to implement this. From making it interact with every character, particle effects/materials between engines, balancing(assuming it would be online), scaling issues, many more... From how unpopular NFTs are in gaming culture, and how unpopular paid mods were when valve tried that out, I just don't see the risk being worth the reward for companies to partake. It sounds more like a hassle and PR nightmare. I'm a little worried what this will do to the modding community if companies see this as a threat to their NFT metaverse future hellscape.

[@tommythunder6578]

Thank you guys for this amazingly interesting talk. It was really fascinating to me learning a bit about the industry. Best regards, and keep up the good work 👍

[@KarleeHankin]

I totally know what he means about noticing what's AI generated and what's not. Especially with midjourney. It has a specific style wierdly - like the AI does indeed have it's own style, which is craaaaaazyyyy

[@Jham3D]

I'm not sure the overload of new games will really change the amount of games people play. At the end of the day, there's still only so much time during the day. The best games are still going to be released mostly by the really rich companies. There's already thousands and thousands of games out there, but a lot of gamers like to main one game and get really really good at it. So it will probably make the gaming market more competitive, but I'd say most people don't like to download 1000 different fps games for instance. Part of the enjoyment in video games is mastering the game. A really good game is not really like new music where you may listen to it 5-10 times and be done. Its a piece of content people literally spend their entire days on for years XD

[@blue-R39]

This was really great stuff. Thanks guys!

[@Omkar3324]

sometimes science is more art than science. - ricky sanchez

[@razorback7828]

Wonderful interview! It would be awesome to do this interview again, a year later...Because in my opinion, asking to Finian if he is worry about AI, is like asking to a chief if he is worry about the new kebab...

[@QuestionMan]

Based on the direction of streaming content I've been seeing over the last couple of years, I worry that the only question studios will be asking is: how cheaply can we achieve a 'good enough' result?

[@Mastermind12358]

quantity over quality, my biggest worries of these AI programs is the incoming flood of crappy ugly tasteless "art" (I'd rather just call it content) with completely no dedication behind it.

[@Stephen_Newport]

Great interview, thank you both! The bright pink boarder is incredibly distracting while I work though! 😵‍💫

[@lukasrockdriguez5230]

Google Imagen is also mindblowing

[@thatcreativebeauty]

I know some people may think it’s a good thing for AI to be introduced into the art community but I don’t feel like it will be. And I feel like it’s going to be a way for big conglomerates and large companies like the man who owns dolly to monopolize the market without actually doing the work! at the end of the day nothing can replace the creativity and evolution of a human being it’s just a way for people to make money and bypass having to be a real artist! not to mention the amount of corruption and stealing of art people are going to be doing my God!

[@sakibhassan5152]

Why is this episode not showing up on google podcast? :/

[@andrewpricepodcast]

It's up now!

[@arturm7]

1:24:57 preproducción (la biblia de estética o estilo) y la producción.

[@chomsky72]

With all its limitations, I don't think studios or others using AI will care if Midjourney has a specific look. If you look at video game scifi concept art in aggregate you also see a design pattern and a degree of sameness maybe due to specific designs elements being popular. Honestly, you can trace most if not all what scifi design is in today's media to basically a few properties: Bladerunner, Alien, Star Wars and Gundams. So for the past 40 odd years artists have simply mined those properties for design ideas with some variations. For all intents and purposes, AI will probably improve at a rapid pace and at some point it will rely less on human interaction and prompts to generate ideas. That's part of what makes AI what it is: heuristic learning. Sure some AI art is derivative, but there are also some really unique stuff out there. And unfortunately yes it will probably affect the art market and commercial art in that there will be job loss. In 5 years time I don't see a game studio hiring and entire concept art firm or crew to generate designs. Why pay for multiple artists and wait weeks to see design ideas when AI can crank out hundreds of images in a matter of minutes and while not necessarily fantastic or having the human touch the said AI images will be good enough for production pipelines. I know this may be upsetting, but it is simply what will happen. The upside is if AI advances enough individual artists can simply create their own properties while having access to an entire production studio in the form of an AI on their desktop. Every artist can then design their own games, animated film and movies. I think that possibility is real. That will free artists from having to rely as much on others to create their vision.

[@lavatr8322]

So basically the AI is gonna fk up lower Positions in the STUDIO BECAUSE the SENIORS , ART DIRECTORS.... Gonna type PROMPTS and come up with a CONCEPT...... _I need to search a another career stream_

[@tsengkokoko]

It gets down to what is the point of Concept Art? it is suppose to be an inspirational piece of design to help story tellers to visualize their concept. Concept art is not fine art, and it doesn't need to be perfect. So for an AI to be able to generate idea at a rapid speed, I would say yes concept art jobs are dead. It will also happen to 3D and animation. What we have to think about is, if AI replaces our jobs, what can we do as an artist? There is always an answer, and we just need to figure that out.

[@LunaSomnium]

"Storms on the planet all the time" Stormlight Archives?

[@aledmb]

1:16:04 hahahaha that cracked me up!

[@Julian-B]

AI should be resited simply because of the fact that its database is based on stolen content from all other artists who post theirt work on the internet. Their images is used to feed the database for Midjourney and co. and the generated output is used commercially by companies. Thats straight datawashing and is unacceptable. Why wasn't this talked about in the podcast?? Thats is probably the most important topic when it comes to AI generated images!

[@arturm7]

25:00 IA

[@tanupriyranjan1336]

12:00 1:27:00 19:19 55:38

[@bobbarth6936]

That doesnt make any sense, this kind of job surely have contracts that point out that they cant share their pantings until xxx. Can't be just a no one knows kind of thing, no one even tried to find out? What the heck?

[@banano24]

I dont like that AI is being used in art It ruins the whole purpose

[@danielnewton2390]

Interesting, what do you mean by that?

[@lukasrockdriguez5230]

Well... I advice you to start getting used to it because it's the near future. I don't think it will necessarily ruin art, it will just make it a lot easier and accessible to people, and we will all become less impressed with flashy art with no substance, and will seek emotion, and for me that's the real purpose of art and something a robot can't achieve. A robot can't tell you a real, human story.

[@thatcreativebeauty]

I agree I think it’s just gonna be a great tool for lazy people that are not interested in being creative and learning the process of doing art and having a creative outlet is the way for companies to monopolize the market. However we have no choice but to move with what the big money in the big companies wanna do

[@banano24]

@@thatcreativebeauty fair enough but i still hate it

[@lflammia1]

WOW, WHAT A PILE OF CRAP.... THIS DIDN'T AGED WELL! Jesus , in a couple of years a lot of people will remember about this one. I am guessing that at terraform the atmosphere is as cut-troath as it get!