Artificial Intelligence (AI) advancements in areas like animation and illustrations have improved a great deal in the last year and have now reached a point where it is becoming a threat to jobs in the entertainment and art industries.

AI was first introduced to the public in 1956. In 2022 and 2023 AI chatbots began to go viral with apps like ChatGPT and Snapchat providing free easy to use chatbots. Around the same time more apps and sites that could generate AI images and videos also began to show up.

Users on social media sites like Instagram and X started to use these image generators to their advantage, by making fun of the weird proportions and subjects the systems would create.

With these mistakes it was easy for the people to pick out what images were real and which were fake, but throughout the last year these generators have gotten so good and so smart that they are now indistinguishable sometimes. This has posed a potential risk to jobs in the entertainment and art industries.

This February the site/app OpenAI Sora released a 9 second clip of a monster like creature next to a burning candle. This 9 second AI animation looked so good that it could be passed off as animation done by a real person.

If big companies can start using AI to make animation then there will not be a need for animators and artists anymore. Artists online have begun felt this pressure of AI with AI art becoming popular.

These images are made within a few minutes with minimum effort, compared to traditional art which takes time, skill, and money. There have already been companies that have started using AI animation in their films.

“My thought is that it is a useful tool, but so far it has been used for unethical and uninteresting output,” said Daria Cohen, an internet animator who has worked on a variety of short films and series across sites.

AI has the potential to do so much for the entertainment industry, it could help make the industry safer by helping to further eliminate dangerous stunts. Even with these positives, however, it is currently being used for replacing writers, animators, and actors.

These videos and audio recordings could cause something to be said that could be taken as reality and negatively affect that actor’s career.

Now the fast and easy turn out of AI can be helpful. Animators can use the technology to cut down the hours of work put into creating visuals and models and spend more time on making a story. AI is still just a machine, it can not recreate human creativity and skill.

“Animators can stay relevant by embracing AI as a tool for efficiency and creativity. Learning how to work alongside AI and understanding its capabilities can enhance career prospects in the evolving industry,” said The Video Animation Company.

Art has been a way to express oneself since the beginning and animation is just a greater extension of that.

In the eyes of critics, entertainment companies have been at an all time low with sequel after sequel and multiple reboots, this might lead them to turn to AI, destroying or bettering opportunities for the future.