Hello @FilmDesigner @Lee_Rosario
I greatly appreciated your comments on all these questions relating to the transformation brought about by AI.
Your work is in the creative phase of the production process, while mine involves prototyping and modeling. Although my job is no longer really relevant in the film industry, many sectors still depend on this workflow: design ā prototype ā production.
Iāve witnessed three technological revolutions, and each time, I heard the same thing: āItās going to steal our jobs!ā First, there was the digital revolution: before the 2000s, very few workshops were equipped with laser cutters; I even saw the arrival of CNC machines. Today, itās rare to find a workshop without a laser cutter. Then, in the field of architecture, there was the BIM (Building Information Modeling) format. This 3D format, combined with CNC manufacturing tools, led some clients to believe that preparing files for prototyping was no longer necessary. Then came 3D printing, which became widespread (around 2010, I think): we had already been using it for about ten years, but again, whether among clients or even some colleagues, some thought that since the client provided us with 3D elements and we owned a 3D printer, we would be nothing more than ābutton pushers.ā
Like you, and once again, I wonder how my sector will be transformed by the arrival of this new technology, but I am much more pessimistic: I donāt think it will profoundly change our working methods. There will be a phase where, indeed, some (rare) jobs will probably disappear. I think the voice acting profession will likely face the same challenges as video rental stores faced with Netflix, phone booths with smartphones, or scribes with the printing press. History shows that some jobs disappear, and these are often isolated and localized jobs.
I believe, as with other technological revolutions, that our toolsāwhether design, modeling, or manufacturing toolsāwill evolve. But I donāt think our working methods will fundamentally change.
Letās take the example of my internship in the design department of a car manufacturer: the design team will continue to produce visuals of the vehicle, they will continue to display them on a wall so that a few decision-makers can select the design to prototype. They will then continue to refine it, use this prototype for wind tunnel testing, crash test simulations, and engineering and mechanical studies, whether each step of this process is assisted by AI or not.
In reality, I think that any company offering product design studies will always seek to bring its artistic touch and vision to the process.
If I had to imagine the worst-case scenario (for the field of artistic creation in the film industry), I envision a large production studio creating specific artificial intelligences for each film, incorporating the theme, visual style, characters, their behaviors, and even the atmosphere and music. One might then imagine that, thanks to these AIs, they could handle all the artistic development of their new productions. Yes, but hereās the catch: itās a vicious cycle, because an AI needs high-quality data to be trained (or refined). Therefore, I think there will always be this large wall displaying all the artistic proposals created by humans (regardless of the tools used by these creatives), and people standing in front of this wall deciding on the artistic direction to take to train their āsuper AI.ā From there, they will likely use it to create storyboards, evaluate scene concepts, and continue this assisted phase of reflection and iteration to select and refine the best proposals. And I am convinced that this step will not be entirely automated by AI, as it will constitute the studioās stylistic signature.
For several years now, and well before the advent of artificial intelligence, some clients have been trying to avoid the creative work. It regularly happens that a project manager or marketing director sends us a scribble on a scrap of paper, or a terrible 3D model created with SketchUp, to design the future exhibition stand. They can get away with it because these are not āriskyā projects, like the development of a product with a production run of several thousand, or even millions of units.
Letās take a concrete example: when Chanel wants to organize a trade show, the brand doesnāt necessarily call on a team of designers; however, for the creation of a new bottle, it uses its usual iterative creative process.
In short, as always, some jobs will be severely impacted, but I remain convinced that few jobs will disappear because of AI and that our working methods will endure, even if our tools evolve. In any case, if I have a powerful new tool, my competitor has it too.; therefore, there will always be a need for the human touchā¦
And in my field, it will be exactly as you said:
Clients will send me 3D files generated by artificial intelligence, thinking, as with BIM and 3D printing, that theyāve found the miracle solution. It will take them a few years to realize that itās simply another medium.
And also, I experience the exact same thing as you:
Every time Iāve tried to reuse a client file as a working basis to produce the files needed for manufacturing, itās been a disaster. In the end, whatever type of file Iām sentā (a SketchUp, Catia/SolidWorks, or 3DS Max file) theyāre just layer files on which I have to redraw the entire project with my constraints. And every time I didnāt, I found myself in complicated situations that made me think, āWhy didnāt I just start from scratch?ā
Oh how I wish I could claim that. A lot of very talented people poured their hearts into the making of those films. I was one very small part of it. But I do appreciate the compliment.