AI has already begun to take away the work of illustrators in China, and a report summarizing the cries of those on the ground and how AI is actually being used has been released
With the emergence of Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, expectations for image generation AI have skyrocketed, and now
AI is already taking video game illustrators' jobs in China
https://restofworld.org/2023/ai-image-china-video-game-layoffs/
Since the launch of DALL-E 2 in 2022, image generation AI such as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion have emerged, allowing users to easily generate flawless illustrations from text, accelerating the use of image generation AI in the Chinese gaming industry, from major gaming companies like Tencent to indie game studios.
Amber Yu, a freelance illustrator working in the Chinese gaming industry, reportedly earned between 3,000 and 7,000 yuan (approximately 58,000 to 136,000 yen) for each image she created for a game. Before the advent of image-generating AI, the promotional images she created for social media posts to attract players and highlight new features were a time-consuming and skilled process.
However, since February 2023, Yu told Rest of World that requests for creating such visuals have plummeted. Yu used to spend a week drawing 'illustrations of women dancing lion dances in traditional Chinese costumes,' but the rise of image generation AI has made it possible to create similar illustrations in just a few seconds. Yu says that game companies are now asking human illustrators to 'fine-tune the illustrations created by image generation AI,' and the compensation seems to have fallen to about one-tenth of what it used to be.
In the gaming industry, illustrators are essential for character design, background production, etc. However, due to the high quality of illustrations output by image generation AI, many creators working in the gaming industry in China are beginning to worry about how long they will be able to continue working.
'AI is being developed at a speed far beyond our imagination,' said Su Yingying, an illustrator working at an independent game studio in Chongqing, China. The studio where Yingying works produces designs for major Chinese game developers and employs 15 illustrators. However, five of these illustrators, who were responsible for character design, were reportedly laid off in 2023. Yingying believes the reason for the layoffs is the studio's decision to start using image-generating AI. 'In the future, we may have to reduce the work that previously took 10 people to just two people,' she said, hinting at the possibility of further staff reductions.
In fact, major Chinese game companies such as Tencent and NetEase have been exploring ways to use AI to reduce game development costs for years. NetEase's battle royale game,
Rest of World confirmed that NetEase is using AI-based technology to create in-game animations, and that the AI models are trained using proprietary and licensed resources. A NetEase spokesperson said, 'Our goal is to develop better tools to enable our talented team of art designers and illustrators to create assets more quickly and efficiently during the game development process.' Meanwhile, Tencent and miHoYo did not respond to Rest of World's request for comment.
An anonymous illustrator living in Guangdong Province said, 'My livelihood has been suddenly destroyed,' and that he has completely given up his job as an illustrator. Yu responded, 'It's despicable that AI trained on a massive dataset of illustrations that humans have created over decades is trying to replace illustrators.' However, Yu plans to improve productivity by training the AI using his own illustrations. 'If I were a top illustrator, I could boycott work, but that wouldn't be enough to make a living,' he said.
In China's gaming industry, image generation AI is apparently being used to create 'clothing and accessories from human-drawn character sketches,' as well as 'treasure chests and gold coins that appear in games.' An anonymous game artist working at a major gaming company in Guangdong Province revealed that, while he previously drew about one scene per day, the rise of image generation AI has increased his production to 40 scenes per day. One night, a colleague of the game artist reportedly muttered, 'I wish I could destroy AI.'
Some say that the advent of image-generating AI has led to employees who fear being fired working harder, leading to increased productivity. However, others in the industry say, 'AI has increased our productivity, but at the same time, it has exhausted us.'
Leo Li, a recruiter at a gaming company in Hangzhou, said China's widespread
Some in the gaming community have mocked the illustrations created by image-generating AI as 'digital corpses' and criticized the practice of collecting illustrations from the internet and using them to train AI without the creators' consent.
When Rest of World asked general gamers for comment, they said they wouldn't mind having an avatar or skin created by AI, but they wouldn't pay a lot of royalties for an avatar or skin made by AI.
Huanxiong Studio, a Chinese game company based in Chengdu, recently announced that it will use Midjourney and Stable Diffusion for game development. Ziggy Mo, the company's director, said, 'Image generation AI was not able to create illustrations designed to meet the needs of specific clients,' pointing out that image generation AI still has specific weaknesses. Furthermore, Mo added, 'At least for our company, AI has not replaced human workers. AI is simply a tool to support creators.'
Jeffrey Ding, an AI researcher at George Washington University, said that while advances in AI could open up competition and create new opportunities, it could also lead to the loss of existing white-collar jobs. However, Ding said, 'AI could replace not only artists, but also lawyers, writing services, and many other jobs,' so it's not just illustrators who are at risk.
Independent game developer Xiao Di said the anxiety illustrators are experiencing could soon spread to other professions, adding that indie game developers like himself are using image-generating AI to cut costs rather than outsourcing illustrations to art studios.
In addition, ' Madman Game: Chinese Mental Patient ' developed by Dee is a work that features an artist living in an era when chat AI ChatGPT and image generation AI have taken the world by storm, and some of the characters in the game are said to have been created using the image generation AI 'Draft'.
Steam: Madman Game: Chinese Psychopath
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1930420/_/
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