Why Japan's animation industry has embraced AI
Why Japan's animation industry has embraced AI
Japan's laws allow the use of copyrighted content to train AI models. Even though artists are worried for their future, some of the country's cultural and social aspects might make it easier to accept AI.
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Japan's Copyright Act, amended in 2019, is largely interpreted as allowing the use of copyrighted materials to train AI tools — without the consent of the copyright holder. The law, specifically more permissive than those in the EU or the US, aims to attract AI investors to the Asian country.
It's actually strange that Japan allows this because that country normally has very strict copyright laws compared to the EU and the United States.
Charlie Fink, former Disney producer and current adjunct professor of cinematic AI at Chapman University, feels that the use of the rapidly developing tech will "lead to a new golden age of Hollywood," one that would be "highly democratized, because an individual could make a film for a few thousand dollars," he told DW
If Fink is right in what he says, in the future, I think there will be a debate about whether AI is a good thing or a bad thing. Because if AI makes cinema a movement like free software and/or open source, it's a win-win, right?
As long as the AI is also Free Software or Open Source.
sounds like japan might be desperate for the lack of anime workers.
Much of the animation takes place outside Japan these days. If you watch enough recent anime end credits, you'll see a lot of what look like romanized Vietnamese names. And there was a scandal . . . about a year ago now? . . . when some material for an anime then in production was found on the server of a North Korean studio (probably because a Chinese studio to which the anime had been outsourced then outsourced it further without paying attention to little things like international treaties). And I don't think the teams remaining in Japan have any shortage of recruits.
This issue, as with any business, is "can AI produce more for cheaper at an acceptable quality?" If it does make real inroads, it'll be the outsourcing studios doing the less-important scenes that get replaced first.