I remember Feng making a video like 8 years ago where he almost word for word described Midjourney and similar AI art programs in a theoretical way, and everyone in the comments was saying "this is insane, wtf are you talking about, that's going to take like 400 years" and now here we are
I remember that too, and not only that he was actually describing the internal working of how the ai works under the hood. He said you could have 'sliders' for each type of concept ie 80% insect, 30% mechanical etc. which is exactly the sort of thing the internal algorithms are doing.
I used to watch your videos religiously when I was a teen preparing to enter a design school. Now 10 years later I'm able to support myself as a freelancer and I look back to you as one of my biggest influences in terms of design-thinking.
You and I must have seen a different video. Unless you are a senior artist with 20+ years of experience in the industry, AI will destroy you career goals. If you are a beginner with ZERO experience or a junior, you'l better start looking for something else.
One of the most sober down-to-earth analysis of AI I've seen. No doom and gloom, no pessimism, just a realistic observation. Skilled artists who know how to design and storytell aren't being replaced anytime soon.
@@ScribbleNutsnot just higher up veterans. Anyone who puts in the time to learn the hard stuff will be able to get work. As was said in the video all generative apps are good at, are form and rendering and some of the fundamentals. None of it has a style of its own or a story, the industry over time will learn this and the fear of this new technology will disappate. I know of studios who have hired prompters and have found them useless for their projects. And they were soon fired, if you wanna get the job done right you need people with skills, experience and knowledge. And arguably a artistic flair. Yes people have lost work to some of these people, but it is only cause companies wanna save a buck. But they soon learn after using this software that it can't do everything, it generates images and that's it. So in that way it could be useful for the initial idea but nothing else. In that way it'll be a time saving tool for actual designers, prompters without any other skills and an artistic eye will fail to use it for anyones benefit.
I see this meaning the top artists/directors will keep their jobs, but there will be less need for big art teams. Eventually, design and storytelling will be done by AI also. Sooner than we think...
@@ScribbleNuts If you have the level to work as a concept artist you are a top artist… not in between to be honest…. If you are not a top artist you won’t get hired, so it stays the same…
@@crashito_x There are shitloads of high skill leveled artists...we aren't talking about that though. We are talking you will need much less of them, the TOP level stays..meaning seniority...
Literally been ages since he posted, Feng was such a big part of me developing as an artist but also a person in my early twenties. Glad to see him back!
Whaaa did not expect cryochamber here! Been listening to y’all for probably about as long as I’ve watched fzd school. Which is prob at a decade now geez
I kind of felt that too. Maybe its because he came with an industrial design perspective which I never seen so far. Most of the talk and criticism has been about pure art and illustration so far.
Hi Feng, Thanks for putting this out. I think Jake Parker and yourself are currently really helping the art industry to realize that WE have the power to change the conversation on what AI can and cannot do. Excellent break down. I have figured out a few from working with my clients, the main one for me that I voiced on LinkedIn last year was, doing art for fun and no amount of typing will replace that for me. I'm really glad you nailed it with this detailed list. Glad to have you back.
I am watching Design Cinema since the beginning and I am in the industry mostly because of the amount of knowledge I gathered from this. Thank you Feng Zhu!
I was about to shut down my laptop after finishing my late night studies when I suddenly saw the notification from FZD. I was like, "alright,. .guess we ain't sleeping just yet."
Feels amazing to have you back! You share so much knowledge and sparks my brain. Ive have been from the very first episode and you have been the best guidance so far in my career. Working now at a top company in mobile game development. Thank you from the bottom of my heart
Yo Feng man, It is SO GOOD to see you back! When I last watched you I was aspiring to get into concept art. And now I am actually in a course finally learning the ropes. So much of your advice has worked and I will still keep using it in the future. I want to thank you again on behalf of everyone here how much you have been able to give us FOR FREE and accelerating all oure progress.
Not sugar coating, but better check your job chances and supply demands need. You probably won't get a chance unless have good connection or good background money from parents to lift you up after graduation for some time
the concept artist job is getting eliminated. I'd advice looking into other avenues to monetize your art or else you will be forced to quit. Thousands of layoffs happening right now and demand has plumeted and keeps going down every day.
Design Cinema has been so important to me ever since I was a child. I checked this channel just 2 months ago to see if there was any new videos that Feng had created. I am beyond overjoyed to see this. My night is made.
this channel gets my art journey started back in 2018 and years later i'm taking commissions. Didn't expect an update for sure but here we are. Couldn't be more happier
A really refreshing take on AI. No doom prophecies, no blind admiration either, only pragmatic down-to-earth observations. It's nice to have Design Cinema back after the Paris show earlier this year, these talks are as inspirational as ever. I swear, the opportunity to hear Feng share his life experiences alone is well worth watching the entire Design Cinema series..
Im no longer interested in doing concept art. But always great to see Fei upload. These videos were my favorite thing back in high school, and a main source of inspiration.
@@dariusus9870 not only from fzd, mind you is not the people from certain places. Is the people attitude themselves. I've met some that I really don't like
i'm not pursuing illustration or design anymore, but the talks about discipline and your attitude towards working in a creative field have inspired me and will hopefully keep me on the right track for years to come. very happy to see you back, even if it's only for one episode.
Feng I know your channel is about concept art, but I think a lot of illustrators watch your content too (me included). Would you be able to provide a perspective from the illustration side of things? You're one of the few TH-cam channels that go this in depth for the entertainment art industry & I think a lot of us would love to hear your opinions on that too.
@@ivanjankov2709 Yeah, I remember his video awhile ago pointing out the differences between concept art and illustration, and telling people to look elsewhere for illustration portfolio advice. There's a lot of us he has to keep pointing away because a lot of people are actually interested in the latter. I still watched all of his videos anyways because they were highly educational in visual language & image making in general. Definitely wondering his thoughts on illustration because I'm sure he still has a very measured take from knowing others in the industry and his own reasoning. I think it's very worth it for him to take some time to address it, given how many illustrators watch him probably!
Illustration and concept art are so muddled now. I get what Feng said and he is right to an extent but you have something called Key art which is illustration but also concept art. Digital paintings and paintings over a 3d base in the blue-sky pre-production phase for a film and game to come up with the tone or look for your art director. Shaddy Safadi and One Pixel Brush uses this for their clients. They are technically illustrations but doubles as concept art also.
@@galereginald12 Yeah... To be honest in animation visual development, almost everything we do is those pretty images. The thing is, AI can make pretty images but it cannot make something "new" or derived from a human experience. So for now, if you can paint well, and bring your own perspective, there is a need for that. But it's true that this industry is smaller and subject to less job stability.
Great to see you here Feng, these last few years have been a challenging time for all of us. Only just beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. So glad to have you back!
I've been checking the channel frequently for the past two years hoping for a comeback. Glad to hear you had a good year's rest and so glad to see you upload again, looking forward to episode 111!
Really great and interesting video. I haven't watched Design Cinema for a while, but these videos definitely helped inspire me. On the topic of these "AI" models improving one day, I feel that they won't really get that much better, in fact they may get worse. All of these models essentially interpolate/mix distinct data points to produce their outputs. As an exaggerated example, they take 10% of image A, 10% B, 20% C, and so on mixing these similar data points based on the prompt. The scale there is exaggerated, as they're actually mixing tens of millions of data points, so maybe it's actually something like 0.00000001% image A, 000000000.2 % B. It's this extremely fine scale that fools people into thinking a brand-new image has been generated, people probably wouldn't be fooled if the models were smaller. I guess five billion images is too fine a mix to imagine. The fundamental why in which these diffusion models work, essentially guarantees that they can't get much better, companies creating these models have already scraped pretty much the entire internet, they've run out of data points to train on. These models are pretty much unable to generalise outside their training data, in fact one of primary purposes of diffusion models is to accurately reproduce their training data, essentially functioning as a highly advanced compression algorithm that is able to compress all the image on their internet into a few gigs. Since the models cannot generalise, and they've pretty much run out of real data to train on, the only method to improve would be algorithmic, but diffusion models like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and the new Sora (probably trained on the entirety of TH-cam btw), but as we've seen over the past year or so, outputs from these models have generally plateaued. What I'm trying to say here is that, if significant improvements to the algorithm were easy and coming as they have been saying for a while, e.g. "it'll be able to do interiors", "it'll figure out perspective", "it'll understand anatomy", then I think we might have seen something more by now. The fact is, it will never understand perspective, anatomy, function, or anything that current human artists do, even at a basic level, because the fundamental function of these models is to accurately reproduce training data, making new outputs from that is just a quirk of that function. You might even call it a hallucination, or glitch. Also, quickly on the topic of training on their own synthetically produce data to make infinite training data, firstly: if the current naturally trained models cannot generalise to every possible needed output, then they cannot generate new data to fill that gap. Secondly: these models are trained by picking up patterns in pixels of images that they associate with a text input, the patterns are so imperceptibly tiny we cannot register them as human, but these models can; so here's the question, when a model that reproduces and outputs patterns in a notable pattern detects the same generated pattern in a significant pool of it's training data, what will happen? Well it's not good, I think eventually it would just begin to output some weird Gaussian looking noise no matter what the prompt. I think the companies recognise this problem, so they are now starting to implement tagging for artificially generated content on the internet, probably to let their scraper bots screen out this data during the next training run. Lastly, while I recognise that AI in some forms could be a handy tool, this AI is not meant to be. Unlike the advents of the camera, Photoshop, digital sculpting and painting, accessible 3D, and photobashing, this tool is meant as a direct and complete replacement, the fact that it actually can't, doesn't change the intent of the companies or that of the people intending to use it. These models were trained on artists works without consent in an attempt to become middlemen in entertainment production and cut out the that people are essentially responsible for how good the models currently are. That's just the start, many people involved in this scene highly recommend prompting in specific artist names to mimic their style, creating images that look quite similar to said artist without involving them at all. This cuts off revenue, screws up SEO, and can be used for things that the artist never would have agreed to, it pretty much usurps their artistic identity. If you need a specific example, check Greg Rutkowski, he's probably the model prompted artist. These models are incapable, built on misinformation and unethical practices. I don't recommend anyone use them in their current state. On a lighter note, sorry for the very long comment, it's just that this is a big topic and I think I've made my current stance on AI clear. I hope anyone reading found it interesting at least, if you're reading this, have a good day :)
This is so true -- these companies have basically trained on artists works without their consent and are profiting of it. I think you are right that the models will get worse over time since the internet is being littered with AI junk that will ruin the models groundedness to physical reality. That said, I think there are some good ways to use AI to make humans into better artists. Proper understanding of color theory, more relevant reference images, inspirational sources. I think it can be a powerful tool if used properly, but again the dubious ways these models are trained gives me pause
to make this argument short. i have a simpler term. i call this the "granular control" problem. the AI doesnt give you control on the little nuances that create the final image and text cant describe them. thus with that loss of control you end up being limited to whatever the AI makes. AI isnt the only thing that causes this issue. i have come to call this the "roblox syndrome" the idea being that your easy to use tool is so intrusive and obvious that your work ends up looking like the tool and not your own. think unreal engine asset flips and clip art as examples. notice that digital art programs and cameras Dont have this issue. you have 100% control on the output at every step. thus you can make stunning and unique images and art styles with functional features.
Can’t tell you how much I’m happy to see you back Feng! Thank you for the detailed update and insights into the industry moving forward. I’m a 3d environment artist for games, but I’ve been following your work for many years since watching your early design DVDs at Gnomon. Thank you for continuing to share your experience and insight!
Woooo awesome to have you back! I do not work in quite the same industry but have run into similar problems around using AI. I have to give AI some credit though, it’s made me appreciate (and learn about) the nuances of pretty much every aspect of art/design affected by it. And it certainly underlined the issue of homogenization that was occurring way before AI was released.
My own research on this topic: AI is also bad at emulating the gesture of paint strokes, and the energy in an inked or penciled line. Same for overlaid brush strokes with opacity. All is always "melted" and color mix and do perfect local gradients or hard edges. So I started to increase that part of my work and show more work in progress on social media. But thanks to your video, I realize that I was focusing too much on the rendering part of AI, and I overlooked the functional design part, and only had a vague intuition that this tool was not capable of composing and resolving complex scenes with storytelling elements. So, thank you very much for your video and all I have learned about these aspects.
Fundamental skills are what is necessary to get ahead of the curve, and that is when tools become an asset to speed up production. But with any tool, a lack of skill will be obvious very quickly. I'm not affected by it in my job and adapting to it, there is a lot of time saved in production, these tools are great asset generators (especially when based on the own work) and one has to be aware of the fact, like with Photoshop brushes back in the day, once the tool dictates the outcome it's a sign of being a bad designer and illustrator (and that skill improvement is required). Experience is key indeed. With that said, Feng, glad to see you again and hopefully you're well and healthy.
Woohoo! Even though I'm working and the series is targeted to students, I always feel motivated to get better at my job when a new design cinema comes out. Really great episode too, lines up with my experience in the industry.
Its cool to see your perspective, Although I would argue for caution here when saying AI can't be trained for this, spatially aware generative will come out in not too long and they do open a path for AI to be trained in functional design through self corrective learning, these models seem to learn very well how physical models interact and how they need to change in order to fit together etc. This is essentially the main problem being solved by companies building humanoid robots and they solve the infant square peg round hole problem very fast. The next problem up is solving a Rubik's cube without being specifically programmed for it but rather trained through physical experience. They will likely solve that one as well, and lets be honest if you can get a physical understanding of the mechanics behind a Rubik's cube you can likely solve any technical design problem needed for entertainment. Next level up from there is mechanical engineering, and so long as its possible to train it well in understanding physics and manufacturing in the same way as you can train it to do other physical tasks I wouldn't look to far before id say it can do that also. Sure this isn't happening right now, but it will, and probably sooner than we would like.
@@EduLuckmann I don't know about that, seems a bit soon, but i would wager around 10 years. You gotta consider that this type of machine learning would require an order of magnitude more conpute power, and that's hard to come by in just 5 years. Especially when training starts to involve physical prototyping, that will also slow things down.
Agree. To me AI as a whole is like a baby trying to make sense of the world, except this baby doesn't need to sleep, eat, rest or play, yet always exponentially learning.
@@EmilKlingberg To be able to generate things that actually work yes maybe we are 10 years from it, but, to generate things that "kinda work" and fullfills intertainment design needs i dont think will take too long, it can be solved in a simulation level not necessarily in the robotics level.
Agree, essentially when you are talking about what "AI" can do (remember that the definition of AI is very vague and essentially just an extension of human ingenuity) you always need to qualify that statement with "yet"... It's only a matter of time. You can panic and try your best to avoid getting automated but essentially all jobs will be automated if we stay on this trajectory. Some jobs will get automated tomorrow, others only in 20 years, but no one's career is safe.
I started watching FZD a few months ago and loved the videos and was just happy that they were recorded and left on YT. I NEVER thought that Feng would make new videos. Thank you so much for everything you've done!
Please, we need that Blenders tutorial for 2D concept designers please! Thank you very much for everything Feng, you are an inspiration to me. Greetings from Spain!
Oh my god! You cannot believe how happy I am to see you back! I just started working on a indie game project with my friends and I had to think so much about all the great lessons you taught us over the years while creating concept art!
Sad thing is that a lot of concept art doesn't need to be that functional. I've been doing mostly character, creature and skin concept design so far and most of those jobs can be replaced with ai for most small and indie clients sadly, and that's a big issue because that's where most low-mid level artists got jobs from in the past. We know that not every studio will ask for this kind of level, those are usually the bigger ones, and we know for sure that there aren't that many of them for all of us to get employed.
Feng, AI has a lot of things I am not sure you are aware of (and it does not dispute what you are saying here let me get that straight) but there are inbetweens you may not be aware of. Such as dedicated (free) ai models which tbh work better than the paid ones, since they use community made designed models and custom trained things to achieve specific results, and things like inpainting to move things along faster or inject your own art skills in with, and so on. 50:55 This is a good example of what inpainting does well. 1:03:01 This is a good example of how AI may be used in the future. Because a custom trained model would be able to do this to a degree, but it would require the base made by the actual artists and probably have an ai person on staff handling and training it and updating it with their work to provide them a model they are using to generate things to help their regular work flow move faster; most likely using it to brainstorm a few things and see what -kinda- works before dropping several hours into said things. 1:06:38 Inpainting can do that, but unless the model was custom trained it would be loaded with errors and so much would need to be re-done that it would probably be easier for a skilled artist to do it manually. Unless AI becomes incomprehensibly more powerful, I doubt it will ever be able to do this right. Things are going to be interesting at any rate.
So glad to see you back making these videos, and I hope the time off was enjoyable! I agree with everything you're saying about how AI can't understand the level of storytelling and design needed to make something *GOOD*, but the scary thought for me is more that companies will prioritize how cheap AI can make *stuff*, more than how good it actually is. I think we might see a dividing line between companies that outsource all of their creative to AI and produce mediocre work, vs. companies that have good taste and let humans do what they know to make great work. I also just hope we don't have to see a downward curve for too long of companies getting cheaper and cheaper, believing the lies from the AI companies that "they can do exactly what a human can do". I think believing that or not comes down to their taste and ability to discern quality, so let's see how many people in charge have that...
Unfortunately, I think you're right about discerning consumers. Look no further than the sea of hot garbage available on netflix. A handful of quality titles creates the illusion that you're paying for something of value. To me, this indicates that when presented with 2 garbage options enough people will still choose one of them to allow this model to continue to be profitable. Rather than pursuing a higher effort option like flying a kite or paying attention to their kids. I also think the downward curve you mention might spiral out of control all the way down to an IRL Idiocracy...
AI researcher here that occasionally does concept art as a hobby. I like this video so much, this gives a great summary of what AI can and cannot do currently while quenching the fears of "it will take my job". I've always said about these kind of Diffusion Models (current text-to-image state of the art): adapt or die, AI can make stuff that look pretty but lack substance. However, I would be careful with the assessment of "AI would never be able to do X". These kinds of shortcomings shown in the video are well known within the AI research community and are actively worked on by some of the smartest people on the planet with massive amounts of money thrown at it. It would take a breakthrough or two more, but AI will be able to reason better and better. Current shortcomings of text-to-image models are also present in large language models like GPT4, and I assume if the grounding and reasoning is improved, it will also be applied to text-to-image and text-to-video. BTW, I heard FZD school was closed for good? It isn't clear from the video what will be the future...
I'm in the same boat -- I'm an AI researcher that also does concept art on the side. I haven't gotten paid for my concept art though, so that speaks to quality of my art. But at the same time, the problem of grounding AI models in physical reasoning will take a completely different approach IMO than diffusion models. At some level you have to apply some visual reasoning into the generation process (like a compiler)
@@boredofeducation-sb6kr Diffusion models produce the highest quality images currently, but they are hard to control, this I agree. I do see continuous efforts on making them more controllable, either via injecting conditional images in the middle of the process, or playing with the textual semantic representation in latent space via something like textual inversion (really cool paper, I would recommend reading). There was a work recently that tried to generate images via LLM-style autoregressive transformers, but we'll see if it will catch up...
Oh man, I have quit pursuing art professionally months ago due to AI. It's just not worth the long years of effort compared to what the AI has been able to generate lately. The decline of societal value in real draftsmanship is just not much of a worthy pursuit any longer. Public/ or business perception of what AI is or what isn't, may not even make a difference going forwards in the years to come. However, I did enjoy my days drawing, it is fun being in the flow state, drawing things you like. I wonder what the future holds when it comes to technology and art. And I wish I was wealthy enough to have the courage to pursue it full-time, but it's just I cannot do it due to how unstable it is career/ market demand wise -- maybe I'd pursue it as a hobby during the weekends.
I agree, I can tell you that when I visit Singapore and ask those fzd graduate, majority people have wealthy background or from country with high currencies. Those are rich people games, better quit art and make it a hobby. I met those artist who distance me and boycott me when I try my hard tonleaen because of status quo , I hate them !
Welcome back Feng! I still remember 8 years ago listening to your podcast design cinema, I have learned a lot since then, though still need to learn a lot more. Thanks for what you do with design cinema videos!
Yo FZ, thank you for your valuable input. I would just like to point out that AI models aren't "currently" just out there sourcing from the internet every day. You say a couple times something to the effect of "it goes and gets it from the internet", but that isn't technically true, as these datasets have been compiled and trained a couple years ago now (laion 5b, for example). Some users have created their own finetunes and... loras or wtv they call it which add additional "expansions" to the datasets for more specific styles/elements, but that's all. There is no active scraping and incorporation.
I appreciate the video but it makes me sad, to be honest. Maybe I misinterpreted it but: 1. illustrators will lose their jobs, no matter their skill or style (AI can replicate that). 2. entry-level for artists is unbelievably high to reach (it seems that the new artists' generation is pushed to become "AI engineers") And unfortunately, there are already 3D AI models. Seems like a matter of a few years before it synergizes with 2D (Midjourney) and text (ChatGPT) models to create thoughtful designs and storytelling concepts (ChatGPT already works with Stable Diffusion for example). I truly hope that indie studios will arise with "Made by Humans" mentality and enough audience (probably also those replaced by AI?) to use their content.
What's crazy is I randomly decided to look up this channel just now after learning art and design over 5 years ago on this channel. Amazing content again! 100% agree that AI can never solve design that conforms to the real world interactions because things need to fit perfectly otherwise it falls apart
Just wait til FZD starts teaching its students to us AI. Unfortunately it's looking like that's the future because Feng is unaware of what AI can already do. Entey level jobs are being squeezed. Instead of 10 artists production will only need 3 and AI. Then who will pay to go to your school? If AI is what the industry becomes, then AI is what FZD will teach or it will go out of business.
Probably people who excel at his (and other high quality) design programs will have no problems getting employed. If you get replaced by AI, it's a skill issue.
b.. but.. how do you gain experience in professional field when all smaller studios starts using AI and bigger studios are laying their artists off..? (Riot recently laid their Legends of Runeterra team off)
You don't. I think that's the largest problem that most big art youtubers nowadays don't seem to consider. I know this might be a pessimistic view, but I see no way in which the current market and AI won't make it simply pretty much impossible or very hard to pursue commercial art as a living. More and more studios are going to hire less juniors because with Ai they can do pretty much all of that work, and the skill ceiling will also be way higher. I mean, it should be a wake up call that many concept artists, some even famous, are going to other venues such as trying to start their own community or teaching. In the end I think there will probably be only jobs for a handful of experienced seniors and the market will pretty much be impossible to enter in. It was already very hard and time consuming, now with AI and the oversaturation it will just get worse, sadly.
The main problem is that companies don't genuinely care about that human aspect of it, they care about profit and if you can generate profit to them. If they can outsource to AI that will be 200% cheaper, 150% times more time eficient and 50% less artistically "talented", they will, because in the end for their profits it will be better. We already seeing that sadly. Even big names like Maciej Kuciara are starting to look into "directing" roles and adivsing junior artists to not take this as a career
Don’t worry! Like he said, even though most small companies are already using it, it can’t design functional landing gear for a spaceship, yet. So everything is cool guys!
@@pwhite2966 I think youre being ironic, and if you are, sadly I agree too. Judging AI potential by its current capabilities is useless, a couple of months ago, AI videos were shit, now look at them. AI image generators were garbage too and look at them now too. And well, while not ideal, AI via Vizcom is starting to get good at industrial design too, sadly. I think the only way is to get out of the creative JOBS industry and be your own boss, as corny as it sounds. For that, you need to be cut to do a lot of things, management, marketing, etc. The graphic design market is already pretty much ruined by AI
As an industrial designer, I'm so grateful for your opinion about the AI assistant design. I watched your design videos about 18 years ago. learn a lot of stuff. thank you sir.
People should view AI as a timeline of eventualities and adjust their careers accordingly. Eventually it will be able to do all the things listed here on the "can't do" list. Not only that but it exceed expectations because of emergent properties. It will be programmed to execute functional looking components, it will design multiple elements properly within a scene and it will do these things faster and better.
No, all it will eventually do is push people away from their jobs slowly and over time replace them with AI. It's already happening with graphic designers right now there are no regulations at all in place and greedy companies will continue to exploit AI and will gladly cut off workers if they can.
Thank you for putting this video together Feng! It's hard not to be discouraged, as someone who wants to break into the industry, by the layoffs and the use of AI. This video helps me feel more assured that I'm not wasting my time chasing a dream. Thanks again and glad you're back!!
the best advice is to not pursue concept art, pursue other avenues if you want to keep doing art and support yourself with it. Concept art and commercial illustration is a dying field
Indeed. Unfortunately videos like these that try to systematically and formally show what's the weak spots of AI currently, and what they are missing, actually are helpful for the AI programmers, since that would give them a clearer direction in what to try fixing and what to look for.
All the fears related to AI comes down to the understanding of what AI can and cannot do, the more you understand it the less you fear it and realize AI it's just a glorified calculator of words, even the name is misleading because the AI don't have intelligence per say. But as always you approach was 100% on the REAL problem, explaining the limitations of AI is the key to not have any fear about it. Thanks for this video and welcome back boss!
it is inteligent because it can understand a given perception, for example with artificial vision, intelligence doesn't mean you can do anything perfect. or please give me your definition of intelligence
@@ianalexanderreyes5890 no it's not, what we call ''artificial intelligence'' (like chat GPT, midjourney) it's just performing a pre-designed task, it's literally a calculator that uses words/images instead of numbers as result. AI's perform mathematical calculations to give the best statistical patterns for the input given. It doesn't think or understand anything, it's intelligent as much a calculator is, do you believe calculators are intelligent?
@@tonycezar1645 +. People say that AI learns as a human being. Funny statement because the human brain is still a mystery even to neuroscientists. AI is programmed and uses algorithms. So basically it is just more complicated CTRL+C, CTRL+V.
@@ianalexanderreyes5890 there is nothing intelligent about it, its just a glorified calculator which results in words or images instead of numbers, it's designed to do a specific task and that only, it doesn't understand or think about anything, do you think calculators are intelligent?
Once in one of your videos you strongly recommended for people to use their own photos to Photobash, and that a person don't have the right to use other people photos. You STRONGLY pointed that. But now you have nothing to say about the millions of artists that are having their work taken as if it didn't have any kind of copyright?! That's contraditory. The artist getting their art sampled are getting NOTHING, and those companies will NEVER compansate all those artist for taking their art, and this is my main problem with ai
@@ScribbleNuts I have to agree with you. He is basically just simplifying and analysing the situation through his point, and since it apparently doesn't seem to harm his school at first, then to hell with it. Again... this video is comming from a guy that in past videos strongly stated that you should only use your own photos on photobashes, and that you don't have permission to do the opposite. Would you say that again Feng? Would sound a bit weird and contradictory now.
Respectfully, I've watched you for years now, and I'm very dissapointed in your analysis on AI. I understand this is a Pep talk, but it has an underlying attitude of accepting AI. While you and your peers might not personally be affected, the people who do illustration, book covers, comics, commissions, etc, are deeply affected. There is less work. People are being offered lower pay. Mass layoffs in creative industries. Your argument is that AI can't currently do x number of things. But to that I ask: what if it could? How would you talk about it differently? To me it does not matter what AI CAN do, but rather what it SHOULD do, and how we reconcile the stolen profits and labour from artists. AI is fundamentally different from Photoshop, ZBrush, Blender, Sketchup, etc. The former is software designed as a tool, using the knowledge of the creators. Regenerative AI on the other hand, is built using billions of images scraped from the web, made by unpaid artists works, and ignoring copyright. If we allow this to continue, it will just keep eating the internet and our outputs to compete with us in the market as an alternative to our labour, USING our labour. The product is both business-to-business and business-to-consumer. It supplants the need for artists in so many industries, by using the artists works against them. This is not moral, and tons of lawsuits are challenging the legality. Art is many things to many people, and not everyone values industrial design. Who benefits from regenerative AI? It is primarily the companies, because artists rates will not reflect positively the "increased productivity". Technology is not manifest destiny. You have a voice, and I wish you would use your voice to denounce the immoral practices of these companies, instead of downplaying their complete disregard and disrespect for personal data and art.
Additionally, He also implied that everyone who does illustration, book covers, comics, commissions etc, does "easy" work. So yeah, lost a lot of respect for this guy.
You don't have a choice to accept it or not. It's already being used, and it will be used. Also sounds like you missed his points about how AI is empty "art". It's really pretty, but not something you hang on your wall. Third: It benefits companies. What are companies? A bunch of people working together. Go make a company and benefit then.
It's good to see some comments in this video that aren't just riding this guy's d×ck. Lol He seems to only really care about his own skin, especially with how he feels about other artists being used and abused by a massive plagiarism machine.
@Revan9991 The dude doesn't seem to care or respect the artists in other fields of work, though.. Only caring how he can get a leg up on them while their down and being mistreated by this unethical technology.
@@beaverson because that's the point buttface, Feng Zhu is not scared of losing jobs because he is old veteran already, new comers will have a harder time now.
Respect the work of concept designers and artists. However, it's important to understand that their focus isn't on solving real-world engineering, industrial, or architectural problems. While there may be some overlap in design principles, their work is primarily for the entertainment industry. The end product is consumed by individuals who may not fully appreciate or be directly impacted by the design beyond an emotional level. The difference between experiencing something in real life, like driving a car, and seeing it on screen or in a game is significant. This disparity, when considered alongside the business aspects of the entertainment industry, is substantial and something that corporations and big tech are keen to minimize. Do you really think the average person would care about the full functionality of a sci-fi vehicle on screen unless they owned one? 😅. I am in no way trying to belittle the job of a concept designer, was just stressing the point that - as long as there is no meaningful impact in the minds of audience with these design choices, nobody actually cares in the long run. While on the other hand engineering or actual industrial design is something which directly impact the quality of life itself, not just for entertainment purposes alone.
Art and Design is like a language. AI does not speak that language. It is like a skilled Caucasian comedian speaking gibberish to sound like he is speaking Cantonese. Sounds the same to a non Cantonese speaker. But to a Cantonese speaker, it has 0 meaning despite its similar sound and tones. AI art might be useful for giggles, and surface level, disposable visuals. Editorial imagery probably will find AI art useful for the density of images needed, and the disposable nature of it.
Wow what a great thing to find waiting for me on TH-cam… a new video after such a long long wait… your voice is so familiar it’s helps revisit all the enjoyment I gleaned from your past presentations. Thank you for this . Now on with the show 👍🏼
Hey Feng. I think your analysis of AI is missing the mark by calling it a tool like other tools and the contradiction itself is in your very analysis. The primary difference between AI and stuff like photoshop, photobombing etc which is the very first argument people made a couple years ago when all this hit the mainstream has been debunked not only syllogistically, but in practice as well, and that’s that unlike the other tools where you had to actually learn, acquire skill, practice, put in time, effort and understanding to produce even one image, AI has absolutely no such demands. You said it yourself, the fundamentals are absolutely not needed anymore. That is your contradiction. By definition if this “tool” doesn’t need the user to understanding anything about the process, it’s not a tool, but a slave being given general commands and it takes it from there. So you’re wrong in your assessment and you’ve not even noticed the contradiction. The second part where you’ve missed the mark is that unlike other tools this machine has the ability to produce artwork at an industrial rate, obliterating whole production teams in output. That kind of rate is impossible to keep up with by humans, and the cost is minuscule by comparison. The third part where you’re being willfully blind I think is the idea that these machines won’t be able to solve design problems. If a statistical prediction model (which is what these things are, they aren’t really AI, that’s a marketing moniker) can “learn” that ‘red’ and ‘apple’ have a correlation in color, tone, shape and put that thing in an environment with its own correlations etc etc concluding into a few billion pleasing images, then it can learn a) to create variations of the most aesthetically pleasing results based on the input of the best artists using these things currently (because as people are using these machines their aesthetic sensitivity is being taken advantage of to train these machines even more on that skill) b) it can learn to be independent of the input of a user based on the same principle of learning from the input of those using it and c) it will be able to learn to solve design problems based on the previous two principles. So, yes your students have design skills, yes the are getting more work, yes they are highly paid. But since they won’t need to know fundamentals any more, won’t need to know how to draw and paint all that well if at all, won’t need to study that much, the number of them will increase because the level of entry will be lowered, the ease of learning will be significantly smaller, and since the supply will become larger the jobs and money will decrease as well. But even then that’s a optimistic scenario because these machines learn at a geometric rate Feng. The explosion of things they can do based on huge swaths of data which was the key shows that if you have the data and the processing power it’s only a matter of time, short amount of time, until 90% of the problem, be it drawing, painting, composition, design is solved. The first three more or less have been solved, the last one is what’s left. Given that it seems the time your students will enjoy in the sun is very short, because the key phrase here is they are in demand and well paid because of AI… for now.
Welcome back Feng, I don't know how many times I've checked your channel to see if there is a new episode that I might have missed. When this whole AI happened, the first option I wanted to hear was yours :') glad to finally hear your thoughts on the matter. Stay well, and keep making these awesome videos.
Vary region lets you prompt specific areas, so you prompt the general scene, then prompt each detail. Could be said AI can't one-shot these yet but this can be done by AI directed by humans like all AI art. Same is true for character consistency, we can use --cref character references to train the AI, you can also give it --sref to use existing IP as style reference to make new characters to then cref. Some of the meaningful ideas that direct our art, humanity only captured these ideas after thousands of years, so we cant expect AI that was just born, it will grow meaning awareness quickly, but it will take time.
The master returns! Honestly the best video I've watched on TH-cam in years and long may it continue. Cheers Feng! I cant tell you how appreciated Design Cinema is to so many of us. Welcome back!
I dont think AI can be considered a tool when it can do the whole thing for you... I mean sure, you can use it as tool for productivity, but on the larger scope of things, its essentially you optimizing yourself out of a job. The skill floor and ceiling become a single line, so by the time the actual artist has finished a painting, even with using AI as tool, already has the unskilled used the same amount of time to produce hundreds of images, for they used it as not a tool but automation. The later exceeds in output, vastly. And unfortunately, optimizing production and cutting corners is in the lifeblood of management. "Good enough" comes to be preferable ever more so. So its a big tragedy of the commons, as no one stands to gain anything long term but the owners of this technology. After all, by using AI you are also training AI. And its merely a belief that it'll need you forever. MJ6 has largely automated prompting. So, though displacement is imanent in like, every industry, I can see from here that the endgame of this is direct-to-consumer content generation based on what the algorithm thinks you like. So we need to start thinking on those terms, even if we are overshooting. Is it that surprising though? Suno can generate 3 minute songs in 20 seconds, aka the time to produce is lesser than the time to consume. So it's not crazy to think that as models improve it'll be able to infinitely generate music for you to listen based on your "preferences". Same should be possible for images, video, text and even code...
I agree. Low-key artist still self denying, but in terms of cost to time ratio, new junior artist will never survive now. By engineering terms , these people are not needed except senior and specialist. Last time artist ask if AI can draw hands, not knowing repetition training of AI is possible, now they kept self denying. Dumb people that study art expect to know AI, have dumb endings.
Even tho i agree with the sentiment behind it i have to fight some of this ideas. Lets put the legal stuff aside for the sake of the argument, by the very definition IT IS a tool, it's not sentient, doesn't have free will, needs a human to be created, trained, operated and someone to correct the output even in the best cases (code, images, storytelling, whatever). The entirety of this tech is based around stochastic and matrix multiplications, not real logical inference, which is what design and problem solving are. On a monitor you have more possible combinations of pixels than particles in the universe, to arrive at a specific kind of output hoping that the machine ingested the right kind of stuff to train on is asinine, not everything is already being created and no matter how much you train an AI on classical music, you're not going to have jazz. Realism improved but that was never the issue, steerability, biases, overfitting, verbatim memorizations, hallucinations are still there. There's waaaaay too much hype behind this tech, even tho is an amazing achievement. Sure, the bar lowered, but our socioeconomic paradigm is based around competition, when everyone are doing the same thing in order to sell you have to improve your product. I agree that a lot of producers and the public likes mediocrity, but there's also a huge chunk of the market that likes quality stuff, especially in the entertainment where people constantly crave something new. I hope my comment doesn't sound apologetic for this tech, im absolutely in favor of regulations, but there's also way too much hype and doomerism around it.
@@fabianodendrella5526I totally agree with you. I’ve dove deeep in midjourney/gpt looking to mix and match and follow whatever ideas were cool but it was like trying to catch smoke. After months of using it as either personal entertainment, workflow tool or stock image generator it all just blended together into a blurry mess of the most boring generic shit that is possible. Granted it is a different status quo for generic than before AI. But you can absolutely tell if you’re looking for an idea that isn’t already embedded somewhere in the visual-media subconscious, AI will not take you there. It’s like AI was a new drug, and I went on a big bender with it. But it didn’t take very long until the juice stopped being worth the squeeze. And eventually I would spend more time trying to get that perfect generated thing than it would take to start and conclude a project with 10X the scope.
@@sojh17 Same experience aside the bender lol, way too many variables to take into account, and you always end up with the most statistical median thing you can think of. I've seen improvement in realism, copying other people styles and consistency when rotating an object (even tho there are still errors and asymmetries) but without logical inference and real world understanding its usefulness is limited - for me - to creating realistic textures that i can then photobash or as a starting point at the beginning of a project, or filling lineart.
when the world needed him most, he returned..
I was freaking out about AI, really feels like I'm getting an amazing perspective from him right now!!
My thoughts exactly!
I was literally mid-sentence saying the same thing when I saw this comment 😆
it won't stop layoffs sadly, People like Feng already made their beds and will be fine, they can be optimistic but the juniors are getting obliterated
yes!
Design Cinema 110: Return of The King
You just gotta love Feng zhu. You just gotta love him
The mere amount of comments of people so genuinely happy to see you back is also something AI will never have.
“You're the one who is weak. You will never know love or friendship. And I feel sorry for you.”
@@zaidaliahmed7869 Shut up Harry.
@@zaidaliahmed7869Is that from Neo in matrix?
@@oliveiraluis3540 XD no, it's from Harry Ootter
❤
I remember Feng making a video like 8 years ago where he almost word for word described Midjourney and similar AI art programs in a theoretical way, and everyone in the comments was saying "this is insane, wtf are you talking about, that's going to take like 400 years" and now here we are
I remember that too, and not only that he was actually describing the internal working of how the ai works under the hood. He said you could have 'sliders' for each type of concept ie 80% insect, 30% mechanical etc. which is exactly the sort of thing the internal algorithms are doing.
We are here, and unemployed
@@RottenSkull XD
I used to watch your videos religiously when I was a teen preparing to enter a design school.
Now 10 years later I'm able to support myself as a freelancer and I look back to you as one of my biggest influences in terms of design-thinking.
Dude! This is awesome
Good look competing with Ai
The most therapeutic video for concept artists anxious about AI
You and I must have seen a different video. Unless you are a senior artist with 20+ years of experience in the industry, AI will destroy you career goals. If you are a beginner with ZERO experience or a junior, you'l better start looking for something else.
One of the most sober down-to-earth analysis of AI I've seen. No doom and gloom, no pessimism, just a realistic observation. Skilled artists who know how to design and storytell aren't being replaced anytime soon.
Meaning, that the TOP level artists in high positions won't be replaced...Everyone underneath? Seeee ya, time to get a job at Wal Mart lol
@@ScribbleNutsnot just higher up veterans. Anyone who puts in the time to learn the hard stuff will be able to get work. As was said in the video all generative apps are good at, are form and rendering and some of the fundamentals. None of it has a style of its own or a story, the industry over time will learn this and the fear of this new technology will disappate. I know of studios who have hired prompters and have found them useless for their projects. And they were soon fired, if you wanna get the job done right you need people with skills, experience and knowledge. And arguably a artistic flair. Yes people have lost work to some of these people, but it is only cause companies wanna save a buck. But they soon learn after using this software that it can't do everything, it generates images and that's it. So in that way it could be useful for the initial idea but nothing else. In that way it'll be a time saving tool for actual designers, prompters without any other skills and an artistic eye will fail to use it for anyones benefit.
I see this meaning the top artists/directors will keep their jobs, but there will be less need for big art teams. Eventually, design and storytelling will be done by AI also. Sooner than we think...
@@ScribbleNuts If you have the level to work as a concept artist you are a top artist… not in between to be honest…. If you are not a top artist you won’t get hired, so it stays the same…
@@crashito_x There are shitloads of high skill leveled artists...we aren't talking about that though. We are talking you will need much less of them, the TOP level stays..meaning seniority...
FZD IS BACK!!! Wooo we love this series
Literally been ages since he posted, Feng was such a big part of me developing as an artist but also a person in my early twenties. Glad to see him back!
2 years doesn't literally mean ages bro
@@dariusus9870
It feels like it
@@QuesoGr7 it might but that's not what literally means, literally
@@Bivanqw stfu you use ai lmfao , even have how to use ai playlist rofl
My eyes must be playing some kind of trick, last time a design Cinema dropped i couldnt even draw a box in perspective. I will remember this day!
But now your drawing is still bad
@@Bivanqw Didn`t ask ; )
Don't tell me. Now you can draw a box in perspective, right?
:)
@@Bivanqw are you kidding? their drawings look awesome!
@@CT2507 anyone can , learning seriously under a month. If you think learning that takes years, you better kept art as hobby instead of a work.
Glad you're back Feng! Probably the most sober take on AI so far
Love your label, it’s been my go to soundtrack whilst drawing for a few years now. Keep up the good work!
@@SonarFates Hey thanks! 🙏
Whaaa did not expect cryochamber here! Been listening to y’all for probably about as long as I’ve watched fzd school. Which is prob at a decade now geez
@@sojh17 That's awesome. Yeah FZ is a big inspiration for my art too!
I kind of felt that too. Maybe its because he came with an industrial design perspective which I never seen so far. Most of the talk and criticism has been about pure art and illustration so far.
Hi Feng, Thanks for putting this out. I think Jake Parker and yourself are currently really helping the art industry to realize that WE have the power to change the conversation on what AI can and cannot do. Excellent break down. I have figured out a few from working with my clients, the main one for me that I voiced on LinkedIn last year was, doing art for fun and no amount of typing will replace that for me. I'm really glad you nailed it with this detailed list. Glad to have you back.
it feels surreal to suddenly get an upload after 2 years of silence
I am watching Design Cinema since the beginning and I am in the industry mostly because of the amount of knowledge I gathered from this. Thank you Feng Zhu!
Finally, he uploaded again, especially after rewatching another 200 episodes for like 100 times already.
I instantly let go of everything else and began absorbing the new episode
Exactly what I did!
I was about to shut down my laptop after finishing my late night studies when I suddenly saw the notification from FZD. I was like, "alright,. .guess we ain't sleeping just yet."
Return of the king! I started watching you in university, now I'm well into my career.
Feels amazing to have you back! You share so much knowledge and sparks my brain. Ive have been from the very first episode and you have been the best guidance so far in my career. Working now at a top company in mobile game development. Thank you from the bottom of my heart
Sir! It's an honor to have you back!
Big Fan! Your work pushes me to be better.
Thanks Michal! You super pros don't need to be watching this stuff! Love your work always~
Yo Feng man, It is SO GOOD to see you back! When I last watched you I was aspiring to get into concept art. And now I am actually in a course finally learning the ropes. So much of your advice has worked and I will still keep using it in the future. I want to thank you again on behalf of everyone here how much you have been able to give us FOR FREE and accelerating all oure progress.
Not sugar coating, but better check your job chances and supply demands need. You probably won't get a chance unless have good connection or good background money from parents to lift you up after graduation for some time
the concept artist job is getting eliminated. I'd advice looking into other avenues to monetize your art or else you will be forced to quit. Thousands of layoffs happening right now and demand has plumeted and keeps going down every day.
A couple days ago, after many years, I just decided to watch some Design Cinema episodes.
And today, A NEW ONE DROPS! This is awesome.
Design Cinema has been so important to me ever since I was a child. I checked this channel just 2 months ago to see if there was any new videos that Feng had created. I am beyond overjoyed to see this. My night is made.
Thanks for the work. This brings tears to my eyes, it's been 2 years.
this channel gets my art journey started back in 2018 and years later i'm taking commissions. Didn't expect an update for sure but here we are. Couldn't be more happier
Holy it's been years...
A really refreshing take on AI. No doom prophecies, no blind admiration either, only pragmatic down-to-earth observations. It's nice to have Design Cinema back after the Paris show earlier this year, these talks are as inspirational as ever. I swear, the opportunity to hear Feng share his life experiences alone is well worth watching the entire Design Cinema series..
Im no longer interested in doing concept art. But always great to see Fei upload. These videos were my favorite thing back in high school, and a main source of inspiration.
Good, don't waste money and spend time if no budget. People from there are not friendly and only friendly to same status quo people
Same here man. I do tattoos now but love deign cinema still and love learning about this stuff in general
@@Bivanqw people from there meaning singapore or fzd school or what?
@@dariusus9870 not only from fzd, mind you is not the people from certain places. Is the people attitude themselves. I've met some that I really don't like
@@Bivanqw I saw some of your other comments, and I think you don't seem very likeable either.
i'm not pursuing illustration or design anymore, but the talks about discipline and your attitude towards working in a creative field have inspired me and will hopefully keep me on the right track for years to come. very happy to see you back, even if it's only for one episode.
Might I ask what path you changed to?
Yessssss FZD IS BACK
Glad to see you back Feng. Just know that every single minute you spend (and have spent) on these episodes is greatly appreciated by many people.
I rubbed my eyes when I got the notification. I couldn't have believed it if I had not seen it.
Wow, I'm so glad for another episode. This series has been one of the most valuable resources over the years. Thank you so much, Feng Zhu!
Feng I know your channel is about concept art, but I think a lot of illustrators watch your content too (me included). Would you be able to provide a perspective from the illustration side of things? You're one of the few TH-cam channels that go this in depth for the entertainment art industry & I think a lot of us would love to hear your opinions on that too.
Agree. Because from this video it seems like illustrators are done. Especially the ones who dedicated their careers to a high level render techniques.
@@ivanjankov2709 Yeah, I remember his video awhile ago pointing out the differences between concept art and illustration, and telling people to look elsewhere for illustration portfolio advice. There's a lot of us he has to keep pointing away because a lot of people are actually interested in the latter. I still watched all of his videos anyways because they were highly educational in visual language & image making in general. Definitely wondering his thoughts on illustration because I'm sure he still has a very measured take from knowing others in the industry and his own reasoning. I think it's very worth it for him to take some time to address it, given how many illustrators watch him probably!
Illustration and concept art are so muddled now. I get what Feng said and he is right to an extent but you have something called Key art which is illustration but also concept art. Digital paintings and paintings over a 3d base in the blue-sky pre-production phase for a film and game to come up with the tone or look for your art director. Shaddy Safadi and One Pixel Brush uses this for their clients. They are technically illustrations but doubles as concept art also.
@@galereginald12 Yeah... To be honest in animation visual development, almost everything we do is those pretty images. The thing is, AI can make pretty images but it cannot make something "new" or derived from a human experience. So for now, if you can paint well, and bring your own perspective, there is a need for that. But it's true that this industry is smaller and subject to less job stability.
Points 9 through 12
Great to see you here Feng, these last few years have been a challenging time for all of us. Only just beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. So glad to have you back!
Wow, you are back!!! ❤ we love you Feng, and we missed you
I've been checking the channel frequently for the past two years hoping for a comeback. Glad to hear you had a good year's rest and so glad to see you upload again, looking forward to episode 111!
Really great and interesting video. I haven't watched Design Cinema for a while, but these videos definitely helped inspire me. On the topic of these "AI" models improving one day, I feel that they won't really get that much better, in fact they may get worse. All of these models essentially interpolate/mix distinct data points to produce their outputs. As an exaggerated example, they take 10% of image A, 10% B, 20% C, and so on mixing these similar data points based on the prompt. The scale there is exaggerated, as they're actually mixing tens of millions of data points, so maybe it's actually something like 0.00000001% image A, 000000000.2 % B. It's this extremely fine scale that fools people into thinking a brand-new image has been generated, people probably wouldn't be fooled if the models were smaller. I guess five billion images is too fine a mix to imagine.
The fundamental why in which these diffusion models work, essentially guarantees that they can't get much better, companies creating these models have already scraped pretty much the entire internet, they've run out of data points to train on. These models are pretty much unable to generalise outside their training data, in fact one of primary purposes of diffusion models is to accurately reproduce their training data, essentially functioning as a highly advanced compression algorithm that is able to compress all the image on their internet into a few gigs. Since the models cannot generalise, and they've pretty much run out of real data to train on, the only method to improve would be algorithmic, but diffusion models like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and the new Sora (probably trained on the entirety of TH-cam btw), but as we've seen over the past year or so, outputs from these models have generally plateaued. What I'm trying to say here is that, if significant improvements to the algorithm were easy and coming as they have been saying for a while, e.g. "it'll be able to do interiors", "it'll figure out perspective", "it'll understand anatomy", then I think we might have seen something more by now. The fact is, it will never understand perspective, anatomy, function, or anything that current human artists do, even at a basic level, because the fundamental function of these models is to accurately reproduce training data, making new outputs from that is just a quirk of that function. You might even call it a hallucination, or glitch.
Also, quickly on the topic of training on their own synthetically produce data to make infinite training data, firstly: if the current naturally trained models cannot generalise to every possible needed output, then they cannot generate new data to fill that gap. Secondly: these models are trained by picking up patterns in pixels of images that they associate with a text input, the patterns are so imperceptibly tiny we cannot register them as human, but these models can; so here's the question, when a model that reproduces and outputs patterns in a notable pattern detects the same generated pattern in a significant pool of it's training data, what will happen? Well it's not good, I think eventually it would just begin to output some weird Gaussian looking noise no matter what the prompt. I think the companies recognise this problem, so they are now starting to implement tagging for artificially generated content on the internet, probably to let their scraper bots screen out this data during the next training run.
Lastly, while I recognise that AI in some forms could be a handy tool, this AI is not meant to be. Unlike the advents of the camera, Photoshop, digital sculpting and painting, accessible 3D, and photobashing, this tool is meant as a direct and complete replacement, the fact that it actually can't, doesn't change the intent of the companies or that of the people intending to use it. These models were trained on artists works without consent in an attempt to become middlemen in entertainment production and cut out the that people are essentially responsible for how good the models currently are. That's just the start, many people involved in this scene highly recommend prompting in specific artist names to mimic their style, creating images that look quite similar to said artist without involving them at all. This cuts off revenue, screws up SEO, and can be used for things that the artist never would have agreed to, it pretty much usurps their artistic identity. If you need a specific example, check Greg Rutkowski, he's probably the model prompted artist.
These models are incapable, built on misinformation and unethical practices. I don't recommend anyone use them in their current state. On a lighter note, sorry for the very long comment, it's just that this is a big topic and I think I've made my current stance on AI clear. I hope anyone reading found it interesting at least, if you're reading this, have a good day :)
Very well written. Thanks for sharing
This is so true -- these companies have basically trained on artists works without their consent and are profiting of it. I think you are right that the models will get worse over time since the internet is being littered with AI junk that will ruin the models groundedness to physical reality.
That said, I think there are some good ways to use AI to make humans into better artists. Proper understanding of color theory, more relevant reference images, inspirational sources. I think it can be a powerful tool if used properly, but again the dubious ways these models are trained gives me pause
to make this argument short. i have a simpler term. i call this the "granular control" problem. the AI doesnt give you control on the little nuances that create the final image and text cant describe them. thus with that loss of control you end up being limited to whatever the AI makes. AI isnt the only thing that causes this issue. i have come to call this the "roblox syndrome" the idea being that your easy to use tool is so intrusive and obvious that your work ends up looking like the tool and not your own. think unreal engine asset flips and clip art as examples.
notice that digital art programs and cameras Dont have this issue. you have 100% control on the output at every step. thus you can make stunning and unique images and art styles with functional features.
Can’t tell you how much I’m happy to see you back Feng! Thank you for the detailed update and insights into the industry moving forward. I’m a 3d environment artist for games, but I’ve been following your work for many years since watching your early design DVDs at Gnomon. Thank you for continuing to share your experience and insight!
holy shit YEARS HAVE PASSED
im so happy to see FZD back on my sub box :D
Woooo awesome to have you back! I do not work in quite the same industry but have run into similar problems around using AI. I have to give AI some credit though, it’s made me appreciate (and learn about) the nuances of pretty much every aspect of art/design affected by it. And it certainly underlined the issue of homogenization that was occurring way before AI was released.
My own research on this topic: AI is also bad at emulating the gesture of paint strokes, and the energy in an inked or penciled line. Same for overlaid brush strokes with opacity. All is always "melted" and color mix and do perfect local gradients or hard edges. So I started to increase that part of my work and show more work in progress on social media. But thanks to your video, I realize that I was focusing too much on the rendering part of AI, and I overlooked the functional design part, and only had a vague intuition that this tool was not capable of composing and resolving complex scenes with storytelling elements. So, thank you very much for your video and all I have learned about these aspects.
Thank you so much for caring about us Feng
what the crap!?!?!?!?!
i missed you so much feng!!!
I MISSED THIS FENG! Thank you for returning!
Fundamental skills are what is necessary to get ahead of the curve, and that is when tools become an asset to speed up production. But with any tool, a lack of skill will be obvious very quickly. I'm not affected by it in my job and adapting to it, there is a lot of time saved in production, these tools are great asset generators (especially when based on the own work) and one has to be aware of the fact, like with Photoshop brushes back in the day, once the tool dictates the outcome it's a sign of being a bad designer and illustrator (and that skill improvement is required). Experience is key indeed.
With that said, Feng, glad to see you again and hopefully you're well and healthy.
it is not a tool when its literally a "do the art" button
@@j.2512 Can midjourney or stable diffusion give you Exactly what you envisioned by just giving it a few words? The answer is no...
Entry level jobs will no longer exist
Woohoo! Even though I'm working and the series is targeted to students, I always feel motivated to get better at my job when a new design cinema comes out. Really great episode too, lines up with my experience in the industry.
Its cool to see your perspective, Although I would argue for caution here when saying AI can't be trained for this, spatially aware generative will come out in not too long and they do open a path for AI to be trained in functional design through self corrective learning, these models seem to learn very well how physical models interact and how they need to change in order to fit together etc. This is essentially the main problem being solved by companies building humanoid robots and they solve the infant square peg round hole problem very fast. The next problem up is solving a Rubik's cube without being specifically programmed for it but rather trained through physical experience. They will likely solve that one as well, and lets be honest if you can get a physical understanding of the mechanics behind a Rubik's cube you can likely solve any technical design problem needed for entertainment. Next level up from there is mechanical engineering, and so long as its possible to train it well in understanding physics and manufacturing in the same way as you can train it to do other physical tasks I wouldn't look to far before id say it can do that also. Sure this isn't happening right now, but it will, and probably sooner than we would like.
5 years tops
@@EduLuckmann I don't know about that, seems a bit soon, but i would wager around 10 years. You gotta consider that this type of machine learning would require an order of magnitude more conpute power, and that's hard to come by in just 5 years. Especially when training starts to involve physical prototyping, that will also slow things down.
Agree. To me AI as a whole is like a baby trying to make sense of the world, except this baby doesn't need to sleep, eat, rest or play, yet always exponentially learning.
@@EmilKlingberg To be able to generate things that actually work yes maybe we are 10 years from it, but, to generate things that "kinda work" and fullfills intertainment design needs i dont think will take too long, it can be solved in a simulation level not necessarily in the robotics level.
Agree, essentially when you are talking about what "AI" can do (remember that the definition of AI is very vague and essentially just an extension of human ingenuity) you always need to qualify that statement with "yet"... It's only a matter of time. You can panic and try your best to avoid getting automated but essentially all jobs will be automated if we stay on this trajectory. Some jobs will get automated tomorrow, others only in 20 years, but no one's career is safe.
I started watching FZD a few months ago and loved the videos and was just happy that they were recorded and left on YT. I NEVER thought that Feng would make new videos. Thank you so much for everything you've done!
Please, we need that Blenders tutorial for 2D concept designers please! Thank you very much for everything Feng, you are an inspiration to me. Greetings from Spain!
This video is the real MVP of AI videos for artists. Thank you yet again Feng, so so much love to you!
Glad you are finally back!
Oh my god! You cannot believe how happy I am to see you back! I just started working on a indie game project with my friends and I had to think so much about all the great lessons you taught us over the years while creating concept art!
Finally remembered your youtube password I see. On a more serious note, glad you're finally posting again!😁
Welcome back! So happy to see more from Design Cinema, your videos are always such a wealth of inspiration and information!
Sad thing is that a lot of concept art doesn't need to be that functional.
I've been doing mostly character, creature and skin concept design so far and most of those jobs can be replaced with ai for most small and indie clients sadly, and that's a big issue because that's where most low-mid level artists got jobs from in the past. We know that not every studio will ask for this kind of level, those are usually the bigger ones, and we know for sure that there aren't that many of them for all of us to get employed.
Whoa, so good to see you again man!! Thanks for this upload!
Feng, AI has a lot of things I am not sure you are aware of (and it does not dispute what you are saying here let me get that straight) but there are inbetweens you may not be aware of.
Such as dedicated (free) ai models which tbh work better than the paid ones, since they use community made designed models and custom trained things to achieve specific results, and things like inpainting to move things along faster or inject your own art skills in with, and so on.
50:55 This is a good example of what inpainting does well.
1:03:01 This is a good example of how AI may be used in the future. Because a custom trained model would be able to do this to a degree, but it would require the base made by the actual artists and probably have an ai person on staff handling and training it and updating it with their work to provide them a model they are using to generate things to help their regular work flow move faster; most likely using it to brainstorm a few things and see what -kinda- works before dropping several hours into said things.
1:06:38 Inpainting can do that, but unless the model was custom trained it would be loaded with errors and so much would need to be re-done that it would probably be easier for a skilled artist to do it manually. Unless AI becomes incomprehensibly more powerful, I doubt it will ever be able to do this right.
Things are going to be interesting at any rate.
So glad to see you back making these videos, and I hope the time off was enjoyable! I agree with everything you're saying about how AI can't understand the level of storytelling and design needed to make something *GOOD*, but the scary thought for me is more that companies will prioritize how cheap AI can make *stuff*, more than how good it actually is. I think we might see a dividing line between companies that outsource all of their creative to AI and produce mediocre work, vs. companies that have good taste and let humans do what they know to make great work.
I also just hope we don't have to see a downward curve for too long of companies getting cheaper and cheaper, believing the lies from the AI companies that "they can do exactly what a human can do". I think believing that or not comes down to their taste and ability to discern quality, so let's see how many people in charge have that...
Unfortunately, I think you're right about discerning consumers. Look no further than the sea of hot garbage available on netflix. A handful of quality titles creates the illusion that you're paying for something of value. To me, this indicates that when presented with 2 garbage options enough people will still choose one of them to allow this model to continue to be profitable. Rather than pursuing a higher effort option like flying a kite or paying attention to their kids. I also think the downward curve you mention might spiral out of control all the way down to an IRL Idiocracy...
Time is up! Class Just started! 🗣🗣🗣
I am so glad you returned! One of my favourite chanels!
AI researcher here that occasionally does concept art as a hobby. I like this video so much, this gives a great summary of what AI can and cannot do currently while quenching the fears of "it will take my job". I've always said about these kind of Diffusion Models (current text-to-image state of the art): adapt or die, AI can make stuff that look pretty but lack substance. However, I would be careful with the assessment of "AI would never be able to do X". These kinds of shortcomings shown in the video are well known within the AI research community and are actively worked on by some of the smartest people on the planet with massive amounts of money thrown at it. It would take a breakthrough or two more, but AI will be able to reason better and better. Current shortcomings of text-to-image models are also present in large language models like GPT4, and I assume if the grounding and reasoning is improved, it will also be applied to text-to-image and text-to-video.
BTW, I heard FZD school was closed for good? It isn't clear from the video what will be the future...
I'm in the same boat -- I'm an AI researcher that also does concept art on the side. I haven't gotten paid for my concept art though, so that speaks to quality of my art. But at the same time, the problem of grounding AI models in physical reasoning will take a completely different approach IMO than diffusion models. At some level you have to apply some visual reasoning into the generation process (like a compiler)
@@boredofeducation-sb6kr Diffusion models produce the highest quality images currently, but they are hard to control, this I agree. I do see continuous efforts on making them more controllable, either via injecting conditional images in the middle of the process, or playing with the textual semantic representation in latent space via something like textual inversion (really cool paper, I would recommend reading). There was a work recently that tried to generate images via LLM-style autoregressive transformers, but we'll see if it will catch up...
Been watching since 2011 and have learned so much from you over the years. It's great to have you back!
Oh man, I have quit pursuing art professionally months ago due to AI. It's just not worth the long years of effort compared to what the AI has been able to generate lately. The decline of societal value in real draftsmanship is just not much of a worthy pursuit any longer. Public/ or business perception of what AI is or what isn't, may not even make a difference going forwards in the years to come. However, I did enjoy my days drawing, it is fun being in the flow state, drawing things you like. I wonder what the future holds when it comes to technology and art. And I wish I was wealthy enough to have the courage to pursue it full-time, but it's just I cannot do it due to how unstable it is career/ market demand wise -- maybe I'd pursue it as a hobby during the weekends.
I agree, I can tell you that when I visit Singapore and ask those fzd graduate, majority people have wealthy background or from country with high currencies.
Those are rich people games, better quit art and make it a hobby. I met those artist who distance me and boycott me when I try my hard tonleaen because of status quo , I hate them !
My favourite TH-cam channel in the art category. The amount of useful information and things you can learn by watching each video is insane.
What AI cannot do yet*
Welcome back Feng! I still remember 8 years ago listening to your podcast design cinema, I have learned a lot since then, though still need to learn a lot more. Thanks for what you do with design cinema videos!
His back!!!!🎉🎉🎉
Glad to have you back Feng! you are an inspiration!
Yo FZ, thank you for your valuable input. I would just like to point out that AI models aren't "currently" just out there sourcing from the internet every day. You say a couple times something to the effect of "it goes and gets it from the internet", but that isn't technically true, as these datasets have been compiled and trained a couple years ago now (laion 5b, for example). Some users have created their own finetunes and... loras or wtv they call it which add additional "expansions" to the datasets for more specific styles/elements, but that's all. There is no active scraping and incorporation.
Soooooo HAPPY to see you back!!!
I appreciate the video but it makes me sad, to be honest. Maybe I misinterpreted it but:
1. illustrators will lose their jobs, no matter their skill or style (AI can replicate that).
2. entry-level for artists is unbelievably high to reach (it seems that the new artists' generation is pushed to become "AI engineers")
And unfortunately, there are already 3D AI models. Seems like a matter of a few years before it synergizes with 2D (Midjourney) and text (ChatGPT) models to create thoughtful designs and storytelling concepts (ChatGPT already works with Stable Diffusion for example).
I truly hope that indie studios will arise with "Made by Humans" mentality and enough audience (probably also those replaced by AI?) to use their content.
I also came to this video hoping it would change my outlook on the future of design / creative jobs, all it really did was confirm all of my fears.
Yea I think the factor workers of the art industry are not exempt from the redundancy of the factory workers in other industries
What's crazy is I randomly decided to look up this channel just now after learning art and design over 5 years ago on this channel. Amazing content again!
100% agree that AI can never solve design that conforms to the real world interactions because things need to fit perfectly otherwise it falls apart
Just wait til FZD starts teaching its students to us AI. Unfortunately it's looking like that's the future because Feng is unaware of what AI can already do. Entey level jobs are being squeezed. Instead of 10 artists production will only need 3 and AI. Then who will pay to go to your school? If AI is what the industry becomes, then AI is what FZD will teach or it will go out of business.
Probably people who excel at his (and other high quality) design programs will have no problems getting employed. If you get replaced by AI, it's a skill issue.
ai doesn't have to replace all the artist, but if one artist can do 2 artist jobs now, then half the jobs is gone. thats the point.
I think the studios will just expand the scope of the projects, like they always do when new tech arrives and everything will go back to normal.
We really missed Feng! It's great to have you back
b.. but.. how do you gain experience in professional field when all smaller studios starts using AI and bigger studios are laying their artists off..? (Riot recently laid their Legends of Runeterra team off)
You don't. I think that's the largest problem that most big art youtubers nowadays don't seem to consider. I know this might be a pessimistic view, but I see no way in which the current market and AI won't make it simply pretty much impossible or very hard to pursue commercial art as a living. More and more studios are going to hire less juniors because with Ai they can do pretty much all of that work, and the skill ceiling will also be way higher. I mean, it should be a wake up call that many concept artists, some even famous, are going to other venues such as trying to start their own community or teaching. In the end I think there will probably be only jobs for a handful of experienced seniors and the market will pretty much be impossible to enter in. It was already very hard and time consuming, now with AI and the oversaturation it will just get worse, sadly.
The main problem is that companies don't genuinely care about that human aspect of it, they care about profit and if you can generate profit to them. If they can outsource to AI that will be 200% cheaper, 150% times more time eficient and 50% less artistically "talented", they will, because in the end for their profits it will be better. We already seeing that sadly. Even big names like Maciej Kuciara are starting to look into "directing" roles and adivsing junior artists to not take this as a career
Don’t worry! Like he said, even though most small companies are already using it, it can’t design functional landing gear for a spaceship, yet. So everything is cool guys!
@@pwhite2966 I think youre being ironic, and if you are, sadly I agree too. Judging AI potential by its current capabilities is useless, a couple of months ago, AI videos were shit, now look at them. AI image generators were garbage too and look at them now too. And well, while not ideal, AI via Vizcom is starting to get good at industrial design too, sadly. I think the only way is to get out of the creative JOBS industry and be your own boss, as corny as it sounds. For that, you need to be cut to do a lot of things, management, marketing, etc. The graphic design market is already pretty much ruined by AI
As an industrial designer, I'm so grateful for your opinion about the AI assistant design. I watched your design videos about 18 years ago. learn a lot of stuff. thank you sir.
Lets gooo
These are no tears on my eyes, just a bit of dust
People should view AI as a timeline of eventualities and adjust their careers accordingly. Eventually it will be able to do all the things listed here on the "can't do" list. Not only that but it exceed expectations because of emergent properties. It will be programmed to execute functional looking components, it will design multiple elements properly within a scene and it will do these things faster and better.
No, all it will eventually do is push people away from their jobs slowly and over time replace them with AI. It's already happening with graphic designers right now there are no regulations at all in place and greedy companies will continue to exploit AI and will gladly cut off workers if they can.
Thank you for putting this video together Feng! It's hard not to be discouraged, as someone who wants to break into the industry, by the layoffs and the use of AI. This video helps me feel more assured that I'm not wasting my time chasing a dream. Thanks again and glad you're back!!
the best advice is to not pursue concept art, pursue other avenues if you want to keep doing art and support yourself with it. Concept art and commercial illustration is a dying field
What AI Cannot Do - for now
Indeed. Unfortunately videos like these that try to systematically and formally show what's the weak spots of AI currently, and what they are missing, actually are helpful for the AI programmers, since that would give them a clearer direction in what to try fixing and what to look for.
@@mitkoogrozev of all the people to go for, hitting artists is pretty low when we already get lack of respect for our craft
@@lesnacke I would agree, but there is no low in the game of capitalism we are forced to exist in.
Happy of the subject and your thought about it!
All the fears related to AI comes down to the understanding of what AI can and cannot do, the more you understand it the less you fear it and realize AI it's just a glorified calculator of words, even the name is misleading because the AI don't have intelligence per say.
But as always you approach was 100% on the REAL problem, explaining the limitations of AI is the key to not have any fear about it. Thanks for this video and welcome back boss!
ML
it is inteligent because it can understand a given perception, for example with artificial vision, intelligence doesn't mean you can do anything perfect. or please give me your definition of intelligence
@@ianalexanderreyes5890 no it's not, what we call ''artificial intelligence'' (like chat GPT, midjourney) it's just performing a pre-designed task, it's literally a calculator that uses words/images instead of numbers as result. AI's perform mathematical calculations to give the best statistical patterns for the input given. It doesn't think or understand anything, it's intelligent as much a calculator is, do you believe calculators are intelligent?
@@tonycezar1645 +. People say that AI learns as a human being. Funny statement because the human brain is still a mystery even to neuroscientists. AI is programmed and uses algorithms. So basically it is just more complicated CTRL+C, CTRL+V.
@@ianalexanderreyes5890 there is nothing intelligent about it, its just a glorified calculator which results in words or images instead of numbers, it's designed to do a specific task and that only, it doesn't understand or think about anything, do you think calculators are intelligent?
Thank you, Feng. You've been a great influence for me, not only as an artist, but also ifluenced my work ethic and shaped my worldview in some sort.
Once in one of your videos you strongly recommended for people to use their own photos to Photobash, and that a person don't have the right to use other people photos. You STRONGLY pointed that. But now you have nothing to say about the millions of artists that are having their work taken as if it didn't have any kind of copyright?! That's contraditory. The artist getting their art sampled are getting NOTHING, and those companies will NEVER compansate all those artist for taking their art, and this is my main problem with ai
Feng is just happy he has his secured position at the top. He doesn't care what the artists trying to rise up think lol
@@ScribbleNuts I have to agree with you. He is basically just simplifying and analysing the situation through his point, and since it apparently doesn't seem to harm his school at first, then to hell with it. Again... this video is comming from a guy that in past videos strongly stated that you should only use your own photos on photobashes, and that you don't have permission to do the opposite. Would you say that again Feng? Would sound a bit weird and contradictory now.
I can't believe it Feng! Good to see you again!
Respectfully, I've watched you for years now, and I'm very dissapointed in your analysis on AI. I understand this is a Pep talk, but it has an underlying attitude of accepting AI. While you and your peers might not personally be affected, the people who do illustration, book covers, comics, commissions, etc, are deeply affected. There is less work. People are being offered lower pay. Mass layoffs in creative industries. Your argument is that AI can't currently do x number of things. But to that I ask: what if it could? How would you talk about it differently? To me it does not matter what AI CAN do, but rather what it SHOULD do, and how we reconcile the stolen profits and labour from artists.
AI is fundamentally different from Photoshop, ZBrush, Blender, Sketchup, etc. The former is software designed as a tool, using the knowledge of the creators. Regenerative AI on the other hand, is built using billions of images scraped from the web, made by unpaid artists works, and ignoring copyright. If we allow this to continue, it will just keep eating the internet and our outputs to compete with us in the market as an alternative to our labour, USING our labour.
The product is both business-to-business and business-to-consumer. It supplants the need for artists in so many industries, by using the artists works against them. This is not moral, and tons of lawsuits are challenging the legality.
Art is many things to many people, and not everyone values industrial design.
Who benefits from regenerative AI? It is primarily the companies, because artists rates will not reflect positively the "increased productivity".
Technology is not manifest destiny. You have a voice, and I wish you would use your voice to denounce the immoral practices of these companies, instead of downplaying their complete disregard and disrespect for personal data and art.
Additionally, He also implied that everyone who does illustration, book covers, comics, commissions etc, does "easy" work. So yeah, lost a lot of respect for this guy.
You don't have a choice to accept it or not. It's already being used, and it will be used.
Also sounds like you missed his points about how AI is empty "art". It's really pretty, but not something you hang on your wall.
Third: It benefits companies. What are companies? A bunch of people working together. Go make a company and benefit then.
It's good to see some comments in this video that aren't just riding this guy's d×ck. Lol He seems to only really care about his own skin, especially with how he feels about other artists being used and abused by a massive plagiarism machine.
@Revan9991 The dude doesn't seem to care or respect the artists in other fields of work, though.. Only caring how he can get a leg up on them while their down and being mistreated by this unethical technology.
@@beaverson because that's the point buttface, Feng Zhu is not scared of losing jobs because he is old veteran already, new comers will have a harder time now.
and I was still here, checking the channel every single day
Respect the work of concept designers and artists. However, it's important to understand that their focus isn't on solving real-world engineering, industrial, or architectural problems. While there may be some overlap in design principles, their work is primarily for the entertainment industry. The end product is consumed by individuals who may not fully appreciate or be directly impacted by the design beyond an emotional level. The difference between experiencing something in real life, like driving a car, and seeing it on screen or in a game is significant. This disparity, when considered alongside the business aspects of the entertainment industry, is substantial and something that corporations and big tech are keen to minimize. Do you really think the average person would care about the full functionality of a sci-fi vehicle on screen unless they owned one? 😅. I am in no way trying to belittle the job of a concept designer, was just stressing the point that - as long as there is no meaningful impact in the minds of audience with these design choices, nobody actually cares in the long run. While on the other hand engineering or actual industrial design is something which directly impact the quality of life itself, not just for entertainment purposes alone.
I swear listening to your voice after so long it's like I've traveled back in time ! Glad to see you again !
Art and Design is like a language. AI does not speak that language. It is like a skilled Caucasian comedian speaking gibberish to sound like he is speaking Cantonese.
Sounds the same to a non Cantonese speaker. But to a Cantonese speaker, it has 0 meaning despite its similar sound and tones.
AI art might be useful for giggles, and surface level, disposable visuals. Editorial imagery probably will find AI art useful for the density of images needed, and the disposable nature of it.
Wow what a great thing to find waiting for me on TH-cam… a new video after such a long long wait… your voice is so familiar it’s helps revisit all the enjoyment I gleaned from your past presentations. Thank you for this . Now on with the show 👍🏼
Hey Feng. I think your analysis of AI is missing the mark by calling it a tool like other tools and the contradiction itself is in your very analysis.
The primary difference between AI and stuff like photoshop, photobombing etc which is the very first argument people made a couple years ago when all this hit the mainstream has been debunked not only syllogistically, but in practice as well, and that’s that unlike the other tools where you had to actually learn, acquire skill, practice, put in time, effort and understanding to produce even one image, AI has absolutely no such demands. You said it yourself, the fundamentals are absolutely not needed anymore. That is your contradiction. By definition if this “tool” doesn’t need the user to understanding anything about the process, it’s not a tool, but a slave being given general commands and it takes it from there. So you’re wrong in your assessment and you’ve not even noticed the contradiction.
The second part where you’ve missed the mark is that unlike other tools this machine has the ability to produce artwork at an industrial rate, obliterating whole production teams in output. That kind of rate is impossible to keep up with by humans, and the cost is minuscule by comparison.
The third part where you’re being willfully blind I think is the idea that these machines won’t be able to solve design problems. If a statistical prediction model (which is what these things are, they aren’t really AI, that’s a marketing moniker) can “learn” that ‘red’ and ‘apple’ have a correlation in color, tone, shape and put that thing in an environment with its own correlations etc etc concluding into a few billion pleasing images, then it can learn a) to create variations of the most aesthetically pleasing results based on the input of the best artists using these things currently (because as people are using these machines their aesthetic sensitivity is being taken advantage of to train these machines even more on that skill) b) it can learn to be independent of the input of a user based on the same principle of learning from the input of those using it and c) it will be able to learn to solve design problems based on the previous two principles.
So, yes your students have design skills, yes the are getting more work, yes they are highly paid. But since they won’t need to know fundamentals any more, won’t need to know how to draw and paint all that well if at all, won’t need to study that much, the number of them will increase because the level of entry will be lowered, the ease of learning will be significantly smaller, and since the supply will become larger the jobs and money will decrease as well.
But even then that’s a optimistic scenario because these machines learn at a geometric rate Feng. The explosion of things they can do based on huge swaths of data which was the key shows that if you have the data and the processing power it’s only a matter of time, short amount of time, until 90% of the problem, be it drawing, painting, composition, design is solved. The first three more or less have been solved, the last one is what’s left.
Given that it seems the time your students will enjoy in the sun is very short, because the key phrase here is they are in demand and well paid because of AI… for now.
Welcome back Feng, I don't know how many times I've checked your channel to see if there is a new episode that I might have missed.
When this whole AI happened, the first option I wanted to hear was yours :') glad to finally hear your thoughts on the matter.
Stay well, and keep making these awesome videos.
Vary region lets you prompt specific areas, so you prompt the general scene, then prompt each detail. Could be said AI can't one-shot these yet but this can be done by AI directed by humans like all AI art.
Same is true for character consistency, we can use --cref character references to train the AI, you can also give it --sref to use existing IP as style reference to make new characters to then cref.
Some of the meaningful ideas that direct our art, humanity only captured these ideas after thousands of years, so we cant expect AI that was just born, it will grow meaning awareness quickly, but it will take time.
Holy shitttttttttttttttttt! Hey Feng we missed you a lot man! omg I can't wait for this I will be tuning right in for the full thing as usual
I have said this before, I will say it again in all the chaos that some people feel in.
AI is a tool. Not an end result. Period.
The master returns! Honestly the best video I've watched on TH-cam in years and long may it continue. Cheers Feng! I cant tell you how appreciated Design Cinema is to so many of us. Welcome back!
I dont think AI can be considered a tool when it can do the whole thing for you... I mean sure, you can use it as tool for productivity, but on the larger scope of things, its essentially you optimizing yourself out of a job. The skill floor and ceiling become a single line, so by the time the actual artist has finished a painting, even with using AI as tool, already has the unskilled used the same amount of time to produce hundreds of images, for they used it as not a tool but automation. The later exceeds in output, vastly. And unfortunately, optimizing production and cutting corners is in the lifeblood of management. "Good enough" comes to be preferable ever more so. So its a big tragedy of the commons, as no one stands to gain anything long term but the owners of this technology. After all, by using AI you are also training AI. And its merely a belief that it'll need you forever. MJ6 has largely automated prompting. So, though displacement is imanent in like, every industry, I can see from here that the endgame of this is direct-to-consumer content generation based on what the algorithm thinks you like. So we need to start thinking on those terms, even if we are overshooting. Is it that surprising though? Suno can generate 3 minute songs in 20 seconds, aka the time to produce is lesser than the time to consume. So it's not crazy to think that as models improve it'll be able to infinitely generate music for you to listen based on your "preferences". Same should be possible for images, video, text and even code...
I agree. Low-key artist still self denying, but in terms of cost to time ratio, new junior artist will never survive now. By engineering terms , these people are not needed except senior and specialist.
Last time artist ask if AI can draw hands, not knowing repetition training of AI is possible, now they kept self denying.
Dumb people that study art expect to know AI, have dumb endings.
Even tho i agree with the sentiment behind it i have to fight some of this ideas.
Lets put the legal stuff aside for the sake of the argument, by the very definition IT IS a tool, it's not sentient, doesn't have free will, needs a human to be created, trained, operated and someone to correct the output even in the best cases (code, images, storytelling, whatever). The entirety of this tech is based around stochastic and matrix multiplications, not real logical inference, which is what design and problem solving are. On a monitor you have more possible combinations of pixels than particles in the universe, to arrive at a specific kind of output hoping that the machine ingested the right kind of stuff to train on is asinine, not everything is already being created and no matter how much you train an AI on classical music, you're not going to have jazz. Realism improved but that was never the issue, steerability, biases, overfitting, verbatim memorizations, hallucinations are still there. There's waaaaay too much hype behind this tech, even tho is an amazing achievement.
Sure, the bar lowered, but our socioeconomic paradigm is based around competition, when everyone are doing the same thing in order to sell you have to improve your product. I agree that a lot of producers and the public likes mediocrity, but there's also a huge chunk of the market that likes quality stuff, especially in the entertainment where people constantly crave something new.
I hope my comment doesn't sound apologetic for this tech, im absolutely in favor of regulations, but there's also way too much hype and doomerism around it.
@@fabianodendrella5526 thank you that was really insightful
@@fabianodendrella5526I totally agree with you. I’ve dove deeep in midjourney/gpt looking to mix and match and follow whatever ideas were cool but it was like trying to catch smoke. After months of using it as either personal entertainment, workflow tool or stock image generator it all just blended together into a blurry mess of the most boring generic shit that is possible. Granted it is a different status quo for generic than before AI. But you can absolutely tell if you’re looking for an idea that isn’t already embedded somewhere in the visual-media subconscious, AI will not take you there.
It’s like AI was a new drug, and I went on a big bender with it. But it didn’t take very long until the juice stopped being worth the squeeze. And eventually I would spend more time trying to get that perfect generated thing than it would take to start and conclude a project with 10X the scope.
@@sojh17 Same experience aside the bender lol, way too many variables to take into account, and you always end up with the most statistical median thing you can think of. I've seen improvement in realism, copying other people styles and consistency when rotating an object (even tho there are still errors and asymmetries) but without logical inference and real world understanding its usefulness is limited - for me - to creating realistic textures that i can then photobash or as a starting point at the beginning of a project, or filling lineart.