Author’s Note: This post was originally published March 1, 2024. I recently changed my web hosting, and hence republishing here and now, March 27, 2025.

Each time the ground shakes it could mean a big truck rolling by, a small earthquake, or the arrival of a world-shattering creature just outside your window. Regardless of which it is, you gotta keep your head down and keep going.

As I write this, it is actually unclear what the future of Gen AI in filmmaking will be. The creative, cultural, and collaborative way in which the best films, shows, shorts, and commercials are made is not something that can be easily approximated. Decisions are made at every level of our creative process from large thematic ideas all the way down to the specifics of eyebrow and finger movements in performance. Throwing all existent animation into a dataset and blending it up as a means of making things is to ignore and disrespect the creative process foundational to making good film.

I’ve been saddled with a particular sense of backseat anxiety since the arrival of these systems (the “I can’t sleep at night” kind of anxiety). I think it’s misleading to call them “artificial intelligence” at this point. The LLMs, to my understanding, are guessing machines that pull bits and pieces from vast libraries of content to stitch together the program’s calculation of the most probable expected answer. Huge roulette machines filled with the shredded contents of the entire internet which you can guide by typing words into a box.

My backseat anxiety demon tells me that the days of profitable living from the animation industry are numbered. That the flood of content from these Gen AI systems will absolutely wipe from the internet the ability to easily find human-made art. That everything will be a constant, unstoppable, polluting sludge.

Another part of me thinks that this will poke us creatively as artists. In my most boring and least inspiring days in animation, I already feel like a generative LLM. When I’m told to reference such-and-such shot from such-and-such movie by such-and-such-director (even when the context of the shot is completely different). When I’m told to grind down the creative flow of a sequence into the most basic/simple version of it with the most basic simple, budget-saving action to pull off a gag that’s been done hundreds of times. When I’m told to center-weight all shots, and cut to each character for their dialogue in a medium (so we can see the acting…?), to always show comedy in flat staging. Etc. In these moments, it feels like we’re already making film by rote. We’re already painting by number. Already making “content” sludge to just fill time and attention that audiences would otherwise be doing something actually rewarding with. If Ai can do this, then why are we making this stuff at all?

There have to be deeper reasons for the stories we craft than extending a franchise or filling time or remaking a billion-year-old IP. We need to be making films for real, deep human issues. Then those depths have to inform the choices that make the specifics of design, storyboarding, editing, animation, lighting, etc. The heart guides the form.

If Gen AI makes content creation faster, then it means a deluge of content of dubious quality. Humans will still craft works of art but it will be harder and harder to find adrift amongst the sea of trash. More so than now, anything relevant to distribution, marketing, and reviewing film (in any format from features to youtube videos) or any way in which people are made aware of things worth watching/interacting with will become considerably more important.

There’s already more content on Youtube than a person can watch even in many lifetimes. It will get so much worse with video generating AI systems. But, the content that is truly good, that is truly artful will become that much more precious.

While the 200 ft monster outside my window peers in with its giant, internet-scraping eye, I comfort myself with the thought that it still doesn’t know how many fingers humans have. I comfort myself with the thought that  there may yet be ways forward for quality over quantity art on the internet and IRL. As long as we center our human-ness and human experiences, we can win.

Keep calm. Keep drawing. Don’t be distracted by the kaiju outside your window.

Author’s Note: Originally wrote and published this post January 27, 2024, but recently switched web hosts, so republishing here and now, March 27, 2025.

I had a semi-profound experience last year.

Waffling between different digital devices to use for sketching and writing, I bypassed the obvious choice of an iPad and chose the niche Ratta Supernote A5X. It’s an e-ink tablet with near-zero app compatibility, no backlight, and limited capabilities.

Booting it up for the first time, there was a minimalist tutorial about the minimalist UI, and that was literally it. I could write or draw as I pleased immediately. No signing in, no bloatware to remove, no social media, and no invasion of notifications. I started doodling and writing, and after about a quiet hour, I felt a strange sensation wash over me: deep concentration.

It was in that moment of concentration that my mind began to re-contextualize all of my past digital experiences. I thought about every time I had grabbed my phone with a purpose in mind only to be bombarded with a pile of notifications and messages before finally remembering that I had opened my phone to search for something but already forgotten what it was. I thought about every day of my professional work in which I’m SUPPOSED to be diligently drawing out storyboards, but instead having to juggle meetings, emails, slack, teams, notifications about more meetings, signing into various devices to do two-factor authentication, etc. It made me realize just how often the setup of our modern digital interfaces suck.

Technology should help us toward our goals rather than hinder us. Yet, the overarching tale of attention and digital devices over the past two decades has been one of creating constant distraction machines intent on funneling our attention both collectively and individually toward targeted advertising platforms (i.e. social media) or time-devouring entertainment platforms (i.e. streaming, gaming), both intent on getting in your way as often as possible.

The nature of working professionally today requires having multiple streams of communication and task-managing open creating a taxing drag of the pressure to be constantly within reach at all times. That basic understanding that you might be interrupted at any given second means you can never fully concentrate on the work that you’re actually supposed to be doing.

Using the Supernote felt philosophically different. This was the most welcoming and dignifying experience I’d had with a new piece of technology in a long time. Possibly ever.

This is not a review of the Supernote. I like it a lot, but that’s very much beside the point. The point is that this one experience made me realize how much I’ve been on the losing end of the battle for my own attention with the lords of Silicon Valley. It made me realize how I’d slowly let myself slip into a state of constant distraction, building within myself the assumption that this state of distraction is the status quo.

It made me realize I need to be more intentional and diligent in my own use of these tools, and even in the way I live my life.

-AY

P.S. – It’s 2024 and I’m writing a blog: yeehaw! The 1990s are coming back, right? Why not blogs? My posts will surely be infrequent, weird, and either very niche or very general. I don’t gel well with the way modern social media is designed, and I really wanted an internet thought space I own and can contribute to in a laid back, comfortable way. That’s it. See you around.