DALL-E and Anime. Will the Machines Destroy Anime?

The inventions imagined by Science Fiction are coming at us, in real life, hard and fast. Imagine asking a computer to build a waifu for you, and it gives you nine perfectly rendered, original options to choose from. That’s exactly what DALL-E Mini can do. Why not give it a try?

It’s an interesting time to be alive!

DALL-E Mini is just a smaller, publically available version of the more powerful DALL-E and DALL-E 2 (released in April of this year). They’re Artificial Intelligence that can interpret your instructions and draw what you ask for, just like a freelance illustrator. The difference is mind-blowing and frightfully dystopian though. Where an artist takes years learning to draw and mastering their craft, then takes hours to sketch out a work, DALL-E has trawled the Internet and learned to imitate what it sees, so it can produce masterworks in minutes.

Now think of anime and manga artists, already struggling to pay the bills, and you have to wonder: is this the end of anime and manga as we know it? Will animators and illustrators soon be replaced by creative directors dictating their vision to a computer program?

History is a great teacher; looking at Gutenberg and his printing press, it’s easy to see how technology can change, or even replace, an industry. Before Johannes, handwritten manuscripts and woodblock prints were the only way to create copies of a book, but these quickly went the way of the dodo* with Gutenberg’s invention. Monks, sitting at desks, painstakingly copying out manuscripts with ink-stained hands just couldn’t compete with the machines, which only got better and faster.

So, bring on Skynet, the T-800, and the apocalypse. Or maybe not. Maybe there is a bright side to this. DALL-E is, after all, a manmade tool. It could give a powerful advantage to anime and manga creators if used correctly. I’d love to see DALL-E used for tweening — creating the frames between keyframes in animation. The AI could give us seamlessly, flowing animation that retains the look, and soul, of the human animators.

Like any new technology, there are the early adopters, the fence warmers, and those raging against the machine. In my opinion, DALL-E could be a great tool if used properly, with an understanding of its limitations. It will change the industry, but how it impacts anime and manga is ultimately up to the studios, creators, and fans.

* I was going to say “… went the way of Napster or MySpace”, but those things still exist. You learn something every day.

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