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Artificial Imagination: Industry Attitudes on the Impact of AI on the VFX Process

Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture (Intellect) · Narayan, A. D., Caillard, D., Matthews, J., Nairn, A. · Oct 2024

Key points

  1. The first peer-reviewed qualitative study of practising VFX artists' attitudes to AI, via interviews with nine experienced artists.
  2. It documents both optimism for automation and concern over intellectual property, displacement and creative integrity.
  3. It finds AI products often required more combined human and computational labour, challenging simple replacement narratives.

Summary

This open-access study by Narayan, Caillard, Matthews and Nairn reports qualitative interview findings from nine experienced VFX artists on their perceptions of AI in production. The research surfaces genuine complexity: artists hold concurrent hopes for automation and anxieties about displacement, IP, and creative ownership. A key finding challenges simple replacement narratives by demonstrating that AI-assisted workflows often increase total labour rather than reduce it, which has direct implications for how educators frame AI's effect on craft and career.

Source

Source: Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture (Intellect) ↗ (Research)

Cite this item

Narayan, A. D., Caillard, D., Matthews, J. & Nairn, A. (2024). ‘Artificial Imagination: Industry Attitudes on the Impact of AI on the VFX Process’, Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture (Intellect). Available at: https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/iscc_00056_1

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