THOUGHTS ON AI
From the first time a human splashed paint across a cave wall, art has been in a state of constant evolution. From typography to the printing press to digital screens, each leap forward has expanded the canvas for our imaginations. AI is the next leap.
At Spiridellis Bros. Studios, we don’t see AI as a tool to make things faster and cheaper. We see it as a new plane for creation. We abhor the use of AI for creative theft and stand in solidarity with storytellers rallying against studios who see it as a blunt tool to slash jobs. But we also believe that condemning AI as unequivocally evil does a grave disservice to artists and the world at large.
Artists who turn away from these tools will fail to adapt to the reality of our time. They will find it harder to secure work, and the world will be robbed of their unique voices. As artists, we cannot run from these tools. We need to learn how to harness them to help us tell our stories.
Artistic resistance is not new. Painters dismissed photographers, photographers dismissed videographers, and hand drawn animators dismissed computer animators. But across each of these leaps, two things are true: history has rewarded the bold, and the bold have redefined culture.
For 25 years, my brother and I have surfed every major technology wave. We pioneered viral videos in the dial-up Internet days (JibJab). We created personalized entertainment in the social media era (Starring You and ElfYourself). We redefined kids’ programming with the rise of streaming (StoryBots). Each of those shifts felt seismic at the time. In hindsight, they were ripples compared to the wave that’s about to hit.
AI is a tsunami that will completely transform the way entertainment is created, produced, and distributed. Jobs that exist today are about to change forever or entirely disappear. We have seen this cycle before (see “animation cell painters”). But we have also seen the birth of new kinds of artists (see “video game creators”) who adapted and mastered the possibilities of their times.
When we started JibJab in 1999, we had no idea what the jobs of the future would look like. But we knew that if we empowered great artists with technology to tell great stories, people would pay for the entertainment, and we could hire more great artists. We created hundreds of jobs over the years with this approach. We aim to create thousands more in the future.
Artists: do not give in to fear. Our time on earth is limited. Use every tool you can, as well as you can, and create! The bell has rung, the siren is sounding, and there is no turning back. The age of AI-enabled expression is here, and every day spent fearing the future is a day not spent building it. Bring the bold voice that only you can bring to these tools, and use them to help define what great art and entertainment look like in this next epoch.
The world needs your art and stories now more than ever before.
