this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2026
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Jesus christ can we please stop trying to automate art and content creation
Tools like SpeedTree won‘t get dropped because the efficiency gains are enormous and the downside negligible.
As long as it is used as a tool that has human refinement as part of the process it would be comparable to CGI replacing background matte paintings and motion capture replacing manual manipulation of CGI to make movement. Gollum worked because of the blend of technologies that were replacing existing practices, but as a new approach and not a cost cutting measure.
The problem is entirely about using the output directly as a replacement for humans to cut costs, not having another tool that can be used as part of a process. This is coming from someone who absolutely hates LLM and genAI slop, which is taking the horrible approach.
That is, in fact, not the problem in its entirety.
The move to CGI didn't require stealing the artwork of the matte painters. The move to mocap didn't require raping the land of all its water. The move to either didn't require all of the world supply of computing power, leaving it only affordable for the world's richest. The move to either didn't create a corporate circle jerk that the damn near whole world economy was propped up by.
So the thing is, the server farms for doing Toy Story and ILM server farms for rendering CGI were and are massive, but they were built over time and focused on a particular purpose. The same thing can be done with localized models of LLMs and genAI.
The giants who are buying all the parts and choosing to strain the grid and add polluting energy methods in order to stuff absolutely everything into massive all in one models are a related, but distinct issue, with different goals that encourage shitty practices. Yes, if a game company used the LLM and genAI slop producers tools that is a negative. If they use homegrown or at least dedicated models that are closer in scale to what is already used for CGI then it isn't automatically a negative.
It is like advertising. A little is fine, because awareness is needed for people to know something exists. Massively invasive methods of jamming advertising into literally every moment of the day is a problem. ChatGPT and OpenAI are the latter and a problem. Or how Nestlé doing literally anything is horrible even though other companies do the same thing without being nearly as horrible.
I would prefer to know what AI tools were used, so that I can avoid the ones using the AI slop machines that are a negative.
I mean, if were talking about efficiency tools for artists to use rather than straight up automatically generating the assets (not sure what those tools would be at the moment, but I've not been following what the AI industry actually releases for awhile because it's always seemed a bit useless), then the result should be an increase in the output of those artists rather than replacing them with statistical amalgam.