Thread by @girldrawsghosts

hasbro just laid off 1100 people a week before christmas, most of them being artists. while reading up on it, I saw that they had posted a job listing for a digital artist not long ago with specific needs:



I’m gonna explain how disgusting this is

1/3simplyhired.com/job/ljRoeATEvQ…

ppl know I have a BA in English, but I also have an associates in graphic design. I worked in the industry for over a decade

the below might just seem like a wall of buzzwords, but it’s not. I know what this is

if you don’t have artists, whose artwork are you touching up?

2/

That position is to touch up AI art. Extending characters and adjusting visual elements with intricate alpha masks is code for “can you draw hands?”

so they just let go of a ton of artists in the middle of the holiday season to replace them with AI they know sucks

grotesque

here’s the details on the layoffs

forbes.com/sites/robwiela…

let me assure you this isn’t a guess

I worked in graphic design as both a designer and an artist manager. when art needed to be corrected, it was sent back to the original artist, not a second artist

but AI isn’t going to get stuff like hands right even with 10 revisions

https://twitter.com/girldrawsghosts/status/1736835674676805934

[lips on microphone]

if you’re a digital graphic designer you already know how to use photoshop

touch ups are mainly used to make last minute adjustments for final print production

a human artist would already have - and be working from - the specs to meet art and legal standards

you’re not extending entire characters in a touch up phase

my assumption is that the work flow will be

1. art is generated by AI, cannibalizing Hasbro IP to avoid copyright issues

2. management meeting to mark the art for flaws either in design or what was cannibalized

3. some underpaid human designer drags it across the finish line

now where’s where things get really dirty

AI can pump out art all day

no way they’re going to build an extensive “touch up” team to spread that workload if they’re cutting costs

it’s going to end up being less humans doing more work because AI can’t cut it

want to make this clear; none of this is on artists that get caught in the middle. I’ve been that artist. I worked in production for a company many of you probably shopped at this last week. I know how this works at a billion dollar level

dont accuse freelancers of being shills

no artist would be in any situation like this if the corporations weren’t salivating with greed

Some 24 year old fresh out of art school trying to figure out how to pay off student loans is gonna take that touch up job, and that doesn’t make them a sell out

these situations and possibilities shouldn’t exist in the first place

last thing im gonna say

four years ago I chose to become a working artist. I am sometimes a starving artist. that’s okay because the passion feeds me

the bottom line to all of this is that artists matter, and they should be fairly compensated and protected in their employment.

a computer has no passion.

art is a product of emotion, not ones and zeroes, and not bottom dollars and last pennys

pay your fucking artists and do right by what they bring to your company