Crypko - AI Generated Waifu
Emerging Tech means that Anime character design might be soon available to all.
Crypko AI-generated character, from the project “MEMES”
Entertainment jobs are often the most misunderstood. Few doubt the importance of a doctor prescribing medicine or a professor teaching students, but an abstract artist gets a few eyebrows. The creative nature of the job means that value is earned through engagement instead of objective outcome, making the space more lucrative but also more obtuse. What many don't foresee is that this obfuscation is not a hindrance for technological innovation and AI tech, thumping the unstopping drumbeat of progress, is set to crack the thought-of untouchable sphere of entertainment with automation.
Crypko AI is one of the many Anime focused AI projects focused on neural network character creation. Using a GAN (Generative Adversarial Network) a program where two AIs compete in a zero-sum game against each other to complete requests, Crypko purports to “generate high-quality standing pictures of 2D characters”. The effect of this is quite stunning. In a demonstration video on the Crypko Youtube, an individual draws a roughly humanoid shape that the AI converts to an Anime girl. By adjusting features such as hair length or style, we see the AI generating results in real-time.
The applications of this are quite extensive. Crypko could be one of the key steps to democratizing Anime creation so that more and more individuals can create characters or stories. Also, as I wrote about previously, the expansion of other industries like AI into Anime signals a cultural shift of Anime becoming more mainstream and represents a net good for the future.
With this whole discussion, however, it is pertinent to mention that not everyone is on board with AI development, even something as innocuous as Waifu creation. Some argue that AI represents an erasure of broad swaths of jobs. Where is argument falls flat is that the same can be said about any previous automation, like how the mechanical plow multiplied crop yields but greatly diminished the number of farming jobs available, still representing a net good. As discussed earlier, AI offers the opportunity for many to create their own characters, and while this appears to threaten Animation Studios, what it means is that the time spent on character animation is greatly diminished.
If you would like to sign up for Cypko’s beta test the link to do so is here. Furthermore, Cypko has another project “MEMES”, a mobile game that uses the AI Anime generator that you can sign up for testing on the Google Play Store.