Recently, Netflix released a 3-minute animated film called The Dog and the Boy, made from AI technology on the company’s YouTube channel for the Japanese market.

The film tells the story of the journey of a robot dog and its companion. Due to the war, the two were separated. It was not until the man was old that they were reunited.

A special feature of this film is that all the background images, scenes of Japanese countryside during the changing seasons, were completed by AI. Netflix has not announced the solution nor the data input, but according to the behind-the-scenes video, the general layout of the background needs to be created first for the computer to work on it.

Netflix said this film is an experiment to support the anime industry, which is lacking human resources.

Currently, Netflix has not announced how their solution is implemented, with what data input. According to the behind-the-scenes video, the general layout of the background needs to be created first for the computer to work on it.

Applied AI technology provided by Rinna, a Japanese artificial intelligence startup, can paint backgrounds at a lower cost than painters. This allows animators to save effort and spend time on more complex elements that only humans can do.

However, this also means that this AI is threatening the jobs of background painters. Therefore, after this animated film was announced, many fans and artists reacted and criticized the producer and the hashtag #SupportHumanArtists was responded to on social networks.

In the anime industry, background artists are often underestimated because their contribution is such an important part of the look of the final work.

They worked hard to keep up with industry demands but couldn’t compete with AI that drew 600 scenes a day.

Netflix currently has no official response to this incident.