Stop making me think on a weekend...
As far as things like artwork, logical functions, and predictive text goes, AI is gaining great traction. AI automation in printing is probably on the horizon somewhere.
There's a lot of variables for AI to act as a RIP server. Would it act better or worse? Only time would tell if/ when when someone attempts to make it happen. The caveat is the devices would have to be compatible with the technology. In an automated workflow, things only work if everything in the chain is designed to work with everything else. The printer you're running now probably won't benefit from an AI RIP much, if at all.
With all the different media available (some of which we print on that isn't supposed to be), printers, ink types, etc, AI technology could either shine, or fail miserably at. Printers would need to have an embedded spectrophotometer to handle color correction, which some already have, but all would need something that would work with the system. A fully automated RIP system could even have the potential to adjust HSL levels in artwork in addition to adjusting ink values and limits at the machine to get colors as close as possible within the gamut of the device. If it could/ would work like that, life would be golden. It's not outside the possibilities somewhere down the road, but...
It would still require compatible equipment to work. It would also be fully web/ app dependent, because with the computing power AI needs, it'll never be as simple as installing a stand-alone program like we're accustom to with current RIP software. If your internet, or the AI system goes down, hitches or glitches, you're not printing anything without having a conventional RIP backup. It could take a lot of the guesswork out, or not, and if it doesn't give the desired result you'd still need a redundant manual way to correct it, and if that becomes the norm, you're right back to doing it like we already are at a higher price point. It would also need to be able to detect things like nozzle drop outs and compensate (like we do manually with speed, passes to get us by till we can correct it, or an automated version of Mimaki's nozzle recovery), but that would be dependent on what the makers build into the equipment's capabilities.
I'm sure it'll come to fruition when the technology is advanced enough, but in the end it'll require new higher cost printers, because the ones we all have now most likely won't work, or for current devices an AI RIP probably won't do anything more than just grabbing a canned media profile that may or may not work, just like we already do, negating any benefits.
It would however send a lot of equipment to the landfill as companies drop support to sell you new higher cost AI compatible machines, and you know Mfgrs will just have them stop dead if something goes out of spec, and require you to pay a service tech to get it certified and running again (much like many other electronic devices, EV's, John Deer's...) so they can make more profit. Every option and feature will come with a subscription price, and sadly, we all know that's what it'll turn into. Printers won't be so much owned, or repairable by you anymore, even though you paid to own them, just like the road everything else is heading down. That, in a nutshell, is the biggest problem I have with the direction technology is heading.
Is AI viable for workflow? In many cases, yes.
Could it work as a rip server? Probably, eventually.
Will it be cost prohibitive for that? For most, absolutely.
That's my take... Cheers
