[HN Gopher] AI won't make artists redundant - thanks to informat...
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       AI won't make artists redundant - thanks to information theory
        
       Author : stared
       Score  : 100 points
       Date   : 2023-02-19 10:39 UTC (12 hours ago)
        
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 (TXT) w3m dump (p.migdal.pl)
        
       | aczerepinski wrote:
       | I hire artists to turn my terrible sketches into decent looking
       | stickers, generally in a fun, cartoony style.
       | 
       | For the last two ideas I tried midjouney and the best I could get
       | from it was an additional reference to send to an artist. I
       | watched a few YouTube tutorials that offered some interesting
       | techniques for getting better and better images from midjouney,
       | but to my eyes those midjouney experts seem awfully flexible
       | about what the final output will be. They're dancing with the AI
       | but not fully wielding it.
       | 
       | Perhaps next time I'll hire both an artist and a midjouney expert
       | and compare results that way.
        
         | kyleyeats wrote:
         | If it's just a character, you want Stable Diffusion. If it's a
         | "scene" then you might want Midjourney.
        
         | nestorD wrote:
         | That is a very good point: having tight control on style and
         | composition is significantly harder than getting a good-looking
         | image with those techniques (it is doable but it takes practice
         | to learn how to engineer prompt accordingly)
        
         | smusamashah wrote:
         | Look into ControlNet. Midjourney is not very customizable.
         | Checkout reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion for examples of
         | controlnet. You can turn your sketches into art with it.
        
       | thenoblesunfish wrote:
       | I have a hard time being worried until AI actually becomes
       | comparable to human intelligence (and then art will probably be a
       | lesser concern amongst others). Why? Because art is about the
       | generation of things that people find appealing, which you can
       | automate, but it's as much about am emotional conversation
       | between people (using a "language" words can't replicate),
       | interest in artists as people, and doing novel things. My
       | suspicion is that whatever great thing people can do with AI, in
       | the ways it exists now, people will get bored with it very, very
       | quickly and move on to something they feel is more soulful.
        
       | doublerabbit wrote:
       | I want to make a cartoon. Who can produce the imagery faster?
       | Either spend $ commissioning an artist or spend money entering
       | text in to a computer.
       | 
       | "A teddy bear walking though a park". If I don't choose the
       | artist, the artist is out of the job and the AI wins.
       | 
       | You could say someone needs to train the AI with an artwork
       | dataset but once that's initially done, its over, considering
       | that studios are the main supplier to artists income.
       | 
       | Does this not cause redundancies?
        
         | bamboozled wrote:
         | Be realistic and practical here, in what situation are you
         | going to start typing into a computer "A teddy bear walking in
         | a park" and then start to do anything with the images it
         | generates in a case where you would've entrusted and artist or
         | designer to make something for you ?
         | 
         | What about when you need different scales, different colors,
         | different this and that, are you going to sit there and keep
         | prompting for this ?
         | 
         | I've worked with people who are _really_ good with Illustrator,
         | they can change and produce images for different purposes in a
         | ridiculously short amount of time already. The ting is, even if
         | I _could_ recruit AI to do it, I probably wouldn 't and just
         | want someone else to take care of it. To make favicons and
         | screw around with thumbnails and vector images and the list
         | goes on.
         | 
         | There's also the fact that, some people have an eye for style
         | and application of it. Even when I've tried to use DALL-E,
         | which I never have successfully because it always generates
         | something weird enough to be unusable, I've not been confident
         | that my own personal selection is good enough, I'm not a
         | designer, I don't have an eye for art or color, or style etc.
         | It's not my profession to know what's nice. I don't want that
         | responsibility, so I outsource it.
        
           | nonbirithm wrote:
           | The problem arises if a bunch of studios start adopting AI
           | assisted workflows to increase productivity and the studios
           | that are holdouts get left behind because it would no longer
           | be economically viable to continue animating without AI. It
           | could be similar to how traditional cel animation has
           | declined in use. If AI assisted output clears the bar for
           | consumers, then it's probably good enough for managers.
           | 
           | People using AI professionally probably won't put the raw
           | output of DALL-E straight into the finished work either, I've
           | seen artists that use Stable Diffusion to generate a base
           | image and then do heavy amounts of editing with Photoshop or
           | similar.
        
             | bamboozled wrote:
             | We're talking about digital art and it would actually piss
             | me off (a lot) if I didn't have original copies of the art
             | I paid for to be modifiable later. Especially if I was
             | using the work commercially.
             | 
             | I can of course imagine a situation where I might be able
             | to get a PSD file or vector from DALL-E, but honestly I
             | can't imagine myself sitting there telling DALL-E how I
             | want it to modify my PSD in minute details, I'd just pay
             | someone to do it.
             | 
             | This is where I think there is a practical misunderstanding
             | when people talk about this subject, there is a lot of
             | fiddly work and minutia that goes on with art which I just
             | think people don't realize.
        
       | wokwokwok wrote:
       | Imagine a world where AI art tools are commonly used.
       | 
       | Ignore the messy legal and moral issues; just imagine, for a
       | moment. What's changed?
       | 
       | These tools effectively enable artists to:
       | 
       | - generate a variety of concepts for some desired output
       | 
       | - render out the detail, lighting and shading that has
       | traditionally been done by hand
       | 
       | - convert existing images and concepts into artistic 'styles'
       | 
       | You want a set of icons? You want a custom font?
       | 
       | The effort is reduced from weeks or work to days, if that.
       | 
       | People will have to learn to use them; just like any other tool.
       | 
       | So really, what _actually changes_?
       | 
       | Two things, specifically spring to mind:
       | 
       | - The existing skills that people have to do these things become
       | obsolete.
       | 
       | - The number of people needed to do the _current job_ that
       | artists are employed to do is drastically reduced.
       | 
       | That's what's going to happen, and it's happening already. You
       | need people to paint tween frames for your animated video? Well,
       | 2 guys in a basement can do it now instead of a team of 10.
       | 
       | Yeah, you still need the key frames... but the mechanical shading
       | and drawing that employs of lot of people, _specifically_ in the
       | animation industry, is going to be _ERADICATED_.
       | 
       | In corporate teams, will your 'design team' of 5 people be cut to
       | 1? Probably not.
       | 
       | ...but, those industries _don 't employ the majority of
       | creatives_. The _majority_ of artists do not draw concept art.
       | They do mechanical technical processes in VFX and animation.
       | 
       | There will be new companies, and new roles.
       | 
       | ...but, a lot of people will find the mechanical work that earns
       | them their daily living wage will replaced by a much more
       | efficient automated process. Those people may, perhaps, be able
       | to re-train and get new creative roles doing other things.
       | 
       | ...
       | 
       | What the 'anti-AI' movement has won is a short reprieve until the
       | 'ethical' and 'watermarked' corporate AI art generators roll out,
       | and get accepted as industry standard. Maybe that's a good thing?
       | I dunno.
       | 
       | I think it's fair to sat that the cat is out of the box now.
       | 
       | In the future, there will not be industrial scale human drawn 2d
       | art. That industry will no longer exist. Hopefully the people
       | currently in that industry can find other creative roles (or
       | retire) by the time that happens.
       | 
       | When photography came out, it had a similar impact on hand drawn
       | photo-realistic paintings; and I think you can see thing,
       | historically. It's not that no one does it any more. It's that it
       | has become a niche job, that is technically inferior to just
       | taking a photo.
       | 
       | That's where this is headed for 2D artists.
        
         | sebzim4500 wrote:
         | >What the 'anti-AI' movement has won is a short reprieve until
         | the 'ethical' and 'watermarked' corporate AI art generators
         | roll out,
         | 
         | They've managed to get some NSFW models shut down, but have
         | they achieved anything else?
         | 
         | MSFT looks like they want to go full steam ahead with this, and
         | they have pretty good lawyers who will not be frightened by a
         | few frivolous lawsuits.
        
           | wokwokwok wrote:
           | I think the case of https://arstechnica.com/information-
           | technology/2023/02/netfl... shows that the movement has had a
           | tangible delaying effect of becoming industry standard.
           | 
           | I don't believe they'll be successful in stopping things from
           | happening... but I think it's pretty undeniable that it's
           | caused things to slow down in wide scale corporate adoption.
        
             | sebzim4500 wrote:
             | Presumably Netflix's only mistake was tweeting about it,
             | though?
             | 
             | I don't see how anyone would have found out otherwise.
        
       | A_D_E_P_T wrote:
       | There's a mistaken assumption here. The author seems to believe
       | that these generators operate on the basis of random chance,
       | hence a 200x200 pixel image in RGB has a possibility space of
       | 10^300000 images.
       | 
       | ...But an overwhelming majority of those images are random noise,
       | and are effectively homogeneous and interchangeable. They're
       | perfectly identical.
       | 
       | Like human artists, the image generators are (very strongly)
       | biased to create "structured" images, which are derivative of
       | existing artistic works or natural representations in the form of
       | photographs. In principle, there's no a priori qualitative
       | difference between the AIs and humans in this respect -- no human
       | art is created de novo, but is always a continuation of, or a
       | reaction to, existing forms.
       | 
       | Further, there's no reason to believe that (a) the size of the
       | possibility space matters in a quantitative sense, and (b) that
       | AIs will never be as capable of qualitative "originality" -- in
       | conception, composition, or subject matter representation -- as a
       | human artist would be.
        
         | stared wrote:
         | I put my caveats on indistinguishable images. And three is the
         | challange - to make a better estimation of an effective number
         | of distinguishable images.
         | 
         | > (b) that AIs will never be as capable of qualitative
         | "originality" -- in conception, composition, or subject matter
         | representation -- as a human artist would be.
         | 
         | Sure, AI already creates original things. The point is that
         | questions like "create a drawing that presents friendship" can
         | be approached from many, many different, and what is crucial -
         | subjective, ways.
        
       | hgs3 wrote:
       | What's sad about AI is peoples reaction to it. The defensiveness
       | from artists misses the point: Technology should better our lives
       | and free us to pursue our passions. The real problem is under our
       | current economic model, it has the opposite effect. Instead of
       | getting defensive, we should be rethinking the role of our
       | economy. Sadly (and cynically) I suspect we won't see change
       | until AI comes for the CEO's and politicians.
        
       | The_Colonel wrote:
       | AI will make many, but not all, artists redundant.
       | 
       | As usual, the lower skill/value work will be automatized sooner.
       | Platforms like fiverr will probably suffer a lot, but so will
       | many "for hire" artists. High value work will remain to be
       | exclusive for humans.
       | 
       | Many high value artists (programmers ...) started as low value
       | and worked themselves up. But if the low value segment is eaten
       | up by AI then the path will be destroyed as well. I wonder if
       | this will make classical education more valuable (after
       | graduation you're starting as high value producer) and further
       | increase class division.
        
         | Kamq wrote:
         | > I wonder if this will make classical education more valuable
         | (after graduation you're starting as high value producer)
         | 
         | I haven't noticed a correlation between formal education and
         | the people that I would describe as "high value producers".
         | That could be a bias because the median person without a degree
         | doesn't get hired at all, but if we're removing mid-tier and
         | below devs from the work pool, that's going to eliminate most
         | of the people I know with CS or SE degrees.
        
           | The_Colonel wrote:
           | > I haven't noticed a correlation between formal education
           | and the people that I would describe as "high value
           | producers".
           | 
           | I agree, but I would argue that people without formal
           | education have to usually work their way up.
           | 
           | Basically, if I'm a high school drop out, then I'm very
           | unlikely to land a job at FAANG right away. Quite possibly I
           | will have to start in some low value job to get some
           | credibility. But if AI eats most of these jobs, then it also
           | removes the possibility for the high school drop outs to move
           | up.
        
         | ZephyrBlu wrote:
         | I don't think education has anything to do with this. AI tools
         | are pretty easily accessible to anyone and you don't need a
         | "classical education" to wield them.
         | 
         | If anything, I think the necessity of education is going to be
         | weakened further and more quickly in the next decade.
        
           | bamboozled wrote:
           | What a nice sounding dystopian future you've described there.
        
             | ZephyrBlu wrote:
             | What's dystopian about it?
        
               | bamboozled wrote:
               | Having people not really needing education and just
               | becoming dumb consumers of AI products? Sounds like a
               | boring future.
        
               | ZephyrBlu wrote:
               | We already have too many people going to university. Less
               | people getting degrees would be a net positive. Knowledge
               | and education is still important, but credentialed
               | education is reducing in value.
               | 
               | Not sure why people using AI tools would mean they're
               | "dumb consumers". Are we "dumb consumers" of IDEs?
               | 
               | Credentials mattering less and more AI tools sounds like
               | a very interesting future to me.
        
               | bamboozled wrote:
               | _If anything, I think the necessity of education is going
               | to be weakened further and more quickly in the next
               | decade._
               | 
               | You used the term "education" not "degrees".
        
               | ZephyrBlu wrote:
               | In this context "classical education" referred to
               | degrees, and I shortened that to "education". I thought
               | it was obvious from context that by "education" I meant
               | degrees.
        
           | bee_rider wrote:
           | I think they point they were making was that a job as a
           | lower-skill artist was a potential on-ramp to a job as
           | higher-skill artist.
           | 
           | It isn't obvious at this point what the skill ceiling is, on
           | using AI tools, since they've only been around for a couple
           | months.
        
       | karmakaze wrote:
       | I wouldn't say thanks to information theory, but rather on human
       | tendency to be bored with repeated styles. It doesn't matter how
       | good the tech is, but if it comes out like Michael Bay movies or
       | anything else that we learn to recognize, people are going to
       | want 'more original' art. The other difference is that the point
       | of art is to express and evoke emotions, it's an open question
       | whether that can be done effectively without having feelings
       | during the process.
        
         | thenoblesunfish wrote:
         | Bingo - solving the problem of making "good" AI art seems close
         | to solving the problem of making AI human.
        
           | karmakaze wrote:
           | I wouldn't make that strong a statement anymore. The level of
           | play by AlphaGo/Zero seems to demonstrate creativity and
           | understanding that we would only attribute to humans. That is
           | to say I can't say for certain that emotion couldn't be
           | faked, and we don't know that human emotion is super-special,
           | only that it's complex.
        
             | galleywest200 wrote:
             | Do they demonstrate creativity, or is that just us
             | romanticizing it? Maybe these games really are just
             | reducible to numbers at the end of the day.
        
         | ttjjtt wrote:
         | This is a good take and under appreciated generally. Already
         | theres an identifiable generic flavour to much AI art. Just
         | knowing that it's AI generated makes it feel somewhat lifeless.
         | Not because of the end product is lacking , but because of the
         | awareness of the production method. it's less engaging if you
         | know a machine spat it out, especially once you recognise and
         | become bored by the stylistic markers that indicate machine
         | generation. That will play into the spending calculation of,
         | for example, advertising agencies, particularly high end brand
         | work.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | jsemrau wrote:
       | I think so too. AI might affect applications like Photoshop if
       | the result of the provided output is good enough. Stable
       | Diffusion is going into this direction. While ChatGPT is nice,
       | real authors and journalists create value by bringing in a
       | nuanced and subjective insights based on their
       | research/expertise/ideology.
        
         | elif wrote:
         | Personally, I highly value the vanilla perspective of chatGPT's
         | explanations compared to picking through some authors bias to
         | try to find truth for myself. What you are calling value is
         | nice for entertainment purposes or perhaps some heuristic
         | understanding and essentialization... But it is usually at
         | expense of nuance and truth.
        
       | jonnycomputer wrote:
       | Wish I could filter this conversation to those who are actually
       | artists by profession. A little hard to hear a whole bunch of
       | non-artists telling them what they should do or feel about this.
        
         | turtleyacht wrote:
         | That's interesting. HN has a software bent on startups and
         | such. As if programming is one of The Known Ways to create
         | something. Fundamentally, our instructions are executed by a
         | _machine_ to some effect, one of which could be profit.
         | 
         | I wonder if artists are having their "software moment": a
         | decade from now (or sooner) they will say, "Adobe Photoshop is
         | the _assembly language_ of digital art; use these AI frameworks
         | /prompts/GPU cloud mix to do X and Y."
         | 
         | From that perspective, it's just pragmatic. No one writes
         | assembly unless it's either for passion or practical.
        
         | pixl97 wrote:
         | This is a strange line of thought. I mean, yes we'll get a
         | whole bunch of bullcrap posts from people not involved, but
         | effectively you're instead reducing the conversation to "Lets
         | give the artist their 15 minutes of neo-luddism".
         | 
         | Artists are not the first group to fall under the hammer of
         | technology and automation, and they will not be the last. I'm
         | sure most blacksmiths thought themselves artists that worked
         | hard to master a craft after years of work, and now a press
         | stamps out that same work in seconds. This is hitting people
         | hard now because things we think of as distinctly human are now
         | being accomplished by machines (though was this not true in the
         | past?).
         | 
         | There are discussions for artists here, but there are plenty
         | more for all of society. Jobs will get replaced and change in
         | form at an ever increasing rate due to technology if trends
         | keep up. Will the rate of technology change job requirements
         | faster than humans can retrain? If it does what are nations and
         | societies going to do about this. Much like the AI safety
         | issues, we need to answer these large scale issues now before
         | artists and programmers are stabbing each other in the streets
         | for breadcrumbs while multitrillionares that own the technology
         | live like gods.
        
       | HeavyStorm wrote:
       | How do you vote down a link?
        
         | nickthegreek wrote:
         | With the flag button. You won't have access to it til you get
         | 500 upvotes I believe.
        
       | GaggiX wrote:
       | >an open-source Stable Diffusion, which is a basis for multiple
       | projects, including commercial Midjourney.
       | 
       | source? The model behind Midjourney looks quite different from
       | Stable Diffusion, to me it looks like a model conditioned to
       | image embeddings (like Karlo or Dalle 2) instead of text
       | embeddings, also I don't see any mention of the Creative ML
       | OpenRAIL-M license on their website, when they experimented with
       | SD in August they added it but it has not been there for months,
       | To me it is clear that MJ has trained a new diffusion model from
       | scratch, it is also noticeable by the difference in performance,
       | even for a model trained in AI image recognition it struggles
       | with images generated by Nijijourney (MJ but finetuned for anime)
       | while it has an easy time with anime images generated by SD and
       | its finetuned models [1], which means that the distribution of
       | images is very different.
       | 
       | [1]: https://huggingface.co/spaces/saltacc/anime-ai-detect
        
       | mdp2021 wrote:
       | > _Will there be room for human artists?_
       | 
       | When the details of the machine's output will have a justifiable
       | foundation, then the machine _will_ be an artist.
       | 
       | Before that, you employ <<human artists>> because they have those
       | missing modules.
       | 
       | The need is in those missing modules. The agent who has them can
       | "do everything" or cooperate with other specialized agents - like
       | in normal work.
        
       | AstixAndBelix wrote:
       | AI won't make artists redundant because it does not experience
       | human sensations. The only thing an AI can do is read the flow of
       | data we make available to it, which is text, audio and video.
       | 
       | An AI will never be able to represent what it means to be subject
       | to police brutality, because it cannot feel being beaten and
       | humiliated by a cop.
       | 
       | An AI will never be able to paint an anti-war poster from the
       | perspective of someone who has felt the ground shake due to
       | shelling of their hometown, because an AI has not lived there for
       | 30 years and does not know the feeling.
       | 
       | The only way AI will make artists redundant would be if it became
       | completely human, which is contradictory since at that point it
       | would be a real artist
        
         | medler wrote:
         | You're being downvoted for contradicting the AI hype machine,
         | but you are completely correct. Humans have been creating art
         | for at least tens of thousands of years, and none of the
         | reasons we create art will ever be fulfilled by AI.
        
         | Zetobal wrote:
         | You are reading too many coffee table books.
        
           | AstixAndBelix wrote:
           | You are reading too much Twitter
        
             | Zetobal wrote:
             | But I don't.
        
               | AstixAndBelix wrote:
               | And I don't read coffee table books, so now what?
        
               | Zetobal wrote:
               | Ok. :]
        
         | bazoom42 wrote:
         | You are discounting fiction then. Lots of art describe or
         | depict things the artist never personally experienced.
        
           | klibertp wrote:
           | It's not that clear-cut. Humans can empathize, to the point
           | where observing someone getting hurt flares similar neural
           | response to the one in the hurt person. Sufficiently vivid
           | imagination in conjunction with a lot of research can give
           | you an experience "close enough" to the real deal to be able
           | to write about it. I've witnessed an author falling into a
           | deep, clinical depression solely due to the subject they
           | decided to tackle. Not every person is capable of such a deep
           | dive into an experience they nominally don't have, but
           | authors and artists tend to be able to do this. In such a
           | setting, "personal experience" is a fluid term, not
           | necessarily synonymous with "he was there at the time
           | personally" or "it happened to him personally".
           | 
           | When you wake up from a nightmare, you're covered in cold
           | sweat, you have trouble breathing normally, your hands are
           | shaking - did you "personally experience" what you've dreamed
           | of? Authors and artists are in a business of dreaming like
           | that while awake, and sharing those dreams with others.
           | 
           | The AI will surely get there at some point, as others noted,
           | once you model embodiment and imagination it's game over. But
           | it's not as close as others seem to think, in my opinion.
        
         | anonylizard wrote:
         | In case you don't know, AI art is not an AI pumping out art by
         | itself. A human prompter has to prompt the AI. The prompter can
         | perfectly understand 'police brutality'/'shelled hometown', as
         | they are human, just like the artist.
         | 
         | Artists feel threatened, because they invested 90% of their
         | time in drawing skills, which went from unthinkable to
         | automate, to AI surpassing 90% of artists in 8 months.
        
           | kwhitefoot wrote:
           | > they invested 90% of their time in drawing skills, which
           | went from unthinkable to automate,
           | 
           | Except that the AI doesn't automate drawing, it automates the
           | creation of an image of a drawing.
           | 
           | I have a friend who is an amateur water colour painter. I
           | have no doubt that an AI/ML application can produce pictures
           | that look very much like pictures of his pictures. But at the
           | moment at least it is utterly unable to create the actual
           | artwork.
        
         | TheOtherHobbes wrote:
         | All of that is true, but as soon as you model subjectivity and
         | embodiment with any kind of credibility it's game over.
         | 
         | The current generation of tools doesn't do that. It's
         | essentially a very sophisticated parrot making speech-like
         | noises it doesn't understand.
         | 
         | But a couple of generations from now, I think it's going to be
         | much less straightforward.
         | 
         | Also, the thing about genius is that it's subjective. In the
         | arts it's more or less synonymous with mastery of a medium with
         | impactful novel insight.
         | 
         | You could argue that AI systems are well on their way to
         | mastering visual media. It's not _quite_ true, but that 's
         | because the people training these systems are not artists, and
         | so far they're selecting work that looks a bit Social Media and
         | Game-Ish rather than Art Museum and Contemporary Show-ish.
         | 
         | I don't see any reason in principle why that couldn't be fixed
         | with better training.
         | 
         | So what about impactful novel insight? The point here is
         | there's a kind of cultural and perceptual feedback process
         | which selects certain works out of semi-random cultural noise.
         | There are always a lot of artists making a lot of work, and
         | most of it is not that interesting. Selecting interesting work
         | doesn't require intent, it just needs a feedback loop.
         | 
         | So if you create a situation in which a community rates the art
         | and selects certain works/algorithms/training sets over others,
         | I suspect the impactful and novel insight will happen
         | automatically.
         | 
         | Sentience or subjectivity are not required. In fact you'll get
         | an automated version of what happens already, where different
         | communities with different levels of education and
         | sophistication select different kinds of work for their own
         | reasons, and some are considered "works of genius" for reasons
         | that may be as political and cultural as artistic.
        
       | Satam wrote:
       | AI just needs to be better at creating art from instructions than
       | a hired artist is.
       | 
       | And we already know great art can be created following a prompt -
       | hired artists interpret their client's instructions all the time
       | (concept art, game art, movie art, etc.).
        
         | bamboozled wrote:
         | _hired artists interpret their client 's instructions all the
         | time (concept art, game art, movie art, etc.)._
         | 
         | I cannot disagree with this comment any more, I hire creative
         | people to help me to create things which isn't in my skillset.
         | I don't hire them to tell them what I want entirely. Sometimes
         | I'd at least describe what I want, but often they will say,
         | well that's good but how about...
         | 
         | That is a huge part of the value add for me personally. If I
         | knew what I wanted, half the battle would be one, AI or not.
        
           | Satam wrote:
           | I don't think we disagree. Artists help you turn a relatively
           | short and vague description into a finished artwork. The
           | clients usually already provide very little information in
           | comparison to the number of decisions needed to complete the
           | work (e.g. choosing composition, theme, style, colors,
           | lighting, etc.).
           | 
           | Working from vague prompts is exactly what the current AIs
           | do. Follow up questions and ability to do precise edits are
           | likely next steps in the evolution.
        
       | zenith035 wrote:
       | Founder of dreamphilic.com here. Based on our users I am seeing
       | some trends: 1. Great artists are generating great prompts and
       | thus great images because at the end it all comes down to your
       | imagination. 2. I expected most users to be young population but
       | what I see is they are mostly people of age 35 and above. 3.
       | Creative people are enjoying it. People who are not good at using
       | artistic tools or don't have access to those expensive tools but
       | have good imagination can also see their imaginations come to
       | life, thanks to AI.
        
       | bilsbie wrote:
       | The valuable art will simply become more performative. We still
       | pay a ton for live music even though we can hear the same music
       | for dirt cheap.
       | 
       | We pay a ton for theatre when we can just watch a movie or
       | recorded play.
       | 
       | We have adapted to cheap art many times before.
        
       | neovialogistics wrote:
       | It doesn't matter whether diffusion programs or even more
       | rarefied approaches to solution spaces can capture the essence of
       | human-produced art.
       | 
       | Markets are fundamentally about perceived value instead of actual
       | value. Algorithmically generated creative works do not have to
       | compete in the field of actual value; they has to compete in the
       | field of perceived value. Let's be real, almost all customers of
       | art - whether they pay before or after the production - are
       | pretty bad at estimating actual value.
       | 
       | More philosophically, it's not possible to empower humans above
       | human superorganisms. You make a successful walled garden or you
       | fail to reproduce your ideals into the future.
        
         | tpush wrote:
         | What is "actual value"?
        
           | Jensson wrote:
           | In fine art? Social signalling. AI generated art is like
           | artificial diamonds.
        
             | zakki wrote:
             | In the case of diamond it seems better to choose the
             | artificial one. Especially the real one's price is
             | controlled.
        
             | [deleted]
        
         | Dalewyn wrote:
         | That is a bunch of minced words to explain a very simple
         | concept:
         | 
         | People judge results, not effort.
         | 
         | You don't buy a product because the producer put in <X> effort,
         | you buy it because it's good (FSVO good).
        
           | kwhitefoot wrote:
           | Food Safety and Veterinary Office? Fire Service Vehicle
           | Operator?
        
             | Satam wrote:
             | > Hey GPT, what does FSVO mean in the above
             | 
             | > "FSVO" stands for "For Some Value Of". In the given
             | statement, "FSVO good" means that the product is considered
             | good to some extent, though the degree of goodness may vary
             | depending on personal opinions and preferences.
        
           | beedeebeedee wrote:
           | > People judge results, not effort.
           | 
           | That may be true for graphic art for movies, video games,
           | websites, etc, but not for fine art. In fine art, the
           | resulting artwork is judged much less by the result than what
           | went into it. The artworld already is deluged by art, so the
           | narrative around the art and the artist is the most important
           | differentiating element.
        
       | chewonbananas wrote:
       | What I've seen from all the AI lately is a lot of vague uncanny
       | valley images that somehow don't fit. They're too perfect and
       | even when they try to be imperfect it's too intentional.
        
       | moth-fuzz wrote:
       | AI won't make artists redundant because you don't pay an artist
       | for a picture in the first place, you pay them for their
       | creativity, their ideas, which may eventually result in a
       | picture. You know, their _artistry_. Too many artists devalue
       | themselves and their livelihood by defining their work as
       | entirely mechanical, entirely defined by their material product.
       | Art is more than just produce. You'd think _artists_ would be the
       | first to say that.
        
         | rightbyte wrote:
         | The value in artist is their skill in realizing their
         | creativity. I can be creative too but but sure as hell I can't
         | paint it.
        
       | neatze wrote:
       | I wait when game from like Dark Souls series is released and all
       | concept art is generated by AI, to me it seems such game will
       | have no style consistency, it will look like game that is is put
       | together from market place props (eg. cheap garbage).
       | 
       | Because AI can generate very good looking art works, I don't
       | think it is all there in making compelling, consistent, and
       | visually pleasing art, simply because there are feed back loops,
       | between multiple people, from concept art to end product.
        
         | SunghoYahng wrote:
         | - 3 years later -
        
           | turtleyacht wrote:
           | _The whole game is generated._
           | 
           | It brings on a renaissance of game designers, because now
           | ideas can be iterated and polished instead of dumping
           | thousands of hours into prototyping.
           | 
           | AI can create the skeleton (for now), but we need new AI
           | models for the meta-analysis (game balance, replayability,
           | novel mechanics).
           | 
           | And AI game reviewers to curate that, because we won't have
           | time to play everything.
        
       | pxoe wrote:
       | it sure as hell will displace artists and wreck art market.
       | people are already choosing to pay couple bucks for an app to get
       | some "art" from a random company that repackages stable
       | diffusion, which was built on unlicensed art, instead of paying
       | an actual artist to create something. and when called out on
       | their choice, people make excuses like 'it's just for fun', 'it's
       | cheaper than paying an artist', 'i don't have money for an actual
       | commission' (and yet, somehow they have enough money to pay for
       | an app). apps are currently actively undercutting and pricing out
       | artists, and it is working for the apps, which also get free
       | promo with every customer that gleefully posts their results.
       | 
       | apps can set any price they want on what costs very little to
       | create - there's some compute, storage, etc. - but they can just
       | repackage existing models, train on unlicensed artwork, get all
       | the parts for free, and then price it (and undercut) any way they
       | want. there's a lot of leeway on how aggressively can a service
       | like that price it's "goods" which are basically free to make,
       | and can be made in no time, at enormous scale. there's infinite
       | possibilities for predatory pricing when the base price is
       | approaching zero. actual human artists, who do commission work,
       | which take time to complete, and are worked on one piece at a
       | time, can hardly compete. even an entire market (or a piece of
       | it), full of different artists, hardly can.
        
         | Vecr wrote:
         | That's only a market problem if they are "dumping", i.e.
         | selling under their price of production in order to gain more
         | market share. Like Uber subsidizing their actual product with
         | VC money and gaining more market share. I think you can
         | sustainably sell the images for pennies as long as you run your
         | own hardware and keep a lookout for unnecessary costs/middlemen
         | (AWS, various paid Google products, etc.)
        
       | fatih-erikli wrote:
       | Great artist will steal from AI and leave the 95% of artists
       | redundant.
        
       | elif wrote:
       | I think artists will just have to leverage the tech on a larger
       | scale to be effective. No matter how it's created, the best art
       | will still have value..
       | 
       | It may not be economical to, for instance, have an entire studio
       | of dozens or hundreds of artists produce an animated film with an
       | anticipatory budget.. but I suspect it will still be quite
       | profitable for a handful of artists and some AI to produce that
       | same film in a shorter time period.
       | 
       | Or it may be profitable for a 13 year old kid to produce that
       | film in his spare time. In that way, I see it as a sort of
       | artistic renaissance where new voices are found and the pace of
       | artistic acceleration is unprecedented.
        
       | ilyt wrote:
       | They are not worried about making all artists redundant, they are
       | worried about making most artist redundant.
       | 
       | Instead of needing to pay for mediocre artist to get mediocre art
       | that's good enough for a purpose, now the AI taught on the good
       | artist (all subjective of course) can produce similarly mediocre
       | art that's fit for purpose.
       | 
       | It's equivalent to replacing all of the simple CRUD web devs with
       | AI that does good enough job
        
         | caseymarquis wrote:
         | Interestingly, it might be easier to replace mid-skill artists
         | than mid-skill developers (not to say both won't happen over
         | time). The key difference is that when generating art, you can
         | say "Make A in-the-style B.", get what you want, and move on.
         | 
         | Meanwhile, you have to live with the consequences of AI
         | generated code.
         | 
         | Case in point: My wife was trying to build a system to generate
         | POs per vendor from a series of workorders a couple weeks ago.
         | She was using AirTable, which vastly simplifies the creation
         | and use of relational databases. Given a lack of database
         | experience, the structure that she made was misaligned with
         | what she actually needed (and completely denormalized). Putting
         | it into production would have caused major problems over time.
         | 
         | This made me realize that writing code is only one of the
         | barriers to entry in software. Eliminating this barrier
         | effectively gives everyone in the world access to a small team
         | of incredibly junior developers who have no idea what they're
         | doing.
         | 
         | Just like mismanaged DIY home projects create more work for
         | professional contractors, I think AI might -oddly enough-
         | create more positions for mid-tier and higher developers.
        
           | ilyt wrote:
           | It most definitely is for simple reason - non interactivity.
           | Image doesn't need to be told what clicking this button does
           | or how that pop up menu needs to animate or million other
           | interactions.
           | 
           | > Just like mismanaged DIY home projects create more work for
           | professional contractors, I think AI might -oddly enough-
           | create more positions for mid-tier and higher developers.
           | 
           | It might also create a lot of jobs for "AI crafters" - know
           | enough about it to craft good prompts about what client wants
           | and have enough graphic editing knowledge to tweak and mix AI
           | input to create what is needed. It probably will also empower
           | "one man shops" dealing in small customized websites for
           | customers, replacing or augmenting what now stock images are
           | used for.
        
       | junglistguy wrote:
       | "AI won't make artists redundant"
       | 
       | Of course it will make them redundant. All it takes is one
       | "creative" in place of several graphic designers. What you write
       | are just theories. Do you know what the design process looks
       | like? How many "human problems" are there along the way?
       | 
       | Only the ARTISTS will remain. Artists whose work you will want to
       | buy. Such a fancy for the rich.
        
       | college_physics wrote:
       | Only society can make artists redundant. If people want to get
       | their "art" by digitally rehashing what real artists did in the
       | past then we don't need artists.
       | 
       | How exactly things will play out is not clear: photography did
       | not eliminate painting. Algorithms will not eliminate more
       | "manual" creative work. Some new genres might emerge.
       | 
       | Ultimately what is a more important problem is that the
       | commercialization of artistic production was always challenging.
       | When you can create infinite replicas with semi-random variations
       | it only makes the problem worse.
        
         | CatWChainsaw wrote:
         | Commercialization of anything and everything is the real
         | capital P Problem that needs solving, in the grand scheme of
         | things.
        
         | oneeyedpigeon wrote:
         | Exactly. Art as an economic industry may die out. As a career,
         | it may be reduced to a much smaller scope. But we'll always be
         | able to express ourselves artistically - maybe even more so if
         | AI frees up more time in which to do so.
        
           | bamboozled wrote:
           | ...or enjoy making art with other people to use in our
           | commercial endeavors ?
           | 
           | Like, it might actually be fun to work with creatives to make
           | art. It's one of the areas of my work I actually really
           | enjoy. I can't imagine prompting DALL-E to be as fun and
           | enjoyable, nor would it be "creative".
        
             | oneeyedpigeon wrote:
             | No, definitely not. It's a sad fact that many people have
             | to do what most of us would consider 'boring' work in our
             | day-to-day lives. Prompting DALL-E may not be 'as creative'
             | as not using it, in the same way that using Photoshop tools
             | might not be 'as creative' as painting with a brush, but
             | that doesn't invalidate either process.
        
       | anonylizard wrote:
       | This entire article misses critical developments in the AI art
       | space. Controlnet was just released last week. It allows for
       | precise fine-tuning of the image with skeletal positions, depth
       | maps, outline sketches, etc. It has been exceptionally received
       | in the AI art community, because pure-text-prompting precisely
       | runs into the issue described in the article. You can only convey
       | so much information with text prompts.
       | 
       | That being said, artists in general still don't want to touch
       | controlnet. Because despite controlnet solving their complaints
       | about how the AI isn't controllable precisely, it doesn't solve
       | the real problem, that drawing skills are massive devalued.
       | 
       | Artists will still exist, but most likely as hybrid 3d-modellers,
       | AI modelers (Not full programmers, but able to fine-tune models
       | with online guides and setups, can read basic python), and
       | storytellers (like manga artists). It'll be a higher-pay, higher-
       | prestige, higher-skill-requirement job than before. And all those
       | artists who devoted their lives to draw better, find this to be
       | an incredibly brutal adjustment.
       | 
       | PS: Despite how people made fun of 'proompters', or predicted
       | that prompting would be automated away. The skill ceiling to good
       | AI art has radically increased. There's now 10 different fine-
       | tuned models you need to learn the basics of, each with different
       | strengths. There's thousands of LORAs to insert into prompts to
       | precisely reproduce a subject that the base model has no
       | information on. There's 20 parameters to tune, each with
       | different effects. There's VAEs which affect coloring and fine-
       | details. Now there's controlnet, and you'd better learn blender
       | to rig basic skeletons to feed it. This likely suggests the
       | future of an AI-augmented economy: People become AI wranglers.
       | Wordpress was supposed to make blogging easier, instead it
       | spawned an industry of WP wranglers.
        
         | visarga wrote:
         | > This likely suggests the future of an AI augmented economy:
         | People become AI wranglers. Wordpress was supposed to make
         | blogging easier, instead it spawned an industry of WP
         | wranglers.
         | 
         | Good counter for "AI will steal our jobs". When competition
         | starts to use AI+human, you got to level up. And since everyone
         | has the same base AIs, the differentiating factor is still
         | human.
        
         | LASR wrote:
         | Yeah this post seems like it will not stand the rest of time.
         | 
         | The fundamental conceptual shift is the emergent behaviors
         | displayed by these models. And that is highly unforeseeable.
         | 
         | We're not working with machines that do what they're built to
         | do. They're doing more. And every day we discover something new
         | they're capable of doing.
         | 
         | Making any sort of statement about the limits of this
         | technology is going to be shortsighted.
        
           | mirsadm wrote:
           | The opposite is also true. People overestimate what is
           | possible and underestimate how much more effort and time is
           | required to start replacing industries.
        
         | TomSwirly wrote:
         | > Artists will still exist, but most likely as hybrid
         | 3d-modellers, AI modelers (Not full programmers, but able to
         | fine-tune models with online guides and setups, can read basic
         | python)
         | 
         | Why should artists have to learn fucking Python!? There are so
         | few jobs open to people who don't _want_ to  "learn to code",
         | this was one of the last, and that's going too.
         | 
         | > This likely suggests the future of an AI-augmented economy:
         | People become AI wranglers.
         | 
         | So we don't get to create ourselves anymore. No drawing, no
         | making music, no programming even. We just give prompts to AI
         | programs. Which means we are worthless, because any bozo can do
         | this.
         | 
         | I hate this timeline so much. It's like all the worst and most
         | mediocre parts from every SF future, with an extra dose of
         | stupidity and greed on top.
         | 
         | (And I'm a computer programmer.)
        
         | cmdialog wrote:
         | At the end of the day, we are not going to see AI art in the
         | Guggenheim, or any of those other museums where the finest art
         | in the world resides. AI art is and will always be a novelty.
         | Real art comes from the human spirit. It is not about technical
         | execution, and not just about painting a pretty picture. In
         | actual art we want to see humanity, something that AI will
         | never, ever truly know about.
         | 
         | Seems like a lot of people are missing this point, and it seems
         | like a lot of people have a chip on their shoulder about being
         | unable to create art, and believing they can express the deep
         | recesses of their feelings and psyche and everything else that
         | makes us human by proxy through AI, and thus completely missing
         | the point of creating art in the first place.
        
           | echohack5 wrote:
           | I think even without AI art we are well past the point of art
           | in famous galleries making sense. Isn't most of this just
           | thinly veiled money laundering anyway?
           | 
           | I imagine we WILL see AI art in a famous gallery for exactly
           | this reason. Except it will be lauded for the imagination of
           | the creator and the tweaks they made, not their drawing
           | ability.
        
           | ohdannyboy wrote:
           | These are great platitudes, and as a fellow human I like the
           | idea that only we can create "real" art, but I don't know how
           | to justify that idea. I have no chip on my shoulder about
           | art, it's not part of my identity at all. Computer
           | programming is, though, and I fully expect it to affect my
           | industry in the next decade.
           | 
           | The current fine art market is extremely unmeritorious so I
           | agree that AI art will never make it to the Guggenheim. That
           | isn't a good metric since the human curators will never allow
           | it to happen. The metric will be the industry. Will ai start
           | composing scores for movies? Promotional posters? Art that's
           | sold outside of expensive curated galleries (etsy, ect)?
           | 
           | It's possible that humans will keep their stranglehold on
           | these and I hope that's the case... But I wouldn't bet on it.
        
         | mouzogu wrote:
         | thanks was looking for something like this.
         | 
         | SD has been great at giving lots of new ideas but frustratingly
         | difficult/impossible to iterate on anything.
        
         | ZephyrBlu wrote:
         | > _Because despite controlnet solving their complaints about
         | how the AI isn 't controllable precisely, it doesn't solve the
         | real problem, that drawing skills are massive devalued_
         | 
         | At this point if I was an artist I'd probably be looking for a
         | way to leverage my existing skills into AI art, because it
         | seems like drawing skills will go the way of the horse and
         | carriage.
         | 
         | I feel bad because this has happened so quickly. Previously it
         | seems like there was a longer transition period.
         | 
         | This kind of transition has got me thinking the same about
         | coding though. If AI programming does indeed take over, my
         | programming skills will likely be massively devalued.
         | 
         | If you believe this is going to happen, how should you prepare
         | for it? Start learning prompting now? Get involved with
         | building these AIs? Etc.
        
           | notahacker wrote:
           | > At this point if I was an artist I'd probably be looking
           | for a way to leverage my existing skills into AI art, because
           | it seems like drawing skills will go the way of the horse and
           | carriage
           | 
           | Drawing skills were made redundant for producing most types
           | of high quality image _before_ the motor car but people still
           | pay for hand drawn items
           | 
           | Not sure AI lowering the skill barrier for and speeding up
           | the generation of digital art is really going to change that
        
           | Oxidation wrote:
           | > seems like drawing skills will go the way of the horse and
           | carriage.
           | 
           | The exact same thing happened to technical drafters when CAD
           | destroyed the entire (sub-)industry.
           | 
           | And to typesetting, for that matter[1].
           | 
           | Which is a pity in the human sense and the sense that both
           | were forms of artistry and produced things of great beauty,
           | both the product and the machines used to enable them, but
           | they're simply not economical in the face of Solidworks and
           | digital composition. And yet the replacement technologies
           | have also enabled a lot more creativity and further advances.
           | Objects with complex geometries are now possible to specify
           | and manufacture, when they previously could not even be
           | accurately drawn.
           | 
           | 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wapping_dispute, where not
           | only could the unions not simply oppose the rising sea-level
           | of technology, but their failure seriously damaged union
           | credibility in general.
        
           | visarga wrote:
           | Go with the flow. AI will need humans to be effective, humans
           | will need AI to remain competitive. But everyone will have
           | the same base models, just like we all have the same web
           | search and electricity. AI won't be a competitive advantage,
           | it will be a basic requirement.
           | 
           | Do you believe the number and complexity of software
           | applications will decrease in the next 10 years because of
           | AI, or that it will spawn whole new ecosystems of software
           | and new types of jobs? I believe the second is more
           | reasonable, we will have higher expectations from software in
           | 2033 than in 2023. The easier AI makes it, the more difficult
           | we make the tasks.
           | 
           | Human desires fill the available space like air, AI
           | exponential is slower than our entitlement. So we still need
           | to work.
        
           | oneeyedpigeon wrote:
           | > my programming skills will likely be massively devalued
           | 
           | I see this in the context of the drawing vs. art analogy.
           | Yes, your _typing_ and maybe _syntax_ skills will be
           | devalued, but your higher level, creative programming skills
           | are probably safe for a good long time yet.
        
             | ZephyrBlu wrote:
             | I'm sure there will be some overlap, but prompting is
             | sufficiently different from programming that I think a lot
             | of skills will not translate.
        
               | CuriouslyC wrote:
               | They will, because you need to know to prompt for (as an
               | example) "a real-time data-tracking and reporting
               | application backed by a column database with logical
               | replication fed by a task queue, having an isomorphic
               | client cached across multiple regions via a CDN."
               | 
               | Without the engineering know-how, your "write me an app
               | that displays data from this source in a dashboard"
               | prompt might work, but it won't be robust and when it
               | doesn't work you won't be able to figure out why.
        
               | fipar wrote:
               | Yeah, forget responding to prompts, I want to see A"I"
               | respond to pages to troubleshoot its prompt-generated
               | software.
               | 
               | "The machine stops" will seem optimistic in hindsight!
        
             | sebzim4500 wrote:
             | Depends what you mean by 'good long time'. I think at this
             | point it's worth acting under the assumption that
             | programming will not be a well compensated career in 5-10
             | years, and either be prepared to switch to something else
             | or try to make a lot of money in the near term.
             | 
             | Also, if I'm wrong then I get to be pleasantly surprised.
        
               | morby wrote:
               | AI has yet to completely replace people in any industry.
               | I fail to see how it would replace an industry that
               | creates massive, complicated code bases in 10 years. Let
               | alone 5. All roads seem to point to AI assisted work.
               | Programmers will move "higher level". That doesn't mean
               | they become poorly compensated.
        
               | bamboozled wrote:
               | Probably what the artists used to say.
        
               | TheCoelacanth wrote:
               | Artists are still as well-compensated as they ever have
               | been.
        
               | incone123 wrote:
               | I take this as tongue in cheek because the great majority
               | of artists are not making a good living just from selling
               | their art.
        
               | Filligree wrote:
               | The ones who said that, are fine. The skill ceiling for
               | AI generation increases by the day, and having previous
               | experience with art is a massive force multiplier.
        
             | stevesimmons wrote:
             | Especially combined with deep knowledge of the business
             | domain you work in.
        
           | vsareto wrote:
           | >If you believe this is going to happen, how should you
           | prepare for it? Start learning prompting now? Get involved
           | with building these AIs? Etc.
           | 
           | If you still want to work as someone who produces code -
           | except your personal code factory has changed from brain and
           | fingers to AI - then yeah, you should probably do both of
           | those things.
           | 
           | Even if you spend 1-2 years and this AI hype doesn't work
           | out, you still have those skills to go back to.
           | 
           | Frankly, this mainstream adoption by Google and Microsoft is,
           | uh, not going great. So you can afford to observe for now,
           | but AI advancements have been made very rapidly, so it's not
           | wise to completely ignore it either.
        
           | carapace wrote:
           | > If you believe this is going to happen
           | 
           | I believe this is going to happen (and is happening right
           | now, in front of us) not just for programmers but for _any_
           | role that _can_ be automated.
           | 
           | > How should you prepare for it?
           | 
           | Get equity. I mean ownership stake. If you don't have a
           | legal/financial claim on the output of the machine then
           | you're about to be part of the worthless surplus from the POV
           | of the system.
           | 
           | > Start learning prompting now?
           | 
           | No, the machines will do that well enough in a minute or two.
           | 
           | > Get involved with building these AIs?
           | 
           | No, the machines will do that well enough in a minute or two
           | too.
           | 
           | - - - -
           | 
           | Artificial Intelligence destroys scarcity, which is the
           | _fundamental_ basis of our societies and economies.
           | 
           | Think about it: _scarcity_ is the very problem that societies
           | and economies evolved to solve in the first place.
           | 
           | Now science and capitalism have delivered technology and
           | wealth. There _is_ enough to go around if we just worked out
           | the logistics, and computers can do that for us in a matter
           | of moments. In other words, the  "World Game" is not hard!
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Game we just have to get
           | over our hangups.
           | 
           | Now here's where it gets really interesting: ChatGPT et. al.
           | don't have glands, they don't have emotional trauma, no PTSD
           | from being humans-on-Earth for generations, etc. We can
           | program them to be sane and perhaps even wise.
           | 
           | We can also attach empirical feedback devices to them, make
           | them scientists...
           | 
           | So we have physical abundance and benevolent, sane,
           | empirically-grounded AI advisors, how much longer will it
           | take to sort things out? I think we could be looking at the
           | start of a Golden Age?
        
           | anonylizard wrote:
           | I've tried to convince artists to transition to the AI-
           | augmented future, since October. There's almost no successes.
           | I've seen artist communities on multiple websites, in
           | multiple languages. At first they tried to laugh at the AI.
           | Now the AI has improved so radically so fast, they
           | universally prefer to stick their head in the sand, and ban
           | discussion of AI altogether, its all denial and rage.
           | 
           | On the more optimistic side. I see an extraordinary explosion
           | in artistic innovation, just look at websites like CivitAI.
           | The massive community all training subcomponents of the
           | models for each other to share. The models rapidly improving
           | every month just through fine-tuning and theoretical
           | innovation, without stabilityAI's involvement (They are
           | distracted by lawsuits now). There are many 3d-artists
           | intensely experimenting with AI art, to say make AI-anime,
           | which has illustration qualities on every frame (A previous
           | impossibility due to the costs involved).
           | 
           | It seems with AI, it'll really cleave communities in two. The
           | ones who eagerly embrace it, seem to enjoy it
           | extraordinarily, and achieve quite a lot of popularity and
           | success. But the rest just want to pretend it doesn't exist,
           | waiting till employers realize that they are no longer
           | needed.
           | 
           | Regarding programming, it doesn't appear that AI programming
           | can replace humans. Programming is very similar to novel
           | writing in terms of complexity for AIs. And AIs are still
           | extremely terrible at long-form storytelling. The lesson is
           | to aggressively use AI tools as much as possible, to
           | understand the long-term weaknesses of AIs, and deliver your
           | values in those areas as a human.
        
             | ZephyrBlu wrote:
             | I understand AI programming isn't there yet, but it seems
             | likely that sometime in the next decade the same thing
             | that's happening to artists will happen to programmers.
        
               | epiphonium wrote:
               | I've heard the analogy (I think I might have originally
               | read it on HN) that software engineers in the 2020s are
               | like Detroit auto workers in the 1950s - highly skilled,
               | highly paid, and doomed. I hope this is wrong.
               | 
               | I don't think the market for highly technical "computer
               | guys" is going to disappear, but the nature of the job is
               | probably going to change dramatically. But then it
               | wouldn't be the first time - hasn't the job already
               | changed completely since, say, the 1980s? I can't imagine
               | working in this job before the internet existed, but many
               | did. Maybe in another decade or two I'll be saying that I
               | can't remember what it was like to do this kind of work
               | before AI was this good.
        
               | brookst wrote:
               | Already happened. It's called product management and spec
               | writing. The vast majority of professional programmers
               | today are essentially sign painters working from spec.
        
             | bamboozled wrote:
             | _I 've tried to convince artists to transition to the AI-
             | augmented future, since October._
             | 
             | This comment is funny, "I've given the artists fair warning
             | of 6 months that they're careers are over."
             | 
             |  _But the rest just want to pretend it doesn 't exist,
             | waiting till employers realize that they are no longer
             | needed._
             | 
             | So when the employers fire the artists, who will replace
             | them sorry? Will the C-level executives at my company be
             | using DALL-E instead? How does it work? Would they just not
             | hire a "creative assistant" who will probably hire other
             | assistants ?
             | 
             |  _I 've seen artist communities on multiple websites, in
             | multiple languages. At first they tried to laugh at the AI.
             | Now the AI has improved so radically so fast, they
             | universally prefer to stick their head in the sand, and ban
             | discussion of AI altogether, its all denial and rage._
             | 
             | I'd love to see these raging artist discussions? Can you
             | link a few?
        
               | GaggiX wrote:
               | >who will replace them sorry?
               | 
               | A group of individuals who will use AI as an
               | augmentation, even people with inferior drawing skills
               | but able to get better results faster, a man with an
               | excavator replaces several people with a shovel.
               | 
               | I'd love to see these raging artist discussions? Can you
               | link a few?
               | 
               | I'm not OP but Twitter is full, you can start from
               | @kortizart and find all kinds of account of people who
               | are illustrators but now only rage against AI art.
        
               | bamboozled wrote:
               | I saw almost no "raging" though? Yeah obviously concerned
               | about the future of her profession and some difficult
               | questions asked about IP theft and copyright, but that's
               | about it?
               | 
               | Edit: There is some raging in the replies but it's
               | twitter and everyone is raging on there.
               | 
               | There was some raging about Netflix using "AI" to
               | generate backgrounds for a cartoon, but ultimately
               | everyone will lose, including Netflix if this really is
               | very automated, Almost anyone will soon be able to create
               | a Netflix so I'll just cancel my subscription and watch
               | free generated content uploaded to Youtube I guess?
        
               | UncleEntity wrote:
               | > Almost anyone will soon be able to create a Netflix so
               | I'll just cancel my subscription and watch free generated
               | content uploaded to Youtube I guess?
               | 
               | What's wrong with that?
               | 
               | I pretty much only watch people doing their thing on
               | YouTube and I'm entertained enough. I have a couple years
               | of tv shows I haven't gotten around to watching because
               | of YouTube peeps keeping me interested.
        
               | notahacker wrote:
               | I'd also love to see a comparable thread on HN where some
               | non-programmer rocks up, starts linking some forms he
               | built using a low code tool to prove HN's skills are
               | obsolete whilst modestly proposing that everyone here
               | should forget about writing code and focus on business
               | analysis and sales...
        
         | brookst wrote:
         | > that drawing skills are massive devalued.
         | 
         | This is the critical insight. Human _artists_ having nothing to
         | worry about. Human _drawers_ do.
         | 
         | The decoupling of concept from execution is old news in most
         | forms of art. Writing music and playing an instrument are two
         | very different skills, and indeed any session musician will
         | tell you that playing instruments well is not as valued as
         | writing amazing music.
         | 
         | In fact we went through a similar thing in pop music in the
         | 70's and 80's, with the brief moral panic over electronic music
         | and people who "just push a button and don't even know know to
         | play their instrument." Turns out nobody cares, as long as the
         | music is good.
         | 
         | AI art decouples concept from execution for visual art. That's
         | all.
        
           | Dzugaru wrote:
           | You're not taking into consideration how the actual artists
           | actually feel. And, from the first hand - the feeling is
           | horrible. Most artists love to draw, the process itself is
           | incredibly satisfying. Just like a musician loves his
           | instrument.
           | 
           | This is destroying them, stealing the joy from the thing they
           | devoted decades of life. My wife is extremely depressed by
           | this, to the point I think she'll need serious therapy. She
           | still has most of her job, but yeah recent developments like
           | ControlNet? Well, shit.
        
             | flangola7 wrote:
             | I feel for your wife. It helps her any, many other careers
             | and passions are not far behind. I foresee many
             | intellectual tasks being automated in as little as three to
             | five years.
             | 
             | A friend works in law, mostly handling workplace
             | discrimination cases His job will be safe for now, but not
             | those of his paralegals and staff who research case law,
             | write drafts, and handle everyday communication with
             | clients and the courts. Many of them have been in it for
             | years and are passionate about helping victims who have
             | been hurt by racism and homophobia. One of his most tenured
             | employees is an elderly black man well past retirement age,
             | who greatly enjoys that he can now help stop the sort of
             | discrimination he experienced when he was young. None of
             | these people will be able to meaningfully contribute to
             | their passion in ten years.
        
             | gonzo41 wrote:
             | Sorry if this comes off as harsh but, AI is not stopping
             | anyone from drawing. The person looking at AI and then
             | fretting about the future, and then not drawing is the
             | person preventing the drawing from happening.
             | 
             | The same thing happened to bank tellers with the ATM. Jobs
             | change and so do industries. Art's become more niche.
        
               | Riverheart wrote:
               | You're right. This is harsh. Some people make a living
               | off art. Having valuable skills is good for people's self
               | esteem. We're not replacing a factory line job, we're
               | automating something that takes people 100hrs of classes
               | and self practice to master and people have put
               | themselves in debt to achieve.
               | 
               | But they can doodle in their spare time while they search
               | for another job that isn't being phased out or spend most
               | of their day crafting text prompts. Maybe go back to
               | college take on some more debt.
        
               | fipar wrote:
               | You're not wrong, but when we replace a factory line job
               | that person also goes through their own little hell, and
               | they probably don't even have the possibility of going
               | back to college and taking more debt.
               | 
               | If anything, if it is true that AI will render lots of
               | jobs obsolete (I have my doubts), at least there's a
               | chance this may allow some empathy to grow in those
               | affected. Perhaps we finally get some meaningful social
               | change.
        
               | Riverheart wrote:
               | I'm unclear how people got the impression that I'm okay
               | with people's lives getting upended by automation. As I
               | elaborated on elsewhere, my post was to say there was a
               | difference in what is being automated, highly skilled
               | labor with high time/money/education costs vs something
               | you shouldn't require a degree to learn to do.
        
               | pixl97 wrote:
               | Whenever I read a thread like this it makes me wonder how
               | little most individuals know about the history that came
               | before them.
               | 
               | I could take artist out of your statement and put
               | blacksmith in and it would be difficult to tell if this
               | was wrote in 1890.
               | 
               | Everyone seems to fight automation in an
               | individual/industry battle rather at the society level.
               | We keep measuring our worth based on work and when we
               | finally run out of work we're going to have a problem.
        
               | Riverheart wrote:
               | "We keep measuring our worth based on work and when we
               | finally run out of work we're going to have a problem."
               | 
               | Yeah, because work pays the bills. Guess what happens
               | when you automate faster than social policy changes? More
               | unemployed artists than blacksmiths. Also people resist
               | change when it threatens their way of life. It's almost
               | like the luddites resisting automation are saying slow
               | down automation people "when we finally run out of work
               | we're going to have a problem".
        
               | brookst wrote:
               | Your lack of empathy for factory workers is hurting your
               | case. They are real, and train for their jobs, and care
               | about the families they provide for.
               | 
               | "technical disruption is hard on people" is a much more
               | sympathetic position than "artists should be exempt
               | because they're special".
               | 
               | We all face risks. We all have to adapt. We all have
               | opportunities from adapting to the world rather than
               | clinging to the past. Artists are no different from
               | factory workers (or programmers, or bus drivers)
        
               | Riverheart wrote:
               | No a lack of empathy here. OP was saying there is little
               | difference between automating art and automating a bank
               | teller. For factory workers, I'm not saying its a job
               | that requires no training but it doesn't requires years
               | of college and 40/60k in debt. Clearly the ceiling for
               | getting a decent paid job to raise a family without
               | massive time/money/education investments is skyrocketing
               | but I didn't point that out in my post so obviously I
               | don't care.
               | 
               | Honestly this whole "adapt" thing is a load of nonsense
               | parroted by people who aren't immediately under threat
               | and have nothing to fear. Who is going to adapt at
               | 30/40/50 years old? How about people who just graduated
               | art school? Go right back into college? Please.
               | 
               | Edit: For the record, I care about anyone getting
               | displaced but not all displacement is of equal level. If
               | highly educated/skilled labor is now at risk this world
               | isn't prepared for what's about to come.
               | 
               | Edit2: Removed my mischaracterization comment. Was wrong
               | to assume bad faith in this response.
        
               | Zababa wrote:
               | Maybe not as big as what's happening with AI, but I can
               | see my parents constantly having to adapt to Microsoft's
               | new redisign of Windows, or <software> having a new
               | version, or laws changing. And that's for jobs considered
               | relatively safe and boring (accounting).
               | 
               | As for art school, I've always heard that it was more fun
               | than IT/computer science/accounting but way more
               | dangerous, as in you weren't guaranteed a job at all. Not
               | everyone has heard that, of course, not everyone has the
               | time/skills/resources to plan their career. I don't
               | really know what to say except that it sucks for them. On
               | the other hand the lower bar of entry may bring way more
               | art in general, like it did with digital art.
        
               | Riverheart wrote:
               | Well here's another thing, replacing horse carriages with
               | cars was a major boon for civilization that sped up
               | industrialization, led to more jobs (car builders,
               | mechanics, drivers, gas station attendants, road
               | builders, traffic lights and sign manufacturers), enabled
               | shipping of goods cross country, increase tourism, and
               | allow more flexibility in work and living area. It was
               | worth the trade off. And cars were simpler back in the
               | day whereas now they're all computerized. Cars were also
               | expensive enough that they took a while to spread to the
               | public.
               | 
               | We know why rote labor is being automated. Not just to
               | squeeze as much money out as possible but to reduce
               | failures and liability and increase productivity. If a
               | factory pumps out more medicine to save more lives who
               | can judge maybe automation was worth the tradeoff.
               | 
               | But art? Is this something civilization needed to try
               | automating? It's not going to create more jobs than it
               | replaces. It's not going to advance society to the next
               | industrial level. It's not filling a demand because we're
               | already flooded with more media than we could ever
               | consume.
               | 
               | Stability is important for society and tossing golden
               | apples around "because" and telling people to "adapt" to
               | senseless chaos is awful. People will get squeezed out
               | and career change is a bigger deal than adapting from
               | paper to digital.
               | 
               | They're not guaranteed jobs so why make it harder to get
               | them? So failed artists can compete for jobs with the
               | factory, fast food and coal workers whose time is written
               | on the wall? Even Social Workers need a degree and they
               | get paid nothing.
               | 
               | All automation and credentialed professions reduce the
               | pool of low barrier to entry jobs available and forces
               | people into higher education brackets to stay competitive
               | but, at least in the US, that comes with massive debt to
               | pay off and you start at an entry level salary. There is
               | no UBI or safety net short of your parent's basement.
               | This is not long term sustainable.
               | 
               | You could argue that general AI will be worth the
               | tradeoff in the end. That may be true but it seems the
               | tech is outpacing social policy and we'll be scrambling
               | to fix the issues instead of preparing for them.
        
               | robswc wrote:
               | I was under the impression that it has _always_ been hard
               | to make a living as an artist.
               | 
               | I think this is just a truth people will have to accept.
               | I used to make music and quickly realized I would have to
               | dedicate 1000s of hours to it if I ever wanted to make it
               | a career. This is simply because there were 1000s of
               | other people that wanted to also make it a career.
        
               | tylersmith wrote:
               | Many people have hobbies that are low value skills and
               | they have to work doing things outside their passion if
               | they want to be higher value. This isn't unique to people
               | who draw for a living it's just new to them and they'll
               | have to adjust.
        
               | Shaanie wrote:
               | One big difference is that art is typically a passion
               | job, whereas most of the previously automated jobs
               | weren't. Being able to draw for a living also takes way
               | longer to learn than being a bank teller, or data entry
               | etc, did.
               | 
               | Not that it matters, AI is only going to get better from
               | here. I'd also feel depressed if I made my living doing
               | digital art.
        
             | sdiacom wrote:
             | Obviously I don't get to tell your wife, or anyone else,
             | how to feel about this. And there is a very real and very
             | impactful thing in that, if you enjoy _and_ make a living
             | out of hand-drawn art, AI art will make it harder to _make
             | a living_ out of something you enjoy. There 's no way
             | around that, and I don't mean to deny that feeling. It
             | always sucks when the circumstances around your craft and
             | your source of income change.
             | 
             | But I don't think AI art can possibly take away from the
             | beauty and enjoyment that can be found in drawing and
             | making art. You mention how a musician loves playing their
             | instrument. I can download a music edition software and
             | summon a virtual orchestra out of my speakers in seconds.
             | But does this take anything from the musician? Is their
             | feeling any less true, their music any less meaningful to
             | themselves and to those who listen? If I bring my laptop to
             | a party and play Vivaldi's seasons on it, will that elicit
             | the same reaction as if I play it in the living room's
             | piano?
             | 
             | If language models eventually get good enough at
             | programming that I'm out of a job, I won't derive any less
             | enjoyment out of programming. I'll be a lot poorer, sure,
             | but I will still enjoy the process of coming up with a way
             | to express constraints in code, even if a machine can do it
             | for me in the blink of an eye. Just like I find it relaxing
             | to do the dishes myself when I'm anxious, even if I have a
             | perfectly good dishwasher. Just like how people who enjoy
             | solving Sudokus don't find it less fun just because
             | automatic Sudoku solvers exist. The journey is the
             | destination.
             | 
             | And for the record, I don't think human art will disappear
             | because of AI art, or human programming will disappear
             | because of AI programming. If there's one thing that's
             | demonstrably true through the history of humanity, is that
             | humans have a strong human-centric bias. The sooner we
             | commodify something and remove the human element from it,
             | the sooner we bring that human element back, now elevated
             | to the status of luxury and catered to a niche.
             | 
             | Let me explain what I mean: I can buy black garlic in a
             | plastic container for cheap, but I can also go to the
             | weekend farmer market and pay three times as much for black
             | garlic from a lady who lives up the mountains and can tell
             | me the shape of the jar she fermented it in. IKEA makes
             | perfectly good furniture that you can use to play board
             | games for less than a hundred, but board game enthusiasts
             | pay hundreds or thousands for custom furniture with nooks
             | and bezels to stop the tokens from sliding out. Glass
             | blowing as a form of art continues to exist, regardless of
             | the availability of perfectly fine, industrially-made glass
             | appliances. It's just in artisanal fairs in Venice, not in
             | your living room.
             | 
             | And sure, you won't be able to make a living anymore out of
             | cranking out uninspired corporate Memphis for bay-area
             | startups, or drawing cartoon furries for Twitter randos on
             | commission. And, in a way... thank fuck for that, right?
             | The combinatorial space of drawing people with smooth
             | curves in fantasy skin colors using technological
             | appliances in collaborative settings can be exhausted by an
             | AI, and you can actually focus on making art that breaks
             | the mold, art that hasn't been made before, art that is
             | meaningful to _you_. You can imbue art with meaning and use
             | art to communicate with other humans, while the  "art" that
             | ticks out boxes and replaces placeholders in landing pages
             | can be cranked out by AI.
             | 
             | Yes, it will be harder to make a living out of that, but
             | I'm sure it won't be impossible. Computers have been able
             | to generate Mondrian paintings since the 80s, and that
             | hasn't made Mondrian paintings any less valuable. An AI may
             | be able to produce the exact same drawing that you do, but
             | it can't imbue human meaning in it.
        
               | visarga wrote:
               | > You can imbue art with meaning and use art to
               | communicate with other humans
               | 
               | Yes, but the moment you publish one piece the AIs will be
               | able to crank variations on it at the push of button. So
               | artists might think twice about publishing.
        
               | pixl97 wrote:
               | "If I plant a seed and grow a plant, someone else could
               | take the seeds and grow their own plant. Instead I'll
               | burn the field to the ground."
        
               | egypturnash wrote:
               | Drawing furry porn commissions _is_ meaningful to me. It
               | 's _fun_ to sit around getting paid for drawing horny
               | cartoons. It 's a fucking _blast_ , it feels like I am
               | _cheating at life_ to have this be part of my job. It 's
               | also easy and pays a nice hourly rate. And it's a human
               | communication - I am helping someone express their
               | feelings, desires, and fantasies. I am giving them
               | _permission_ to indulge in crazy fantasies and to feel
               | beautiful, powerful, and desirable. Thank fuck that
               | communication between myself and my clients can be
               | automated away by a program! Thank fuck I 'm freed from
               | being a part of what binds a community of weirdos
               | together!
               | 
               | Drawing Corporate Memphis bullshit for startups is a
               | _great_ way to transfer a big chunk of VC money from some
               | Bay Area jerkoffs to an artist living somewhere much
               | cheaper, where it can pay multiple months of their rent
               | for not much work, and maybe even let them have some
               | luxuries and /or financial cushions. Thank fuck that all
               | that money can extend the startup's runway a tiny bit
               | further now instead! Thank fuck those artists won't have
               | to wrestle with the feelings that comes from getting paid
               | better for a few hours of corporate work than for
               | anything they've poured their passion into!
               | 
               | If you're regularly taking on client work, then you have
               | places to _play_ and _experiment_ while still getting
               | what you need to pay your bills, and even if you 're just
               | turning the crank to make another piece that fits in with
               | everything else you've made, you're getting a tiny bit
               | better at making art with every drawing you do, and you
               | can bring that _back_ to the time you spend on your crazy
               | personal work. If you take some other job to make ends
               | meet, your rate of progress slows way the hell down. I
               | 've seen it happen. Friends who used to draw a lot better
               | than I did twenty years ago now just draw as a hobby, and
               | draw just like they did back then; me and my friends who
               | made it my job have spent the last twenty years _drawing_
               | , and it shows in our work. Thank fuck that's endangered!
               | Thank fuck we, too, might have a bunch of recurring gigs
               | collapse out from under us! Thank fuck those of us who
               | embrace becoming an AI wrangler for a corporation will be
               | asked to do tons more stuff for the same pay, or less!
               | 
               | How do you propose the artists who are now blissfully
               | freed from the work that _pays their bills_ should pay
               | the rent on their homes and studios, and to pay for their
               | tools and materials, while still spending all their time
               | making art that  "breaks the mold, hasn't been made
               | before, and is meaningful to the artist"? How do you
               | propose they should find the time to hone the skills
               | needed to do this? Because doing that is _a lot of work_.
        
               | pixl97 wrote:
               | As to your question, UBI.
               | 
               | Artists are the ones now experiencing what the Luddites
               | did. Smashing the looms didn't stop more looms from being
               | built. Also, now the average person can afford fabric
               | because of the technology.
               | 
               | Simply put as we move into a world where most needs can
               | be provided by technology keeping up the 'winner take
               | all' method of capitalism so many subscribe to isn't
               | going to work.
        
               | egypturnash wrote:
               | What are _you_ doing to make UBI a reality?
               | 
               | How will we support ourselves until the extremely
               | unlikely event that becomes a reality?
               | 
               | What are you doing to support artists through this shitty
               | transition? Hint: Calling us "luddites" and vaguely
               | waffling about the hoped-for death of capitalism is
               | pretty much the opposite of supporting us.
        
             | brookst wrote:
             | The human impact is real, but how is it different from how
             | carriage drivers felt about the automobile, or how typists
             | felt about the word processor?
             | 
             | I'll submit that people who feel horrible have mistaken the
             | commodity and value-add aspects of their jobs. AI does not
             | make someone an artist, but nor does great hand-eye
             | coordination and good brush technique. The actual art is
             | concept; brushes and canvas and AI are tools.
             | 
             | I'm sorry that the decoupling of creation from performance
             | is making people you care about feel bad, but really this
             | is hundreds of years old news for most artists (musicians,
             | architects, sculptors, etc).
             | 
             | People who enjoy drawing can still draw, just like people
             | who enjoy playing instruments can still play instruments.
        
               | TomSwirly wrote:
               | > The human impact is real, but how is it different from
               | how carriage drivers felt about the automobile, or how
               | typists felt about the word processor?
               | 
               | Because driving a car or typing is entirely different
               | from making art.
               | 
               | > People who enjoy drawing can still draw, just like
               | people who enjoy playing instruments can still play
               | instruments.
               | 
               | "You can just sit at home and play your little
               | instrument, and not bother anyone, is that good for you?"
               | 
               | Your contempt for art and artists is just awful. It makes
               | me despair for humanity.
        
               | pixl97 wrote:
               | Eh, using your line of thought in a reductionist manner
               | would simply lead to "it was a mistake to crawl down from
               | the trees".
               | 
               | Humans change technology, technology changes humans. It
               | is a tale older than civilization.
               | 
               | Also, many people would consider racing a car a form of
               | art in itself. Same with riding horses that cars caused
               | the general replacement of.
        
               | bryanrasmussen wrote:
               | >The human impact is real, but how is it different from
               | how carriage drivers felt about the automobile, or how
               | typists felt about the word processor?
               | 
               | it's probably different in the way that the parent poster
               | described, that artists found drawing an emotionally
               | satisfying process whereas people typing probably didn't
               | think setting styles in MS Word made them complete.
        
               | DennisP wrote:
               | People who have never found their paid work so
               | emotionally satisfying are worse off, not better. At
               | least professional artists have gotten to spend some of
               | their working lives that way.
        
             | egypturnash wrote:
             | <3
             | 
             | Good luck to your wife. This is fucking horrible. Being in
             | an industry that Silicon Valley shitheads are ruining
             | _sucks_.
        
           | TomSwirly wrote:
           | > Turns out nobody cares, as long as the music is good.
           | 
           | Actually, all those people who lost their professions they
           | spent their lifetime working on, they care, rather a lot.
           | 
           | > indeed any session musician will tell you that playing
           | instruments well is not as valued as writing amazing music.
           | 
           | Yes, in 2023 they say this, but I assure you when "session
           | musician" was a common profession, that no one said this.
           | 
           | When I first started in music, if you wanted your piece of
           | music, you had to pay instrumentalists to play it, and this
           | was a valuable professional skill.
           | 
           | > Turns out nobody cares, as long as the music is good.
           | 
           | And the music is not good either.
           | 
           | When did everyone become so sociopathically detached from the
           | welfare of others? It's just horrifying.
        
             | pixl97 wrote:
             | Hear of that group called the luddites?
             | 
             | This is just the latest chapter in the same book. The
             | solution has almost never been stopping technology but
             | distribution of the benefits to all members of the society.
             | That is unless you want one entity to play winner take all
             | in the end.
        
           | DennisP wrote:
           | Even human drawers might do all right, if they're selling
           | physical drawings. People will still put hand-painted
           | canvasses on their walls, just like people still enjoy an
           | acoustic guitar concert, even if the guitarist isn't world-
           | class. The authentic connection with a human being is where
           | the art survives. If you're not an amazing artist, you can
           | still be an authentic one.
           | 
           | But if you're just churning out commercial illustrations,
           | then sure, an AI can do that now, or soon.
        
           | Riverheart wrote:
           | "This is the critical insight. Human artists having nothing
           | to worry about. Human drawers do."
           | 
           | The reason why amazing music is valued so much is because
           | there's so much music that you have to be amazing to be
           | noticed. Art has had that problem for a long time. Someone
           | spends 100hrs of talent on a masterpiece and we say "meh,
           | seen a thousand of that quality"
           | 
           | Learning theory is easier than applying it so becoming an
           | artist is easier and now artists have more competition. Not
           | advocating against AI art but it's obviously going to have a
           | negative effect.
        
             | brookst wrote:
             | Do you think synthesizers and sequencers have had a
             | negative effect on music?
        
               | Riverheart wrote:
               | Probably. I'm not qualified to weigh the pros/cons of it.
               | 
               | The internet is amazing but now a stranger from halfway
               | across your world can drain your bank account. What
               | doesn't have a negative effect?
        
               | jakeinspace wrote:
               | In some ways, yes! At least for pop. I'm a huge fan of
               | electronic music and synthesizers, but lowering the
               | technical barrier to entry has resulted in some
               | particularly bland pop music over the years making it to
               | the top of the charts, for all the usual reasons of how
               | music promotion is broken. I still think synths,
               | sequencers, drum machines, and DAWs are a net plus to
               | modern music, but there are of course negatives if you
               | look for them.
        
           | noobermin wrote:
           | I'm not an artist, but my fiance is an animator. Generally,
           | something similar exists in stock assets (photos, assets like
           | vector files, other such things). We had a discussion on
           | whether the existence of stock assets means drawing is no
           | longer necessary to be an artist, and her answer was it still
           | is something you should be able to do because knowing how to
           | draw is the best way to learn the fundamentals of art in
           | general, knowing how parts of a body work in a drawing or
           | animation, and generally something is "good" vs. "bad," etc.
           | However, as someone who isn't a fine artist, she doesn't have
           | time to generate everything frame by frame, so she doesn't do
           | it for every project she works on, but that knowledge is
           | invaluable and one you can only obtain from knowing how to
           | draw.
           | 
           | I think the best analogy I understand it is as is it is like
           | assembly language or low level programming in general. I
           | certainly do not have the time to program every piece of code
           | I write in asm but having done projects in asm is invaluable
           | as a coder[0], given how much it informs my mental model of
           | how the code I write actually works. That understanding is
           | beyond valuable and is something that puts you a rung above
           | everyone else who just copies things from SO without knowing
           | what they do. I think AI for devs, to the extent that it will
           | evolve, will still be as such. People who primarily find it
           | amazing today I find either 1) use it as a productivity boost
           | for things that need a lot of boiler-plate[1], or 2) are SO-
           | copy-pasters who are just amazed they have to think even
           | less. A LOT of the "AI artist" community are the artist
           | equivalent of the 2nd, honestly, and it's easy to detect AI
           | art because it's generated by people who are not really
           | artists, and in similar fashion either don't know the
           | fundamentals or who only create "good" work by nearly
           | directly copying other art pieces.
           | 
           | Also, to critique your analogy, what you guys are saying is
           | along the lines of "given DAWs, why learn to play an
           | instrument at all?" Except a plain look at any _good_
           | composer will show they know how to play at least one
           | instrument, even if they don 't play all their music on that
           | instrument, there is no doubt knowing how to play clearly
           | makes you a better composer. I mean, can you even imagine a
           | composer who cannot even play piano, or guitar? Sure a
           | composer need not be a virtuoso concert pianist, but they
           | should at the very least be able to play the chords of the
           | very song they've composed. Nothing thus far teaches the
           | human mind deep understanding of something more than _doing_
           | that thing does. It is so clearly obvious in music and
           | programming and the only reason people keep saying you can be
           | an artist having never learned to draw is because such people
           | simply do not understand art or composition at all.
           | 
           | [0] I'm not really a software developer but a computational
           | scientist, and so I won't say I'm a developer, but still
           | understanding of data structures, algorithms, discrete math
           | in general, and yes asm is invaluable for me.
           | 
           | [1] As someone outside of the dev space, I don't know why you
           | people don't just make better interfaces instead of juggling
           | 9 yamls and 3 environments for every project, or just roll
           | your own interface and reduce the boiler-plate yourself.
        
       | bilqis wrote:
       | I think that "AI" (there is not even a drop of an actual AI in
       | the current technology) is overhyped and barely can handle any of
       | jobs people wanted it to do. It's maybe good for sketching, be
       | that code, text or images, but not for final product, and won't
       | be any time soon. As it was with all "AI" products in the past,
       | it's over advertised by ML bros and grifters.
        
         | klibertp wrote:
         | Half an hour trying to force one of the models to spit a manga-
         | style picture of a character... with correct number of arms and
         | legs. No successes so far. It's frankly disgusting most of the
         | time, prob due to uncanny valley-like effect - it's kinda
         | close, but not quite there. Not to mention, I'm sure I did
         | _not_ put  "amputee" in the prompt, but I got a few pictures
         | that should be honestly tagged with "guro"... and I wasn't even
         | trying for NSFW!
         | 
         | Same experience with code: Github Copilot is 90% right 100% of
         | the time. Its suggestions for comments and docstrings are so
         | bad I would never accept them in a code review, basically your
         | old "a++ # adds 1 to a"; the generated code is always wrong,
         | and the bigger the chunk of code generated the more wrong it
         | is. It's kind of OK as a replacement for Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V and for
         | generating boilerplate... which shouldn't be there in good code
         | anyway.
         | 
         | I suspect that for every impressive output we see there are
         | tens of thousands of trash outputs someone had to wade through.
         | Further, the less popular your prompt and the smaller the
         | representation of what you want in the model, the harder it is
         | to get something even remotely resembling what you want.
         | Though, I'm not a "prompt engineer" (WTF is that...), so maybe
         | I'm just using it wrong...
        
           | anonylizard wrote:
           | You guys need to understand, that the skill ceiling for AI
           | art is very high. Its not some iphone-selfie tier technology.
           | Go to Civitai.com and huggingface, to start comprehending how
           | many AI models there are, and how powerful the latest models
           | are. It takes at least two weeks of intense usage to get the
           | hang of the basics/parameters and produce good output. AI art
           | in the end will probably be dominated by professionals
           | because of the increasing skill requirements.
        
       | kwhitefoot wrote:
       | Reading the comments it seems that everyone assumes that art is
       | always and only presented as pixels on a screen. Whereas most of
       | the art in my house is hand painted on canvas and wood, hand
       | embroidered, hand knitted, hand woven, hand thrown and decorated
       | pottery. One picture was hammered out of a sheet of pewter.
       | 
       | One of my favourite places is the Henie-Onstadt Art Centre
       | sculpture park, another is Vigelands Anlegg in Oslo, no pixels in
       | either place.
       | 
       | So why does everyone seem to think that art is only flat, lit,
       | pixels on a flat surface?
        
         | CuriouslyC wrote:
         | except that I can take an AI generated image and burn it into
         | wood or acid etch on metal with a CNC machine, or 3d print it.
        
         | bamboozled wrote:
         | I think the exact same thing, obviously because we're on hacker
         | news where most people seem to be hoping they can spend their
         | days prompting machines for art so they can replace "artists"
         | and save some money.
         | 
         | It's actually funny when I think about it because most people
         | wouldn't know what image to use and how to use it even when it
         | was generated for them, there's even a skill in selecting art.
         | 
         | You could argue enough good photos have already been taken that
         | all practically all photographers should have already been made
         | redundant since the year 2000, we still have photographers.
        
           | turtleyacht wrote:
           | That reminds me of Ira Glass' quote about taste: artists know
           | it when they see it.
           | 
           | Or why it's a mystery some folks prefer tabs vs spaces, or
           | recoil from what they consider shoddy code.
           | 
           | Somewhere in the discipline of point, line, and perspective,
           | in the composition of shapes and their organization, is the
           | artifact of amalgamated neurons, to be observed by yet
           | another consciousness.
           | 
           | I wonder if AI art will just help generate more gacha games.
           | And one may wonder, of the limited time left on this planet,
           | what really could we spend it on?
           | 
           | The library of every book contains no meaningful work in the
           | search. The space of all generated art is oblivion.
        
           | throwaway47291 wrote:
           | I think if people are ignoring AI's limitations, it's more
           | out of fear that programming is next than having something to
           | gain. I doubt having the money/labour that's currently used
           | creating art for something else would help me in a noticeable
           | way:
           | 
           | -the money would just trickle up
           | 
           | -not that much money is spent on it anyway
           | 
           | -world becomes more depressing, nothing you look at had any
           | effort put into it, no-one had to believe in an advert on any
           | level, instead it's the output of a machine optimised to
           | trick you (as one of a shrinking number of people with any
           | agency) to spend and therefore make the machine stronger.
           | 
           | -artists/potential future artists decide to learn to code
           | instead?
        
         | sebzim4500 wrote:
         | Because that's what 99% of the people employed for their
         | artistic skills are doing.
         | 
         | I doubt AI will have much effect on the tiny number of people
         | who can make a living by producing art to hang up in your
         | house. It's the people doing illustrations for
         | magazines/websites/packaging/etc. who are fucked in the
         | medium/long term.
        
           | im3w1l wrote:
           | People will 100% start hanging AI art on their walls. The
           | killer feature is being to customize the artwork to exactly
           | what you want. It's just a question of time and not a lot of
           | it either.
        
         | krapp wrote:
         | >So why does everyone seem to think that art is only flat, lit,
         | pixels on a flat surface?
         | 
         | Everyone doesn't think that. It just happens that digital art,
         | both as a medium and as an industry, is the only kind of art
         | relevant to conversations about AI, because that is the medium
         | of artwork that AI generates, and that is the industry that is
         | being disrupted by it.
        
         | turtleyacht wrote:
         | Yes, that is interesting: so digital artists can go back to
         | traditional methods. Like a game where you scan in crayon
         | textures. It's a unique look. More handcrafted.
         | 
         | Maybe AI will bring about a sea change in how we express these
         | traditional works in the digital context.
         | 
         | It's true we miss a huge chunk of art by just considering
         | pixels. Museums are dedicated to the idea that art and
         | expression are intertwined, and that context--both past and
         | present--brings a unique experience to the observer.
         | 
         | Curators certainly aren't generating those longform
         | descriptions next to art pieces. Someone had to think deeply,
         | analyze, and type that out.
        
       | imaginationra wrote:
       | Artist here: Article is an idealistic take not based in reality-
       | the Jeff Koons of the world will be safe with their 30 million
       | balloon art sales.
       | 
       | Everyone else is going to be rekt.
       | 
       | All of the work my artist friends do is for businesses-
       | businesses trying to make the biggest profit. Ai art generators
       | are faster/cheaper/more flexible. The artists are done and now
       | it's all about the prompt engineers that don't need to be artists
       | to excel.
       | 
       | Market will decide what to pay "artists" but seems like it will
       | be a race to the bottom. Artist types I know are preparing
       | accordingly.
        
         | simion314 wrote:
         | And older artists said the same about computer art, things like
         | :" this new artists do not know to mix paints or prepare a
         | canvas". Artists can adapt and use this new tools and do their
         | job faster, you might have to sell a logo cheaper but you might
         | be able to make them 20 times faster.
        
         | stared wrote:
         | My point is that unique digital art won't be replaced even by a
         | hypothetical perfect AI image generator.
         | 
         | When it comes to the digital art workforce - it is likely to be
         | strongly affected.
         | 
         | > Others might fall into a gap of "nice skills, but not yet
         | that offer a business advantage". Furthermore, the lower entry
         | barrier to create any art is likely to result in the average
         | quality going down - not unlike that plastic made manufacturing
         | cheaper, but also less durable.
         | 
         | And you are right that, sadly, in many kinds of digital art, it
         | will be a race to the bottom.
        
         | hanoz wrote:
         | Out of interest, how _are_ they preparing accordingly? It 's
         | not remotely my own field but I'm starting to wonder how I
         | should be guiding my children who have tallent for art, in
         | light of all this.
        
           | imetatroll wrote:
           | The harsh reality as far as I can tell is that the prospect
           | of making a living as an artist, which was already slim if we
           | are being honest, has now shrunk to near zero.
           | 
           | They should be learning about the AI field in order to create
           | their art. That might be the only skill worth money when they
           | are older.
        
           | anonylizard wrote:
           | Draw comics, or really manga in particular. The only real
           | challenge in AI art, that won't be solved any time soon, is
           | storytelling: chaining multiple panels together for coherent
           | stories. Even ChatGPT cannot tell a coherent story longer
           | than 2 paragraphs. Being able to write a long story well,
           | requires understanding world modelling, human motivations ,
           | etc, AGI tier abilities.
           | 
           | Also, expose them to AI-art. If they lose interest in art
           | after seeing AI art, that means they were never meant to be
           | artists, they merely like to draw, not to make art. And
           | drawing alone is not really economically useful anymore.
        
             | andy_ppp wrote:
             | Don't worry, soon AI will be a wonderful story teller for
             | adults and children alike <smiling face with smiling eyes
             | emoji>.
        
             | bluefirebrand wrote:
             | > they merely like to draw, not to make art
             | 
             | My take is that computers don't make art at all, they are
             | incapable of doing so. They can produce content at
             | astonishing rates though. But content is not artwork.
             | 
             | You can maybe assemble content into artwork, but that's up
             | to the person doing it. Are they an artist, doing work to
             | elevate it into art? Or are they a fraud, who is just
             | taking content the computer gives them and calling it art.
             | 
             | Some people call those frauds "prompters"
             | 
             | Anyways, if you enjoy drawing you are an artist. The
             | mechanical process of creating is way more important to the
             | artistic process than the end result.
             | 
             | Unless you only view art as a commercial output.
        
             | bamboozled wrote:
             | What on earth's name make you think comics are safe?
             | 
             | It's ChatPGT mixed with DALL-E no? I mean if you believe so
             | strongly like everyone else that the job of the artist is
             | done for, why would a comic artist be safe at all ?
        
             | sebzim4500 wrote:
             | Presumably a skilled artist using SD can produce comics far
             | faster than an artist on their own can? Or is it hard to
             | get the model to draw consistent characters etc.
        
               | kyleyeats wrote:
               | I was working on a comic two weeks after SD came out.
               | There were lots of problems. I've watched all of them
               | disappear. The only one remaining is wardrobe
               | consistency.
        
               | anonylizard wrote:
               | Yes, far far faster, in full colour too. Traditionally,
               | manga artists took photos and applied filters on them, to
               | serve as the background for the manga panels. Its just
               | that time consuming to draw things in detail, that they
               | didn't bother. AI is like this, but 100x more radical
               | productivity boost. It will be a huge boon for manga
               | artists, who traditionally had to work regular 80 hour
               | weeks, even with assistants. Their core skillset is
               | storytelling, panelling, not drawing.
               | 
               | The 'consistent character' issue is already solved by
               | LORAs, just draw 15 images of the character in different
               | poses, feed it to the AI, and it outputs a 300MB model
               | that you can add-on to your prompt to reliably reproduce
               | any character.
        
             | mattmanser wrote:
             | There's no money in comics, it's like saying "be a rock
             | star".
             | 
             | Most comic book artists are (in financial terms) absolute
             | failures, regardless of talent.
             | 
             | Surely for art, the route to replicable success is graphic
             | design, animation, computer game art, etc.? Something the
             | dumb ML AIs you see today probably won't ever be able to
             | replace, you'd need some sort of AI capable of creation to
             | do it.
        
               | anonylizard wrote:
               | "There's no money in comics, it's like saying "be a rock
               | star"."
               | 
               | There's no money in western comics.
               | 
               | Successful manga artists regularly earn millions. Simply
               | put, western comics got left far behind in storytelling
               | techniques, creative ideas, because it got stuck in
               | superhero #12831.
               | 
               | Even in the US, the vast majority of top selling 'graphic
               | novels' are mangas, not comics.
        
               | bluefirebrand wrote:
               | > Successful manga artists regularly earn millions
               | 
               | "Successful" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
               | 
               | Most Mangaka make less than minimum wage.
        
           | CuriouslyC wrote:
           | AI is shifting the balance of power from technical ability
           | and quality of tools to creativity/vision (and ability to
           | market). The only "art" job left is going to be something
           | akin to an art director.
           | 
           | Expose your children to a wide variety of art, books, music,
           | food, travel and so forth. Teach them why (aesthetically)
           | good things are good and bad things are bad. Also, encourage
           | them to create stuff for an audience so they learn how to
           | present things, gauge people's tastes and become comfortable
           | with failure young.
        
         | golol wrote:
         | But you should realize that any artist learning prompt
         | engineering should be a better AI-artist than a non-artist
         | learning prompt engineering. After all, art is not jsut about
         | technique but also creativity, composition, theme etc., right?
         | And an artist can furthermore touch up the AI generated product
         | manually if necessary.
        
           | robswc wrote:
           | Yep. I spent a good hour trying to generate some stuff with
           | DALLE. I then asked a friend that works in media and he was
           | able to give me ideas for a prompt that worked almost
           | immediately.
           | 
           | AI art is fun and _sometimes_ it can replace some things but
           | at the end of the day, I don't really want to mess around
           | prompting over and over. If I pay an artist $100 for
           | something, I couldn't care less how they make it. I feel like
           | AI can be another tool. I'll even make a bold prediction. In
           | 10 years, we will still have "Graphic designers" and "digital
           | artists" the ceiling will just be raised similar to how it
           | was when photoshop became more commonplace.
        
             | hackernewds wrote:
             | sure. but you need 1 prompt engineer producing work
             | equivalent to 100s of artists*artist_hours
             | 
             | not to mention, prompt engineering doesn't seem like a
             | particularly technical job either
        
               | robswc wrote:
               | That is true. I mean, I'm sure this will negatively
               | effect quite a few people... I just don't see it
               | replacing the majority of artists anytime soon.
        
           | UncleEntity wrote:
           | Sounds like a job for us pot smoking slackers who studied art
           | history to me.
        
           | Riverheart wrote:
           | What leads you to believe those problems won't be solved in
           | the next few years? What stops me from having ChatGPT provide
           | feedback on my prompts to make them more artistic? Maybe I
           | just pay some artist to touch my stuff up for me if they're
           | desperate for work or maybe the output gets good enough that
           | I don't.
        
             | golol wrote:
             | Id say these tasks (coming up with a good artiatic theme
             | for a company) when considered in the full limit of their
             | potential complexity are AGI
        
         | bamboozled wrote:
         | There will just be people who are employed to wield these
         | tools, select, curate and combine these images into whoever
         | commissioned the work.
         | 
         | I don't know who all these tools are really aimed at? As a
         | software engineer, I'd still prefer to pay someone to mess with
         | any type of "art" or design while I focus on other things.
         | 
         | I mean even if I had an AI program that I could use to code, to
         | do SRE, to do images, to do accounting etc, I still think
         | someone would need to be in charge or making these things
         | happen, or else I'd just be busy prompting machines all day,
         | which sounds mad fatiguing and boring.
        
           | Avicebron wrote:
           | I think the real question is what does "making these things
           | happen" realistically pay, pennies on the hour to sit in
           | front of a screen and maybe elevate that to the 1/10,000
           | person who has to come hit a few keys to get the station
           | running again?
        
             | bamboozled wrote:
             | How much do you actually pay an artist now? I've payed for
             | graphical artists before, it wasn't all that expensive and
             | I could've probably done it myself, they could've just been
             | stealing someones work already, but it was just easier to
             | pay someone to be "responsible" for it. Which is often what
             | I'm paying for.
        
         | marban wrote:
         | LOL https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/18/arts/jeff-koons-
         | sculpture...
        
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