Yes, but art school just turned into a one-semester course.
People who need illustration or graphics with no particular style can meet their needs with this tool but that is far from art. This replaces commercial illustration, not artists.
It might replace the "nice pic, do you have it at {size} so I can use it as a desktop image" comments on various social media sites.
I don't see it replacing an actual photograph as a wall hanging (or a painting) because they are subtly wrong in some ways. The reflection in the lake doesn't match the landscape... that one cloud has its lighting at slightly different angle than the rest.
Well, they are now. Give it a year and we'll see.
It's not that you can't paint that picture... but you'll never be able to capture that scene in camera. If someone was presenting that as a photograph, it would feel wrong to me because of an understanding of the meteorological criteria for the scene.
I believe that they will generate images that are impressive. I watch https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbfYPyITQ-7l4upoX8nvctg and have been impressed with the pace of technology.
Yet, I am doubtful that I'll have a generated image at 11x17 that holds up to the same scrutiny that I apply to my own photographs.
I am absolutely certain that it will be able to generate images that are completely appropriate for images that you don't look at for more than a minute at a time or are used as complimentary material for other content.
All that said, I am not concerned that I will get more or less sales of my photographs with AI generated art competing. The people who are going to pay for a photograph are going to pay for a photograph. Those who aren't - weren't going to in the first place.
40 years ago was 1980. There's a vanishingly small number of fields that have had continuous job security from 1980-2020 (even ignoring Covid).
You might as well say that careers are over for everyone, and have been for a while.
A tiny percentage of lawyers do really well. The rest struggle under crushing debt and insane working conditions.
So you've got one example in the entire economy.
Camera settings is just a short hand to describe the field of view and depth of focus (at the very least). If you make that implicit you'd still need to give the network the steradians, focal length, circle of confusion, etc. etc. etc. that you want your image to use.
You'd need to understand everything in Hecht's Optics to tweak all the parameters of an AI generated image.
SD is limited to only digital art first of all, so let's not get too over-excited and hyped around this tool just yet.
You might make painting that looks identical from far away but when you come close it will be completely different.
"Just" need a decent simulation of how that works, first!
There's nothing special about art. People will still do it as a hobby, like they do with a lot of other dead trades and professions. In many ways I think the personal aspect of the creation and sharing with people you know is the special thing, rather than the creation or performance of a commercial success (not that I've had any experience with the latter, mind you). And I'm not against the mass consumption of art, just that it needn't be produced by people if it has the same entertainment value then that's great.
Repairing expensive shoes is not an automated process. It’s more like fixing a roof leak, landscaping, or changing a flat tire. Jobs for those things still exist and aren’t going anywhere.
Someone is still going to pay for a person to perform or create art for them. Some professional driving jobs will continue to exist long after most are automated. When I said "nobody", that's what's known as hyperbole.
https://melbournechimneysweeping.com.au/ is one near me.
Not wanting to pile on the GP but their point is moot.
To be nuanced, maybe they might have said, "cobblers are less in demand now that many people have moved from owning fewer pairs of shoes they make last through repair to owning more pairs of shoes that they tend to get rid of when they are worn out due to changes in construction materials used in production," but if people have to write like that to make points, nobody will ever make a point.
But to know that these jobs still exist, and might be more common than you realize, now that’s interesting!
That wasn't the larger point. And if that was your issue, why didn't you ask about it so I could have explained it to you better?
The point was that art as a profession and a commercial venture is not special or different from any other industry with respect to automation.
Cobblers are in just as much demand in most of the world as they always have been. They only fell out of demand in car-dependent areas, which is a small minority of the world population (but a vast majority of the HN commenting population since most of the USA outside of a few cities is car dependent)
I don't know if it has anything to do with construction but doubt it. If you actually walk everywhere shoes don't last very long these days, especially shoes under $100.
There are a lot of other urban services that exist in almost the entire populated world, but that most Americans think quaint because they are not relevant to a car dependent highway world.
All that said, this really is a nitpick and the original point stands very well. Some of us just don't like it when car-dependent people forget that they are a small minority worldwide and instead treat urban walkable people as the insignificant minority! Or rather, HN being a forum for all things interesting, we find it interesting to make it a teachable moment. What could be more interesting than finding out that something that has always seemed obvious to you is actually backwards?
By construction, I mean the material and design of shoes people tend to wear. I can't say I've ever met someone who takes sneakers or running shoes to a cobbler and these shoes are more common nowadays.
These kinds of shoes are most of the market because most people don't walk much in the USA. If you walk a lot, you might still not change anything and keep buying the disposable sneakers, throwing away $160 a year.
But if you walk a lot AND are disposed to think critically about the situation, you find that if you pay a bit more for shoes you can make them last many years as long as you resole them periodically. And as I recall, a good $50 sole on a good $150 shoe costs half as much and lasts three times as long as a disposable $80 sneaker.
Not only do you save money (not really a ton) but it actually is more convenient, since even counting resolings, you get more miles between having to go repair or replace your shoe. And you don't have to wear in your leather uppers again. It is truly a luxurious feeling when you come back from the cobbler and have shoes that are worn in and fit your foot just perfectly like a glove... yet the soles are brand new and strong and comfortable and ready for another thousand miles.
Why do you think there's a stereotype of leather boots being popular in NYC? I'm sure the resoleability and longevity in the face of large amounts of daily walking have a lot to do with it.
I think that's why there's a lot of people online who think cobblers aren't a thing anymore. They're from car dependent areas. If you drive everywhere, shoe soles don't wear out much faster than shoe uppers anyway, so it doesn't make sense to care. But if you move to a walkable city, you'll suddenly find it quite economical, since the soles wear out far faster, and the cost of a sole replacement is less than a new pair of shoes, so you might replace the sole a couple times before discarding the shoe.