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Comment by mypastself | Hacker News Reader

Tangentially, this is something I think about from time to time: in tech, you can be mediocre and live a very comfortable life. In art (and many other areas), you often have to be extraordinary just to make ends meet.

So I don’t think art is “harder”. It’s just harder for the average practitioner/professional to find “success” (however you like to define it).

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I wonder if this is due to existing forms of automation in art. Artists have been competing with reproductions of art in the form of recordings and prints for a long time now. That creates a really high floor. How many people who play an instrument have people around them genuinely want to listen to them play rather than a recording? How much lower would the bar be if recordings didn't exist?

Of course software gets copied all the time, but we have jobs because so much bespoke software is needed. Looking at some of what AI can do now, I wouldn't need surprised if our floor gets raised a lot in the next few years as well.

I think about this too and I wonder why?

Are artists really "doomed"? Or are they just worse at redistribution?

Artists will exist as long as they can entertain the elite with their clown antics.

Be entertaining. Be outrageous. Be endearing. An AI can't cut off their ear.

IMO, the 'why' is due to how mature the industry is - it'll absolutely be the future for every profession, given enough time. It's the natural distribution of wealth in our society: Few have too much, most have not enough.

We're all "doomed" if this is the case.

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