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Comment by quadcore | Hacker News Reader

Never occurred to me until now that a capable artist may just have a lot more jobs available to him once the AI-to-image revolution will be fully rolling. E.g. some kid will create a video game with AI art, sell tons of it and then need artists to make the updates. In other words, AI facilitates entry to the digital art world which leads to the need of artists. It's like free samples.

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I'd love to believe this was true but I absolutely can't imagine that it is. If the art doesn't need to be created by a person, which is what people are shooting for, here, the only artist you'd need is an art director. The world simply doesn't need a zillion art directors. Until we figure out how to treat people as intrinsically worthwhile and not not punish them for being made redundant by automation, it will always be a catastrophe for everyone targeted. It was true for auto manufacturing, it will be true for artists, and it will be true for workaday software developers. Just the way it is.

Actually we may need a lot more "art directors" than we have today, especially if they are to direct AI. At least temporarily, until they get AIed as well.

This really wasn't true for earlier developments like Photoshop, though. People assumed that it would remove the need for specialist graphic designers, but in reality it made graphic designers much more productive and drove the average standard of graphic design much higher. The result was that the increase in demand for graphic design matched or even exceeded the increase in supply.

I think this is an optimistic take - one technology can improve productivity and drive an industry, while the next technology can turn that same industry on it's head.

Take for example the traditional 'Travel Agent' job - a role which was initially revolutionised by computing technologies such as SABRE and digital hotel reservations (improving profits and productivity while lowering cost!). Then the next technology came along, and over a period of 20 years was completely absorbed by Booking.com, AirBnB and SkyScanner (who could offer a more convenient service with a tiny fraction of the staff).

Technologies help you become more productive, until they rewrite the market and make you redundant.

this is a bad example. Travel Agents do exist. It just you dont have to go to one.

I don't think so.

The role of 'travel agent' as it existed back in the 1980's is almost entirely obsolete in 2022, replaced by online travel agencies. There were 124,000 'travel agent' jobs in the USA in 2000 which halved to 64,000 by 2012. Now look inside a modern 'travel agency' and you won't find many 'travel agents' - you will find more programmers, finance teams, customer service clerks... Travel agencies no longer have many travel agents.

The role of 'bank assistant' as it existed back in the 1980's is going obsolete, replaced by ATM's and online banking. Although the concept of 'banking assistance' still exists online, it's mostly self-service and developing this is hardly the same role. Banking assistance no longer requires banking assistants.

The role of 'photographer' as it exists in the 2022's may be almost entirely obsolete in 2050, replaced by ???. Will 'professional-level' photography still need photographers?

Sure, but automation and innovation doesn't always skew positively.

Removing creation from the process is much different than making new versions of existing tools as photoshop did.

I feel like this is closer to cloud computing services than an automated factory, and cloud computing did not decrease the number of jobs for devs.

This post shows you still need a pretty high level of skill to convert the results of a prompt into a workable 3d model. It just means people who are mid level graphic artists need to add to their skillset. The same thing happened to the devs whose only skill was slapping together some HTML/CSS & JS, they had to get better or become irrelevant.

But cloud computing did basically eliminate the sysadmin role. They were forced to learn tons of new skills to become "site reliability engineers" instead.

>Until we figure out how to treat people as intrinsically worthwhile and not not punish them for being made redundant by automation, it will always be a catastrophe for everyone targeted.

Doesn't that beg the question if a person is intrinsically worthwhile?

From where I sit, a person's worth is usually measured by others first and foremost, specifically by what they provide for them. Either in the rational economic (providing a good or service) or the irrational emotional value (enjoyment of their presence). I can't honestly say that someone is going to always be able to provide the latter value.

I'm someone that inherently can't provide any emotional value to someone else, being how much of an incel I resemble (I'm unable be a friend to anyone, and I'm not fond of my family). Thus my only worth to others is what economic value that I can provide, and my... issues will be tolerated for that. Take away that my economic capability, then what good is someone like me then?

It's probably just my long winded way of saying... at least to me, figuring out how to treat people as intrinsically worthwhile won't happen unless people believe other people are intrinsically worthwhile. And I don't foresee that ever happening.

Hold on, Christianity states that everyone is intrinsically valuable, that everyone is made in the image of God and we are children of God. At least it is my understanding.

It's unfortunate that God doesn't exist and Christianity is just modern mythology then.

It’s a common misconception in Christianity that God is just a ‘being among beings’. It’s more akin to the belief in existence itself, which is itself an absurdity once you think about it enough :) Some people may protest that they are part of reality though…

https://nwcatholic.org/voices/bishop-robert-barron/who-god-i...

Weird article. How does one pray to "being itself", how does "being itself" take the form of a human, as Christians hold?

I'm sure they have complicated answers for that, how what seems like a more powerful version of a human, Jesus Christ, seemingly a being among beings, is actually the same thing as "being itself". They have a whole field for it, Christology. But in that, and in clarifying how "being itself" can have a will, make other beings "in its image" and generally interfere in mundane worldy-animal affairs, they should at least feel a little embarrassed when they claim to be nothing more than rational persons believing in "being" and deriding new atheists for not getting that.

He seems to understand but ignores completely that atheists aren't primarily talking about weird sorts of panentheism and so on in their denial of God, and when they are, they offer sophisticated arguments, rather than the non-arguments he presents.

‘Having a will’ is the central matter.

Most new atheists I know deny the existence of free will, as it is a super natural phenomenon under most definitions. Since it is impossible for a being to prove or disprove the existence of their own free will, it becomes an act of faith to accept that will exists.

The intelligibility of being itself and the professed existence of will (again, if you believe in free will, you have a faith of sorts) point to a mind (because will requires a mind), this mind is a facet of the mystery that people call God.

Knowing where someone stands on free will is a good starting point :)

True. I believe Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim have similar beliefs as well in the value of a human life. But belief doesn't always translate into action.

Just a living example; many homeless shelters here forbid the use of drugs, even if it means turning the user out into the cold and near certain death. For many of the people operating the shelters, the value of that person isn't worth the cost of what they might due because of the addiction. Not just in economic, but in emotional and mental fatigue for the operators.

I supposed then that the question could more correctly stated as: Do people view all others as valuable enough to expend a given amount time, energy, and resources on to support? And that I still believe the answer is likely no.

I don't think this issue is so clear. Drugs may pose a danger to the person using them, others in the facility, potentially imperil any others trying to come clean, alongside countless other effects. In trying to solve one problem, you may well create a dozen potentially far more severe ones.

In life many things are not just a choice between a good decision and a bad one. Instead you end up having to choose between a bad decision and a horrible one. And so attacking the bad choice is easy, because it is undeniably clearly bad. But that doesn't mean the alternative is inherently better.

>Drugs may pose a danger to the person using them, others in the facility, potentially imperil any others trying to come clean, alongside countless other effects. In trying to solve one problem, you may well create a dozen potentially far more severe ones.

I think we're both saying the same thing. The addict could be helped with facilities to isolate them and full time support staff to help them. But that's exponentially more expensive to provide then just a safe place to sleep and a hot meal.

At some point or another, someone decided that this shelter will get these resources; money, space, heating, food, personnel, etc. Someone else decided that this was the best way to take these provided resources to help the group that was intended to help. And at some point both those people said that they're not going to help that addict; either they're not going to give the needed resources to it, or they're not going to use all the available resources to help the one at the expense of others. Whatever the justification might be, that was the result.

It might be the best decision that could be made given a set of bad answers to a worst problem. The net result is all the same though; deeming a person's not worth the cost of resources into supporting.

Your worth isn't determined by how much money you make or how many friends you have. You're a unique, thinking being that is experiencing reality. Your value is that you exist, you're something as opposed to nothing.

If other humans see you as being valuable, that's great. but that has nothing to do with who you are.

This is an idealistic view of it, yeah. But in reality your worth is only what people give you; parents, who hate/actively work against gay people until, oh, one of their children are gay, then they suddenly care (or cast them out).

People are plagued by self-interest, we don't unilaterally "care" about one another apart from maybe on a "I'll help you if it doesn't inconvenience me" level. Yeah, I'm sure there are some stellar individuals who go out of their way, but we're talking about the average person here.

To much economics too little philosophy. Hunter gatherer societies didn't operate like that. Families don't operated like that. The reality you describe was a deliberately constructed, self-absorbed culture that is by no more a natural state of being than a theocracy, comnune, or fascist dictatorship. Read Kant.

Yeah exactly. Nobody's crying for all the industries that were killed when we switched from horses to cars.

"that's the way we've always done it" it's the least philosophically defensible argument for doing something. I mean, even Socrates said so. Thinking someone is worth what capitalism decides they're worth is a decision people make every day in this country and it's no more the natural state of being than communism or a theocratic dictatorship.

Read Kant

The art is being created by a person. You cannot do what OP did and it’s not just because you don’t know Blender. It’s also because they are a talented visual artist to begin with. They have sensibilities that you don’t and will make better decisions while using tools like this.

I think this is a good and optimistic take, but you have to imagine AI art will only get better from here — how long until it closes the loop?

Yes but by artists you mean (artists - 2d artists). Because as a 2d artist that's gonna hurt. And with these models sucking all the current total creativity, and styles, with a world where this is going to hit them, the overall new creativity and art created will decrease and AI copying previous styles and arts will start and increase.

And then maybe modeling will take a hit too?

I do think it's cool thought. But ya I am not that happy with what I was saying. Could still be a good thing overall?? Who knows.

The best artists will thrive, I am not so sure about the rest. It seems very likely that the simple graphic jobs will be taken over by AI.

Think about how difficult it is for a visual artist to scale their productivity when using paints and a canvas, compared to a Wacom, and now compared to a tool like this. They might be able to keep up with the ownership class at this rate!

AI image modification is already a thing. If the AI can generate the image then surely it can make updates to it.

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