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Comment by mrkpdl | Hacker News Reader

These are false equivalences, or whataboutisms. The hand washers provided a very different ‘thing’. To that of artists. You mention things like getting clean clothes, getting from a to b in a car or on a horse, getting cash from an ATM instead from the teller at a bank branch. These are all completely different to the work of an artist or craftsperson that expresses something. So it’s very reasonable for people to seek insight/inspiration/catharsis/etc from things that they understand to be fully crafted by human minds and hands.

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> These are all completely different to the work of an artist or craftsperson that expresses something

The thing is, as was the case with many goods where individual craftspeople were largely displaced by industrialized mass production, the expression of the individual artist or craftsperson was often not what the market was paying for anyway. They were paying for something utilitarian, but limited by the available methods of production.

Do photographers express less than painters? Paint and brush are technologies. They enhance paintings.

I expect there will be AI based art, not sure in which form, and people will still find joy in it.

Considering a significant portion of art appreciation revolves around the artist themselves, the talent and story they possess, and the level of effort and expression that went into the piece… I don’t know about that.

There’s plenty of visually impressive AI art out there right now. No one is celebrating it.

Some is also conceptually interesting and celebrated, for example the niceaunties project out of Singapore: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/19/auntie...

This is awesome, thanks for the link.

A quick glimpse and it seems wildly uninteresting, conceptually and visually.

> Do photographers express less than painters? Paint and brush are technologies. They enhance paintings.

I didn’t mean to imply artists don’t use technology. And certainly include photography in my definition of things made by the hands and minds of craft people. I have a degree in photography to back that up. But as with all technologies individuals will choose where their line of interest is drawn. There will be AI based art, and their will also be an audience who don’t want it.

Its not any different in principle than any other technological innovation. Arguments to the contrary amount to special pleading. The jobs of many, many craftspeople were displaced in the wake of industrialization and the digital revolution. We all buy and consume things that are mass produced all the time and don't bat an eye. Some artisianal version of these things is available in many cases. You're free to buy the mass produced version or the artisianal version. Technological progress is the engine of capitalism. History shows that you can't stop it, and slowing it just enables competitors to swoop in and eat your lunch. But Capitalism has a shelf life. Feudalism came to an end, and so will the market system. In practice, the implementation into all aspects of production will lead to an insurmountable economic crisis. What comes after is up to us.

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