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Comment by ravenstine | Hacker News Reader

I don't trust what anyone says in this space because there is so much money to be made (by a fraction of people) if AI lives up to its promise, and money to be made to those who claim that AI is "bullshit".

The only thing I can remotely trust is my own experience. Recently, I decided to have some business cards made, which I haven't done in probably 15 years. A few years ago, I would have either hired someone on Fiverr to design my business card or pay for a premade template. Instead, I told Sora to design me a business card, and it gave me a good design the first time; it even immediately updated it with my Instagram link when I asked it to.

I'm sorry, but I fail to see how AI, as we now know it, doesn't take the wind out of the sails of certain kinds of jobs.

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But didn't we have business card template programs, and even free suggested business card designs from the companies that sell business cards, almost immediately after they opened for business on the internet?

That's missing the point, and is kind of like saying why bother paying someone to build you a house when there are DIY home building kits. (or why even buy a home when you can live in a van rent-free)

The point is that I would have paid for another human being's time. Why? Because I am not a young man anymore, and have little desire to do everything myself at this point. But now, I don't have to pay for someone's time, and that surplus time doesn't necessarily transfer to something equivalent like magic.

You do pay for it though. Compute isn't free.

Could I really have been more clear?

I am not talking about whether I have to pay more or less for anything. My problem is not paying. I want to pay so that I don't have to make something myself or waste time fiddling with a free template.

What I am proposing is that, in the current day, a human being is less likely to be at the other end of the transaction when I want to spend money to avoid sacrificing my time.

Sure, one can say that whomever is working for one of these AI companies benefits, but they would be outliers and AI is effectively homogenizing labor units in that case. Someone with creative talent isn't going to feasibly spin up a competitive AI business the way they could have started their own business selling their services directly.

For your amateur use case, maybe. For real professions in the real economy, the article you're commenting under disagrees.

> real professions in the real economy

That's both pompous and bizarre. The "real" economy doesn't end at the walls of corporate offices. Far from it.

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