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Comment by mikkupikku | Hacker News Reader

Art should be done foremost because it's a passion for the artist. If you give up art just because you can no longer sell it, because you're being out competed by computer generated furry porn, then the world hasn't really lost anything of value.

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that seems a bit harsh. if you’re livelihood has been from making some sort of visual art for however many years and work has even drying up bc of AI, just doing a sudden career pivot is pretty difficult.

True, it's harsh. But the way I see it, artists producing real art from their soul are going to keep at it even while corporate graphic designers and furry porn fanart illustrators are getting decimated. Society at large won't be culturally impoverished by this, so I'm viewing corporate graphic artists with the same mindset as buggy whip manufacturers. Technology coming for the careers of artists isn't even new, the invention of photography greatly diminished demand for painted portrays. Sad for those painters, but photography was then made into an art of it's own, and similarly I think creatively driven people will find new ways to exploit these new tools.

> artists producing real art from their soul are going to keep at it

With what time and money? The statue of David and the Sistine Chapel ceiling would not have come to be from hobbyists. There are precious few culturally relevant works of art that lacked both a patron and a sales motive.

I'll pass that along to my starving artist friends who work minimum wage jobs. thanks

That isn't how it works. Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, and most other innovators were regular working artists long before they were influential. If you take away the means for artists to sell work that isn't boundary-pushing, they won't get enough practice and exposure to make influential work later.

Music existed before any of the record companies did. People used to sing and play music just to entertain themselves and their friends. I am quite certain they will continue to do so, AI never phasing them.

It's true, but most of the cultural innovation I'm aware of, from Bach to Coltrane to Hendrix, came from people who could make art their life, largely by paying the bills with it. I don't think we'll lose art entirely, but we might lose the greatest artists.

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