I don't know why we keep framing artists like they're textile workers or machinists.
The whole point of art is human expression. The idea that artists can be "automated away" is just sad and disgusting and the amount of people who want art but don't want to pay the artist is astounding.
Why are we so eager to rid ourselves of what makes us human to save a buck? This isn't innovation, its self destruction.
Most art consumed today isn't about human expression, and it hasn't been for a very long time. Most art is produced for commercial reasons with the intent of making as much profit as possible.
Art-as-human-expression isn't going anywhere because it's intrinsically motivated. It's what people do because they love doing it. Just like people still do woodworking even though it's cheaper to buy a chair from Walmart, people will still paint and draw.
What is going to go away is design work for low-end advertising agencies or for publishers of cheap novels or any of the other dozens of jobs that were never bastions of human creativity to begin with.
It's an important distinction you make and hard to talk about without a vocabulary. The terms I've seen music historians use for this concept were:
- generic expression: commercial/pop/entertainment; audience makes demands on the art
- autonomous expression: artist's vision is paramount; art makes demands on the audience
Obviously these are idealized antipodes. The question about whether it is the art making the demands on the audience or the audience making demands on the art is especially insightful in my opinion. Given this rubric, I'd say AI-generated art must necessarily belong to "generic expression" simply because it's output has to meet fitness criteria.
I think fine artists and others who make and sell individual art pieces for a living will probably be fine, yeah. (Or at least won't be struggling much worse than they are already.)
There are a lot of working commercial artists in between the fine art world and the "cheap novels and low-end advertising agencies" you dismiss, and there's no reason to think AI art won't eat a lot of their employment.
Of course it will. Their employment isn't sacred. They have a skill, we're teaching that skill to computers, and their skill will be worth less.
I don't pay someone to run calculations for me, either, also a difficult and sometimes creative process. I use a computer. And when the computer can't, then I either employ my creativity, or hire a creative.
Okay, but that's a different argument from your original. First you said "only bad artists will lose their jobs," now it's "good artists will lose their jobs but I don't care."
I also agree that artist employment isn't sacred, but after extensive use of the generation tools I don't see them replacing anything but the lowest end of the industry, where they just need something to fill a space. The tools can give you something that matches a prompt, but they're only really good if you don't have strong opinions about details, which most middle tier customers will.
Just like AI can't replace programmers completely because most people are terrible at defining their own software requirements, AI won't replace middle-tier commercial artists because most people have no design sense.
Commercial art needs to be eye catching and on brand if it's going to be worth anything, and a random intern isn't going to be able to generate anything with an AI that matches the vision of stakeholders. Artists will still be needed in that middle zone to create things that are on brand, that match stakeholder expectations, and that stand out from every other AI generated piece. These artists will likely start using AI tools, but they're unlikely to be replaced completely any time soon.
That's why I only mentioned the bottom tier of commercial art as being in danger. The only jobs that can be replaced by AI with the technology that we're seeing right now are in the cases where it really doesn't matter exactly what the art looks like, there just has to be something.
Because when people discuss "art" they are really discussing two things.
Static 2D images that usually serve a commercial purpose. Ex logos, clip art, game sprites, web page design and the like.
And the second is pure art whose purpose is more for the enjoyment of the creator or the viewer.
Business wants to fully automate the first case and must people view it has nothing to do with the essence of humanity. It's simply dollars for products - but it's also one of the very few ways that artists can actually have paying careers for their skills.
The second will still exist, although almost nobody in the world can pay bills off of it. And I wouldn't be shocked it ML models start encroaching there as well.
So a lot of what's being referred to is more like textile workers. And anyone who can type a few sentences can now make "art" significantly lowering barriers to entry. Maybe a designer comes and touches it up.
The short sighted part, is people thinking that this will somehow stay specific to Art and that their cherished field is immune.
Programming will soon follow. Any PM "soon enough" will be able to write text to generate a fully working app. And maybe a coder comes in to touch it up.
You're defining the word "art" in one sentence and then using a completely different definition in the next sentence. Where are these people who want art, as you've defined it, but don't want to pay? Most of the people you're referring to want visual representations of their fursonas, or D&D characters, or want marketing material for their product. They're not trying to get human expression.
In the sense that art is a 2D visual representation of something, or a marketing tool that evokes a biological response in the viewer, art is easy to automate away. This is no different than when the camera replaced portraitists. We've just invented a camera that shows us things that don't exist.
In the sense that art is human expression, nobody has even tried to automate that yet and I've seen no evidence that expressionary artists are threatened.
It's ironic seeing your earlier comment on chatgpt coding and then this. If anything is easier to automate, it's programming which can be rigorous and have rules while art really isn't, it's only "easy" for those who don't understand it, which is what the person is actually talking about.
You're in for a rude awakening when you get laid off and replaced with a bot that creates garbage code that is slow and buggy but works and so the boss gets to save on your salary. "But it's slow, redundant, looks like it was made by some who just copy and pasted endlessly from stackoverflow" but your boss won't care, he just needs to make a buck.
For someone seeking sound/imagery/etc. resulting from human expression (i.e., art), it makes sense that it can't be automated away.
For someone seeking sound/imagery/etc. without caring whether it's the result of human expression (e.g., AI artifacts that aren't art), it can be automated away.
The idea that artists can be automated away is really just kind of dumb, not because people like AI created art and can get it cheap, but because it has no real impact on the "whole point" of the art... for the creation of the art. Pure art, as human expression, has no dependency on money. Anecdotally I very much enjoy painting and music (and coding) as art forms but have never sold a painting nor a song in my life. Just because someone won't pay you for something doesn't mean it has no value.
As far as money goes... long run artists will still make money fine as people will value the people generated (artisanal) works. Just as people like hand-made stuff today, even though you can get machine-made stuff way cheaper. You may not have the generic jobs of cranking out stuff for advertisements (and such) but you'll still have artists.
I follow plenty of artists on Elon's hellsite and professional artists of all stripes are upset about it. Jobs are already disappearing, being replaced entirely by AI and "prompt engineers" or people just using AI to copy someone's style for their portfolio. Granted, it isn't endemic yet, but the big Indiana Jones stone ball of progress is definitely rolling in that direction.
That is not what the post I was responding to was about, it was about the art as human expression. Nothing was said about it as a profession and making money creating art makes zero difference as to the worth of the art.
The whole point of art is human expression. The idea that artists can be "automated away" is just sad and disgusting and the amount of people who want art but don't want to pay the artist is astounding.
Why are we so eager to rid ourselves of what makes us human to save a buck? This isn't innovation, its self destruction.