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I think it's pushback due to how AI is being sold as the ultimate tool that will replace artists/programmers/writers/whomever. Because the technology has been

I think it's pushback due to how AI is being sold as the ultimate tool that will replace artists/programmers/writers/whomever. Because the technology has been making big leaps over the past couple of years, the comparisons are now being made not with what used to be before, but with what is being promised. And in that regard, things do fall short. Basically the hype builders hyped things up so much they started hurting the hype.

tsunamifury 3y ago
This is the a false conclusion so many seem to be falling for. YOU couldn't write or do art like a professional before, and now you can do 90% of it with some caveats. That's a major headwind that pros will be trying to deny understandably. When the digital camera then iPhone came and out obliterated the vast majority of professional photography, pros nitpicked in forums like this till kingdom come, but it didn't change anything.
- jprete 3y ago
  If I draw a picture of a fantasy-world bedroom, it might not be very detailed or well-shaped, because I am emphatically not a professional illustrator. But I can tell you what every single object is supposed to be, why I thought it belonged in a fantasy-world bedroom, and why I put it in its particular spot in that bedroom.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    >but I can tell you what every single object is supposed to be, why I thought it belonged in a fantasy-world bedroom, and why I put it in its particular spot in that bedroom. I mean post ad hoc the machine could do that too. In fact, that is the only way your brain can explain anything.
    - a_shovel 3y ago
      Huh? Are you saying human artists don't consider composition while creating their works?
      - andybak 3y ago
        Not always, not every time. I've created music and art in a visual medium and there's a lot of post hoc justification that your brain likes to present
  - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
    sure, and AI could draw a better picture without those things, and most people would prefer the better illustration to the conceptually flawless composition
  - cryptoz 3y ago
    If I were to draw a fantasy bedroom there’s a pretty good chance some parts of the room would be squiggly doodles meant to be more interpreted by the viewers imagination rather than a specific object I had in mind. (I’m also Not an illustrator)
- esafak 3y ago
  The problem is that customers did not necessarily appreciate the difference between their amateur creations and the professionals' enough to pay for it. I feel like there is going to be a rerun of the decimation of the professional photography market with designers, illustrators, writers, etc.
  - tsunamifury 3y ago
    I agree entirely, and I weep for it, I was even laid off myself. But I'm not going to waste any more time than that and am going to get onboard with where things are going.
    - esafak 3y ago
      Which creative field did you work in, photography?
      - tsunamifury 3y ago
        Interaction Designer @ Google, pretty senior too And was a photographer long ago, double luck huh.
- __loam 3y ago
  I think we're comparing apples (heh) and oranges a bit here. iPhone cameras are essentially the same thing as digital camera and now anyone can use them. Maybe amateurs are messing up their lighting or exposure or composition or whatever, but they are doing the same thing a professional photographer once did. It's also pretty difficult to tell professional photography from amateur stuff. AI isn't drawing like a human artist does. It's a completely distinct process from someone putting marks on a page. The caveats, or turds as the author of the original article put them, are pretty difficult to fix without having actual training and skills in art, and acquiring those skills is a lot harder than learning to take photos.
refulgentis 3y ago
I don't think it's being sold that way. It's a very complicated subject with several meta-conversations, and things being the way they are, a lot of people need to project arguments onto "They" Here, we see a misinterpretation: its not "it's going to replace profession wholesale", it's a simple causal chain "hey you do 30% more work with GPT" => well then you need ~30% less workers => affect employment. And we can run out a centithread of chastising any number of groups under the sun of maximalist claims, ex. from here, directly spin into "well _some_ people argue for complete replacement of artists", spin that into AGI doomers, etc.
Ancapistani 3y ago
> AI is being sold as the ultimate tool that will replace artists/programmers/writers/whomever I see a potential risk here. This is HN, so let's consider programmers in isolation for a moment. Today, I can issue the following prompt to ChatGPT and get a solution that works: > Using Python, generate an example unit test that uses monkey patching. That gives me a runnable, valid example test. I can then ask it to refactor it to use pytest instead of unittest: > regenerate the above code sample using pytest instead of unittest. Here's the resultant code: # A simple class that we want to test class Calculator: def add(self, a, b): return a + b # Monkey patching the add method to subtract instead def mock_add(self, a, b): return a - b # Test the monkey patched method def test_add_with_monkey_patching(): # Create an instance of the Calculator class calc = Calculator() # Monkey patch the add method of the Calculator instance calc.add = mock_add.__get__(calc, Calculator) # Test the monkey patched method result = calc.add(5, 3) # Assert that the result is what we expect assert result == 2 It _works_, but it completely misses the point. The test case is testing whether or not the monkey patching works as expected - not testing something using monkey patching to isolate a side effect in the method under test, which was my intention. Here's where I think there is a potential major issue: As someone who is currently a "Senior Staff Software Engineer" and has been doing this sort of work for two decades now, if you had given me the same prompt my first response would have been "use monkey patching to do what?". ChatGPT doesn't do that. Instead, it gives you a response that best fits the question. It includes a half dozen paragraphs explaining the code, what it does, and what monkey patching is, sure... but it doesn't even touch on why you'd want to use monkey patching, when it is or is not the best approach, or any alternatives. In short, ChatGPT lacks the intuition that a human programmer will develop over the course of a career. It's getting better. A few months ago I could have asked ChatGPT the same question and probably 30% of the time gotten a result that would even run. In the past couple of months I don't think I've run into that at all. The "intuition" thing is a big deal, though. ChatGPT is a great tool in the hands of a competent engineer who has the experience to examine the output with a critical eye. Today, I could see it replacing a junior engineer in a professional setting. We should not use it in that way. If we do, in a few years we'll get to the point where the current generation of senior engineers are retiring. If we've replaced the majority of our junior engineers with AI, we'll be left without people who can use the AI-generated results effectively. There has to be a way to balance the savings represented by these tools (in terms of both time and money) with the fact that the people who are able to most effectively use it today only got to that point because they've spent much of their adult lives developing the exact skillset that we're proposing to replace with them.
ithkuil 3y ago
"We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run," -- Roy Amara
- visarga 3y ago
  We also tend to underestimate AI hurdles in the short run, especially in other fields than our own.
  - Workaccount2 3y ago
    As far as I can tell, AI is about 10 years ahead of where experts were forecasting in ~2015.

tsunamifury 3y ago

This is the a false conclusion so many seem to be falling for. YOU couldn't write or do art like a professional before, and now you can do 90% of it with some caveats. That's a major headwind that pros will be trying to deny understandably. When the digital camera then iPhone came and out obliterated the vast majority of professional photography, pros nitpicked in forums like this till kingdom come, but it didn't change anything.

jprete 3y ago
If I draw a picture of a fantasy-world bedroom, it might not be very detailed or well-shaped, because I am emphatically not a professional illustrator. But I can tell you what every single object is supposed to be, why I thought it belonged in a fantasy-world bedroom, and why I put it in its particular spot in that bedroom.
- pixl97 3y ago
  >but I can tell you what every single object is supposed to be, why I thought it belonged in a fantasy-world bedroom, and why I put it in its particular spot in that bedroom. I mean post ad hoc the machine could do that too. In fact, that is the only way your brain can explain anything.
  - a_shovel 3y ago
    Huh? Are you saying human artists don't consider composition while creating their works?
    - andybak 3y ago
      Not always, not every time. I've created music and art in a visual medium and there's a lot of post hoc justification that your brain likes to present
- ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
  sure, and AI could draw a better picture without those things, and most people would prefer the better illustration to the conceptually flawless composition
- cryptoz 3y ago
  If I were to draw a fantasy bedroom there’s a pretty good chance some parts of the room would be squiggly doodles meant to be more interpreted by the viewers imagination rather than a specific object I had in mind. (I’m also Not an illustrator)
esafak 3y ago
The problem is that customers did not necessarily appreciate the difference between their amateur creations and the professionals' enough to pay for it. I feel like there is going to be a rerun of the decimation of the professional photography market with designers, illustrators, writers, etc.
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  I agree entirely, and I weep for it, I was even laid off myself. But I'm not going to waste any more time than that and am going to get onboard with where things are going.
  - esafak 3y ago
    Which creative field did you work in, photography?
    - tsunamifury 3y ago
      Interaction Designer @ Google, pretty senior too And was a photographer long ago, double luck huh.
__loam 3y ago
I think we're comparing apples (heh) and oranges a bit here. iPhone cameras are essentially the same thing as digital camera and now anyone can use them. Maybe amateurs are messing up their lighting or exposure or composition or whatever, but they are doing the same thing a professional photographer once did. It's also pretty difficult to tell professional photography from amateur stuff. AI isn't drawing like a human artist does. It's a completely distinct process from someone putting marks on a page. The caveats, or turds as the author of the original article put them, are pretty difficult to fix without having actual training and skills in art, and acquiring those skills is a lot harder than learning to take photos.

refulgentis 3y ago

I don't think it's being sold that way. It's a very complicated subject with several meta-conversations, and things being the way they are, a lot of people need to project arguments onto "They" Here, we see a misinterpretation: its not "it's going to replace profession wholesale", it's a simple causal chain "hey you do 30% more work with GPT" => well then you need ~30% less workers => affect employment. And we can run out a centithread of chastising any number of groups under the sun of maximalist claims, ex. from here, directly spin into "well _some_ people argue for complete replacement of artists", spin that into AGI doomers, etc.

Ancapistani 3y ago

> AI is being sold as the ultimate tool that will replace artists/programmers/writers/whomever I see a potential risk here. This is HN, so let's consider programmers in isolation for a moment. Today, I can issue the following prompt to ChatGPT and get a solution that works: > Using Python, generate an example unit test that uses monkey patching. That gives me a runnable, valid example test. I can then ask it to refactor it to use pytest instead of unittest: > regenerate the above code sample using pytest instead of unittest. Here's the resultant code: # A simple class that we want to test class Calculator: def add(self, a, b): return a + b # Monkey patching the add method to subtract instead def mock_add(self, a, b): return a - b # Test the monkey patched method def test_add_with_monkey_patching(): # Create an instance of the Calculator class calc = Calculator() # Monkey patch the add method of the Calculator instance calc.add = mock_add.__get__(calc, Calculator) # Test the monkey patched method result = calc.add(5, 3) # Assert that the result is what we expect assert result == 2 It _works_, but it completely misses the point. The test case is testing whether or not the monkey patching works as expected - not testing something using monkey patching to isolate a side effect in the method under test, which was my intention. Here's where I think there is a potential major issue: As someone who is currently a "Senior Staff Software Engineer" and has been doing this sort of work for two decades now, if you had given me the same prompt my first response would have been "use monkey patching to do what?". ChatGPT doesn't do that. Instead, it gives you a response that best fits the question. It includes a half dozen paragraphs explaining the code, what it does, and what monkey patching is, sure... but it doesn't even touch on why you'd want to use monkey patching, when it is or is not the best approach, or any alternatives. In short, ChatGPT lacks the intuition that a human programmer will develop over the course of a career. It's getting better. A few months ago I could have asked ChatGPT the same question and probably 30% of the time gotten a result that would even run. In the past couple of months I don't think I've run into that at all. The "intuition" thing is a big deal, though. ChatGPT is a great tool in the hands of a competent engineer who has the experience to examine the output with a critical eye. Today, I could see it replacing a junior engineer in a professional setting. We should not use it in that way. If we do, in a few years we'll get to the point where the current generation of senior engineers are retiring. If we've replaced the majority of our junior engineers with AI, we'll be left without people who can use the AI-generated results effectively. There has to be a way to balance the savings represented by these tools (in terms of both time and money) with the fact that the people who are able to most effectively use it today only got to that point because they've spent much of their adult lives developing the exact skillset that we're proposing to replace with them.

ithkuil 3y ago

"We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run," -- Roy Amara

visarga 3y ago
We also tend to underestimate AI hurdles in the short run, especially in other fields than our own.
- Workaccount2 3y ago
  As far as I can tell, AI is about 10 years ahead of where experts were forecasting in ~2015.