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Because it is infinite. We have a kind of imagination and creativity that horses lack. Look at the arts -- particularly the modern ones of music and filmmakin

Because it is infinite. We have a kind of imagination and creativity that horses lack. Look at the arts -- particularly the modern ones of music and filmmaking. Can you not see that there will always be room for songs and movies that say something truly new about the world we live in? I suppose you could wave your hands and say that's all the "content industry" and counts as only one "thing", but I don't think that's fair. Great (or even good) works of art enrich our lives in different ways. "Content" is not a single commodity, like gasoline, of which we only need a certain amount. And it's obviously not limited to the arts. Every significant new Internet business changes the landscape, creating new opportunities for others. The silver lining in the cloud of this recession, I think, is that collectively we have a lot more free time. As the OP suggests, perhaps some of this would be well spent in face-to-face interactions. But you can also see people being forced by circumstances to reach into themselves and come up with new ways to create value. Oh, they're on a small scale, mostly; I'm not saying everyone who sits down to write a novel is going to create something as successful as Harry Potter. But they are new.

yummyfajitas 14y ago
Can you not see that there will always be room for songs and movies that say something truly new about the world we live in? No, I can't see this. I think it quite likely that fairly quickly, we will reach the point where existing art is sufficient to satisfy most people. At some point, the quantity of good art will be vastly larger than the amount of consumption any human can do in a lifetime. And even if this is false, what happens when machines do just as good a job at creating art as humans do? Do you believe some sort of "meta-art" exists that machines will not be able to perform?
- ScottBurson 14y ago
  At some point, the quantity of good art will be vastly larger than the amount of consumption any human can do in a lifetime. Oh, I think we passed that point a while ago. I certainly don't have time for all the art I would like to experience. But: so what? Just because a given piece of art finds a relatively small audience, that doesn't mean it's not valuable to those people. We have 7 billion people on this planet now. If you release a music album, and you get .0004% of the world's population to pay $5 each for it, that's $140k, which after production expenses should be enough for you to eat for a year. Tweak the numbers if you like, but we're still looking at needing less than one person in 10^5 to pay for your album in order for you to make a living. If you reach one in 10^4, you're doing well. Do you believe some sort of "meta-art" exists that machines will not be able to perform? Yes, actually, I do. Machines will never possess original creativity. I can't prove this to you. We'll just have to wait and see. But there certainly aren't any counterexamples to be found yet.
  - capsule_toy 14y ago
    It's a $1 billion dollar market. If our startup captures just 1% of this tiny market, we'll be rich! Most artists and musicians I know make nearly nothing from their work.
  - yummyfajitas 14y ago
    Machines will never possess original creativity. I can't prove this to you. We'll just have to wait and see. But there certainly aren't any counterexamples to be found yet. True, but this is again the logical fallacy I was warning against: there was no machine faster than a horse, therefore there never can be.

yummyfajitas 14y ago

Can you not see that there will always be room for songs and movies that say something truly new about the world we live in? No, I can't see this. I think it quite likely that fairly quickly, we will reach the point where existing art is sufficient to satisfy most people. At some point, the quantity of good art will be vastly larger than the amount of consumption any human can do in a lifetime. And even if this is false, what happens when machines do just as good a job at creating art as humans do? Do you believe some sort of "meta-art" exists that machines will not be able to perform?

ScottBurson 14y ago
At some point, the quantity of good art will be vastly larger than the amount of consumption any human can do in a lifetime. Oh, I think we passed that point a while ago. I certainly don't have time for all the art I would like to experience. But: so what? Just because a given piece of art finds a relatively small audience, that doesn't mean it's not valuable to those people. We have 7 billion people on this planet now. If you release a music album, and you get .0004% of the world's population to pay $5 each for it, that's $140k, which after production expenses should be enough for you to eat for a year. Tweak the numbers if you like, but we're still looking at needing less than one person in 10^5 to pay for your album in order for you to make a living. If you reach one in 10^4, you're doing well. Do you believe some sort of "meta-art" exists that machines will not be able to perform? Yes, actually, I do. Machines will never possess original creativity. I can't prove this to you. We'll just have to wait and see. But there certainly aren't any counterexamples to be found yet.
- capsule_toy 14y ago
  It's a $1 billion dollar market. If our startup captures just 1% of this tiny market, we'll be rich! Most artists and musicians I know make nearly nothing from their work.
- yummyfajitas 14y ago
  Machines will never possess original creativity. I can't prove this to you. We'll just have to wait and see. But there certainly aren't any counterexamples to be found yet. True, but this is again the logical fallacy I was warning against: there was no machine faster than a horse, therefore there never can be.