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The problem is that many of what you describe as "terrible" jobs are just a low-overhead way for creative folks to pay their bills. You don't make a living writ

The problem is that many of what you describe as "terrible" jobs are just a low-overhead way for creative folks to pay their bills. You don't make a living writing timeless poems or painting masterpieces, at least not usually. You make a living doing copyediting or painting commissioned artwork - and then work on achieving greatness in your free time. AI doesn't have to be good to destroy this income. This is making it harder for creativity to thrive. Relatively few budding artists can count on private patronage or government sponsorship, and both of these come with plenty of strings attached. And pie-in-the-sky ideas like universal income are not going to wish the problem away.

sroussey 2y ago
There is some history here, like the musicians that went on strikes and picketed radio stations after one dared to play a record on the radio instead of a live orchestra!
- xanderlewis 2y ago
  The difference is that arguably this is the endgame — the entire process can now be automated. Every doomsday prediction is wrong… until the final one isn’t.
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    The entire process is very much not automated
    - xanderlewis 2y ago
      Music in general isn’t (and never will be), but the generation of musak that’s good enough for most commercial purposes very nearly is.
      - miohtama 2y ago
        Also the creation of musak can be done by much more wider amount of people and requires less studying. Like driver I we requires less studying than driving a black cab without GPS.
      - jncfhnb 2y ago
        Music is sort of its own thing. Individual musicians can put their music out there and gain a following. Visual art not so much. Not many people care about “great artists”. Most visual artists make a living making art assets of no particular individual expression and are at a lot of risk imo. I’m not sure that I believe most musicians make a living composing music.
- jordanb 2y ago
  Is that how they secured their rights to residuals?
alwa 2y ago
Of course there are plenty of creative people who pay the bills by doing things other than the commoditized analogue to their art, no? The stereotypical actor waiting tables comes to mind, as does Einstein in the patent office. (Edit: this submission seems timely and relevant - The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41240152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41240152 )
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  > waiting tables Yeah but talk about terrible jobs. If I were an artist I think I'd prefer doing commodity art pieces to pay the bills vs. working in a restaurant. And yes, it's subjective. I know some people probably like waiting tables.
  - CRConrad 2y ago
    Heh, this is kinda funny... > > waiting tables > Yeah but talk about terrible jobs. From sibling comment to yours, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41276998 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41276998 : > ...a great deal of implicit classism ('i don't want to do a job like that, therefore such jobs are worthless').
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  Has it occurred to you that those jobs are finite? Can restaurants continue to exist if we have scores of under/unemployed people working as waitstaff, who don't make enough money to eat out themselves? Previous rounds of innovation and steep changes in work/jobs, all the way back to the industrial revolution, were both a) not seamless transitions and left huge swathes of highly skilled people impoverished for the remainder of their lives, and b) for those who did transition to new jobs, there were new jobs for them to transition to. Not everyone can learn to be an AI developer. What jobs does AI create? Is everyone who isn't well versed enough in IT infrastructure going to have get a job as a janitor working the data centers for Azure cloud? Those are going to be some clean bloody floors. I get so tired of the rhetorical "this has happened before," no it really fucking hasn't. Not on this scale, and not when having money was so utterly critical to one's ability to survive.
ethbr1 2y ago
> Relatively few budding artists can count on private patronage or government sponsorship, and both of these come with plenty of strings attached. It follows that mass-AI adoption should tilt the creative economic model more towards state-funding, ideally supported by a tax on AI usage. (i.e. taxing and reallocating some of the value saved by using it, to redress the things it's probably destroying)
- klyrs 2y ago
  > ideally supported by a tax on AI usage. Curious to see how you'd write this legislation. Because I know a lot of programmers and lawyers, and they're all a lot better at finding loopholes than preventing them.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    Target AI infrastructure providers. Ideally metered by perf-per-energy-per-time. You'll tax out some low-value use cases, but that seems less concerning as long as the tax rates are kept modest (<10%).
    - klyrs 2y ago
      Those are some pretty high-level bullet points. Say I'd like to build out a rendering farm with a bunch of GPUs to support the movie industry. On paper, my hardware is good for rendering, crypto, and AI. Do I get taxed?
      - ethbr1 2y ago
        If it were going to be implemented, I think only imposing it on large+ clouds that offer IaaS/PaaS would make sense. That would simplify collection and traceability. And a bit of extra pressure on decentralization wouldn't be the worst thing.
- gruez 2y ago
  >state-funding, ideally supported by a tax on AI usage Why should the state be funding artists in the first place? If the public can't be convinced to patronize artists directly (eg. buying their stuff), what makes you think they'd want to be compelled to fund artists via taxation?

sroussey 2y ago

There is some history here, like the musicians that went on strikes and picketed radio stations after one dared to play a record on the radio instead of a live orchestra!

xanderlewis 2y ago
The difference is that arguably this is the endgame — the entire process can now be automated. Every doomsday prediction is wrong… until the final one isn’t.
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  The entire process is very much not automated
  - xanderlewis 2y ago
    Music in general isn’t (and never will be), but the generation of musak that’s good enough for most commercial purposes very nearly is.
    - miohtama 2y ago
      Also the creation of musak can be done by much more wider amount of people and requires less studying. Like driver I we requires less studying than driving a black cab without GPS.
    - jncfhnb 2y ago
      Music is sort of its own thing. Individual musicians can put their music out there and gain a following. Visual art not so much. Not many people care about “great artists”. Most visual artists make a living making art assets of no particular individual expression and are at a lot of risk imo. I’m not sure that I believe most musicians make a living composing music.
jordanb 2y ago
Is that how they secured their rights to residuals?

alwa 2y ago

Of course there are plenty of creative people who pay the bills by doing things other than the commoditized analogue to their art, no? The stereotypical actor waiting tables comes to mind, as does Einstein in the patent office. (Edit: this submission seems timely and relevant - The Blue Collar Jobs of Philip Glass - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41240152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41240152 )

SoftTalker 2y ago
> waiting tables Yeah but talk about terrible jobs. If I were an artist I think I'd prefer doing commodity art pieces to pay the bills vs. working in a restaurant. And yes, it's subjective. I know some people probably like waiting tables.
- CRConrad 2y ago
  Heh, this is kinda funny... > > waiting tables > Yeah but talk about terrible jobs. From sibling comment to yours, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41276998 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41276998 : > ...a great deal of implicit classism ('i don't want to do a job like that, therefore such jobs are worthless').
ToucanLoucan 2y ago
Has it occurred to you that those jobs are finite? Can restaurants continue to exist if we have scores of under/unemployed people working as waitstaff, who don't make enough money to eat out themselves? Previous rounds of innovation and steep changes in work/jobs, all the way back to the industrial revolution, were both a) not seamless transitions and left huge swathes of highly skilled people impoverished for the remainder of their lives, and b) for those who did transition to new jobs, there were new jobs for them to transition to. Not everyone can learn to be an AI developer. What jobs does AI create? Is everyone who isn't well versed enough in IT infrastructure going to have get a job as a janitor working the data centers for Azure cloud? Those are going to be some clean bloody floors. I get so tired of the rhetorical "this has happened before," no it really fucking hasn't. Not on this scale, and not when having money was so utterly critical to one's ability to survive.

ethbr1 2y ago

> Relatively few budding artists can count on private patronage or government sponsorship, and both of these come with plenty of strings attached. It follows that mass-AI adoption should tilt the creative economic model more towards state-funding, ideally supported by a tax on AI usage. (i.e. taxing and reallocating some of the value saved by using it, to redress the things it's probably destroying)

klyrs 2y ago
> ideally supported by a tax on AI usage. Curious to see how you'd write this legislation. Because I know a lot of programmers and lawyers, and they're all a lot better at finding loopholes than preventing them.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  Target AI infrastructure providers. Ideally metered by perf-per-energy-per-time. You'll tax out some low-value use cases, but that seems less concerning as long as the tax rates are kept modest (<10%).
  - klyrs 2y ago
    Those are some pretty high-level bullet points. Say I'd like to build out a rendering farm with a bunch of GPUs to support the movie industry. On paper, my hardware is good for rendering, crypto, and AI. Do I get taxed?
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      If it were going to be implemented, I think only imposing it on large+ clouds that offer IaaS/PaaS would make sense. That would simplify collection and traceability. And a bit of extra pressure on decentralization wouldn't be the worst thing.
gruez 2y ago
>state-funding, ideally supported by a tax on AI usage Why should the state be funding artists in the first place? If the public can't be convinced to patronize artists directly (eg. buying their stuff), what makes you think they'd want to be compelled to fund artists via taxation?