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If your "art" is actually threatened by AI, I question whether you are doing art at all. Art is not going anywhere. AI will be another tool in the toolbox, bu

If your "art" is actually threatened by AI, I question whether you are doing art at all. Art is not going anywhere. AI will be another tool in the toolbox, but artistry and artistic sensibility is here to stay. AI tools can create pictures, but actually creating art is still a human endeavor. From orchestras to video games, AI is going to change the way that art is done (and it already has), but the artists are not going away.

digitalsushi 2y ago
If 'the artists are not going away' involves either paying the artists less or reducing the number of artists or the meaning of being an artist being redefined I would not immediately agree. ... but the third one is doing a lot of lifting.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  I think you will find that neither will be the case. There have always been a vanishingly small number of artists who can make money on art, and that pool (and their value) will not be decreasing. Much of that pool is doing live performance art, like dancers and musicians, and when Napster and Spotify came to "destroy" the musician by giving everyone infinite reach, what actually happened was that more people succeeded as professionals. The photograph was also a tremendously good thing for visual artists, bringing in the impressionist era and opening up a whole new field of art in itself. As to the concept of changing the nature of the work of the "artist" - I can't think of an artist whose work wasn't changed by the technology of the time. From Prussian blue to the electric guitar, artists are usually made great by showing the new possibilities of the new technology of the age.
minimaxir 2y ago
There's some nuance here. Industries such as stock photography and audiobook narration are indeed artistic forms but can mostly be replaced with AI equivalents.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  I have not yet met an AI system that can get close to what an audiobook narrator does. I assume that more audiobooks will get lower-quality narration, but narration of audiobooks is often done either (1) by the author or (2) by someone who is very good at doing a dramatic reading. The former won't be replaced because the author's own reading of their work provides emphasis and nuance that shows their intentions, and the latter is still far beyond the capabilities of current text-to-speech. AI is very good at giving you an average-quality output. Art, by its very nature, is almost always a superlative expression of something.
  - minimaxir 2y ago
    Hence the mostly: audiobooks with extra benefits as you mention will be fine, but there's a massive long tail where average output is sufficient.
    - pclmulqdq 2y ago
      When you say "mostly replaced," then, you mean "grown through new capabilities." That is different from replacing the people in the industry.
cortesoft 2y ago
I think it is more accurate to say that AI is threatening a lot of the ways artists use their skills to create economic value. Making corporate logos, creating visuals for products, etc. Art won’t go away, just a lot of the ways artists support themselves.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  I personally highly doubt that any company worth $100 million or more will have an AI-generated logo in the next 30 years. Product visual mockups also aren't art. The product design itself is art, but I sort of suspect that a human designer will be the one driving the AI to make the visual.
  - pzo 2y ago
    Majority of artists are working for companies worth less than $100 millions. The SME sector is the bulk of our economy.
  - CuriouslyC 2y ago
    The artists at the firms making the logos are absolutely going to be using AI to come up with ideas to pitch to their creative director (with some human tune up).
    - pclmulqdq 2y ago
      Yes, exactly. This kind of AI is a tool for artists, not a replacement.
      - josephg 2y ago
        Well, for now at least.
      - voltaireodactyl 2y ago
        The trouble being that replacing drafts people creating options for the Art Director with AI creating options instead is that it removes a central path by which artists gained skill and experience in their industries (and the same is true across all disciplines). All will go well so long as people who came up the old ways are the ones using AI. Eventually they’ll be gone and all the experience and discernment will go with them. To put it in more immediate terms: the goal of business is profit. Cutting costs is a great way to do that immediately. It’s only over a longer span that things like Boeing reveal the issues. The goal of artists and the art industry is to create art that moves other people, at acceptable costs. Cutting costs with AI is a great way to do that immediately… You see where I’m going. Sure maybe we’ll have figured out an entirely new economic paradigm by the time this bill comes due. But I wouldn’t count on it. And hey, maybe you think art isn’t a career path worth any sort of consideration on this front, and that society will keep humming along just fine when AI takes over in that regard. I sure hope so, because that seems like the obvious conclusion of all current incentive structures.
dorkwood 2y ago
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digitalsushi 2y ago

If 'the artists are not going away' involves either paying the artists less or reducing the number of artists or the meaning of being an artist being redefined I would not immediately agree. ... but the third one is doing a lot of lifting.

pclmulqdq 2y ago
I think you will find that neither will be the case. There have always been a vanishingly small number of artists who can make money on art, and that pool (and their value) will not be decreasing. Much of that pool is doing live performance art, like dancers and musicians, and when Napster and Spotify came to "destroy" the musician by giving everyone infinite reach, what actually happened was that more people succeeded as professionals. The photograph was also a tremendously good thing for visual artists, bringing in the impressionist era and opening up a whole new field of art in itself. As to the concept of changing the nature of the work of the "artist" - I can't think of an artist whose work wasn't changed by the technology of the time. From Prussian blue to the electric guitar, artists are usually made great by showing the new possibilities of the new technology of the age.

minimaxir 2y ago

There's some nuance here. Industries such as stock photography and audiobook narration are indeed artistic forms but can mostly be replaced with AI equivalents.

pclmulqdq 2y ago
I have not yet met an AI system that can get close to what an audiobook narrator does. I assume that more audiobooks will get lower-quality narration, but narration of audiobooks is often done either (1) by the author or (2) by someone who is very good at doing a dramatic reading. The former won't be replaced because the author's own reading of their work provides emphasis and nuance that shows their intentions, and the latter is still far beyond the capabilities of current text-to-speech. AI is very good at giving you an average-quality output. Art, by its very nature, is almost always a superlative expression of something.
- minimaxir 2y ago
  Hence the mostly: audiobooks with extra benefits as you mention will be fine, but there's a massive long tail where average output is sufficient.
  - pclmulqdq 2y ago
    When you say "mostly replaced," then, you mean "grown through new capabilities." That is different from replacing the people in the industry.

cortesoft 2y ago

I think it is more accurate to say that AI is threatening a lot of the ways artists use their skills to create economic value. Making corporate logos, creating visuals for products, etc. Art won’t go away, just a lot of the ways artists support themselves.

pclmulqdq 2y ago
I personally highly doubt that any company worth $100 million or more will have an AI-generated logo in the next 30 years. Product visual mockups also aren't art. The product design itself is art, but I sort of suspect that a human designer will be the one driving the AI to make the visual.
- pzo 2y ago
  Majority of artists are working for companies worth less than $100 millions. The SME sector is the bulk of our economy.
- CuriouslyC 2y ago
  The artists at the firms making the logos are absolutely going to be using AI to come up with ideas to pitch to their creative director (with some human tune up).
  - pclmulqdq 2y ago
    Yes, exactly. This kind of AI is a tool for artists, not a replacement.
    - josephg 2y ago
      Well, for now at least.
    - voltaireodactyl 2y ago
      The trouble being that replacing drafts people creating options for the Art Director with AI creating options instead is that it removes a central path by which artists gained skill and experience in their industries (and the same is true across all disciplines). All will go well so long as people who came up the old ways are the ones using AI. Eventually they’ll be gone and all the experience and discernment will go with them. To put it in more immediate terms: the goal of business is profit. Cutting costs is a great way to do that immediately. It’s only over a longer span that things like Boeing reveal the issues. The goal of artists and the art industry is to create art that moves other people, at acceptable costs. Cutting costs with AI is a great way to do that immediately… You see where I’m going. Sure maybe we’ll have figured out an entirely new economic paradigm by the time this bill comes due. But I wouldn’t count on it. And hey, maybe you think art isn’t a career path worth any sort of consideration on this front, and that society will keep humming along just fine when AI takes over in that regard. I sure hope so, because that seems like the obvious conclusion of all current incentive structures.

dorkwood 2y ago

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