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My kids both have creative hearts, and they are terrified that A.I. will prevent them from earning a living through creativity. Very recently, I've had an alter

My kids both have creative hearts, and they are terrified that A.I. will prevent them from earning a living through creativity. Very recently, I've had an alternate thought. We've spent decades improving the technology of entertainment, spending billions (trillions?) of dollars in the process. When A.I. can generate any entertainment you can imagine, we might start finding this kind of entertainment boring. Maybe, at that point, we decide that exploring space, stretching our knowledge of physics and chemistry, and combating disease are far more interesting because they are real. And, through the same lens, maybe human-created art is more interesting because it is real.

solaris152000 2y ago
I had a similar thought. I knew someone who lived a life of crime, for a long time he was very poor like most criminals, but for a while made it big. He could buy anything he wanted, he always liked suits so bought very nice suits. But they meant nothing to him, he couldn't enjoy them, as he didn't earn then. I wonder if it will be the same with AI. When you can have anything for nothing, it has no value. So the digital world will have little meaning.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
  That's my optimistic belief as well but I've also been disappointed at every turn. The future feels like a nihilistic joke constantly competing to plot the most disappointing course forward. More likely the average person will happily lap up AI generated slop.
  - deleted 2y ago
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- dyauspitr 2y ago
  He might be an exception because most people would have no problems riding around in a million dollar car whether they earned it or not.
  - jprete 2y ago
    Nobody cares about driving around in a million-dollar car. They want the money/power/status of the person who owns the million-dollar car. An unearned million-dollar car is practically a liability instead of an asset.
CooCooCaCha 2y ago
The idea that we won’t care about art is frankly strange. But I think people will still need to make interesting art regardless of the tools. So far AI doesn’t seem very good at the creative element.
jppittma 2y ago
Or maybe, the limiting factor in one's ability to create art will be... creativity rather than the technical skills necessary to make movies, draw, or pluck strings.
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  Nah, creativity cannot be separated from the means. "The medium is the message". It is precisely the interaction of technical skill and the mind that creates something truly wonderful.
  - farts_mckensy 2y ago
    That's not exactly what McLuhan meant by that statement. "The medium is the message" refers more to how the medium itself influences the way a message is perceived by an audience. It is not an assessment of the creative process itself. It's not as though I disagree entirely with what you're saying though. There are certainly ways in which the medium is highly influential over the process of creating something. But it's a mixed bag, and technical skill is not something to be celebrated in all cases. A technically accurate painting is oftentimes quite dull and uninspired. One could argue that creativity isn't just the interaction of skill and mind, but rather the ability to think beyond the medium, to embrace accidents, imperfections, and impulsive decisions.
- judge2020 2y ago
  The issue is that the human performance of those things is precisely how creativity is expressed. You can tell an AI to write a story you envision but if there’s nothing unique in the presentation (or it copies the presentation from existing media to a large extent) you still end up with boring output.
- ativzzz 2y ago
  A lot of creativity is generated by spending countless hours sharpening > the technical skills necessary to make movies, draw, or pluck strings AI will (hopefully) be an accelerator for the people still putting in the hours. At least it is for coding
- 2y ago
Animats 2y ago
"And, through the same lens, maybe human-created art is more interesting because it is real." Most human-created art is rather bad. I used to go to a lot of art openings, and we'd look at some works and ask "will this have been tossed in five years?"
- sbarre 2y ago
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- causal 2y ago
  Being pleasing to the eye is often not the point. Technical ability is a small part of the art experience. That's one reason a lot of people hate calling image gens "art" - it's so flashy without substance. But it's also a reason I don't think generative AI is much of a threat to the human practice of art-making. That said, AI is probably a threat to roles in the entertainment industry. But it's also worth noting that much of the creativity was being sucked out of entertainment well before AI arrived.
teaearlgraycold 2y ago
Unless we have god-like robotics I don't see AI making physical art any time soon. We can print out photos but people still buy paintings. We can 3D print but people still buy sculptures. People are paid to design and build beautiful buildings and interiors. And of course if you can combine skills with sculpture with graphic design you're getting more specialized and are more likely to make a living - even if the field of graphic design is decimated by AI. That's generally how I feel about my skills as a programmer. I'm not just a programmer. So even if AI does most of the work with coding I can still write code for income as long as it's not the only reason I'm getting paid.
sk11001 2y ago
Earning a living through creativity doesn't work for the majority of people anyway even without AI in the picture. Creative expression is a thing that exists for its own sake, the people who make a living out of it are lucky outliers.
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  And so what if they are outliers? It is precisely the outliers that spice up our artistic wealth to make it truly interesting.
  - bigstrat2003 2y ago
    "So what" is that OP's children shouldn't be terrified about the prospects of an artistic career because of AI. It is not going from "good career choice" to "long shot", more like "long shot" to "somewhat longer shot".
briandear 2y ago
We heard this same argument when cameras were invented. Yet some of the most valuable paintings in the world were created in the 20th century. We heard it again when electronic music started becoming a thing. Formula 1 wouldn’t exist if the blacksmiths had their way. The unknown scares people because they are afraid of their known paradigms being shattered. But the new things ahead are often beyond anything of which we could ever dream. Be optimistic.
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  One must not use analogy to analyze individual technologies. People were afraid of the camera, yes, but the camera does not attempt to replace painting. AI attempts to replace photography, painting, and all sorts of art with something that looks like the real thing. Photography never tried to do that, as photographs don't look anything like paintings.
  - ToValueFunfetti 2y ago
    When the camera was invented, it did replace what paintings were used for at the time. Photographs don't look like paintings, but up until the camera paintings were trying to look like photographs. It's no coincidence that impressionism arrived at the same time as the camera.
    - vouaobrasil 2y ago
      There is a difference between replacing usage and replacing the exact art and the people who make it. Yes, the camera influenced painting, but it did not destroy it. AI attempts to destroy natural human expression.
  - hindsightbias 2y ago
    Is anyone working on a painting robot that would use colors, strokes and textures based off of great painters?
  - hyperG 2y ago
    You are just wrong. Before the camera, portrait painting was how most painters would make their living and the camera upended that completely. On the last line, look up hyperrealist painter on a search engine. That is the reverse , an artistic movement in painting inspired by the photograph.
beezlebroxxxxxx 2y ago
> And, through the same lens, maybe human-created art is more interesting because it is real. Conversations I have with people in real life almost always come back to this point. Most people find AI stuff novel, but few find it particularly interesting on an artistic level. I only really hear about people being ecstatic about AI online, by people who are, for lack of a better term, really online, and who do not have the skills, know-how, or ability, to make art themselves. I always find the breathless joy that some people express at this stuff with confusion. To me, the very instant someone mentions "AI generated" I just instantly find it un-interesting artistically. It's not the same as photoshop or using digital art suites. It's AI generated. Insisting on the bare minimum human involvement as a feature is just a non-starter for me if something is presented as art. I'll wait to see if the utopian vision people have for this stuff comes to fruition. But I have enough years of seeing breathless positivity for some new tech curdle into resignation that it's ended up as ad focused, bland, MBA driven, slop, that I'm not very optimistic.
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  I think the main point is that art is interesting precisely because it can transmit human experience. It's communication from another human being. AI "media" completely lacks that. It's more of an expression of the machine-soul, which is tempting us to continue its development until it takes over.
  - polishdude20 2y ago
    For me, art is more interesting, moving, soul connecting the more it is made by less and less people. Art by one person gives me a unique perspective to the artists mind. AI generated art is the opposite of being created by one person. It's an amalgamation of millions or billions of people's input. To me that's uninteresting, not novel and not mind-expanding at all.
- visarga 2y ago
  > Insisting on the bare minimum human involvement as a feature is just a non starter for me if something is presented as art You can make the guidance as superficial or detailed as you like. Input detailed descriptions, use real images as reference, you can spend a minute or a day on it. If you prompt "cute dog" you should expect generic outputs. If you write half a screen with detailed instructions, you can expect it to be mostly your contribution. It's the old "you're holding it wrong" problem. BTW, try to input an image in chatGPT or Claude and ask for a description, you will be amazed how detailed it can get.
phainopepla2 2y ago
I suspect the demand for human creative output will shrink, as AI generated content will be so cheap and prevalent, even as it will only ever be an imitation of human art. The same way that most people eat terrible, flavorless tomatoes from the supermarket, instead of the harder to grow heirloom varieties. But I don't think human creativity is going anywhere. Unless there is some breakthrough that moves it far beyond anything we've seen so far, AI will always be trailing behind us. Human creativity might become a more boutique product, like heirloom tomatoes, but there will always be people who value it.
- throwaway2203 2y ago
  There might be more creating it than there are those valuing it
GaggiX 2y ago
Most of my entertainment is watching dudes sitting in their chairs talking into a microphone. I find it more entertaining than the billion dollar entertainment industry.
AddCommentz 2y ago
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batch12 2y ago
I think there will be a body that certifies artistic content as organic similar to food. This will create a premium offering for organic content and a lower tier AI /uncertified level.
createacct 2y ago
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mrtksn 2y ago
AI content is already very dull, the text is dull the music is dull the images and videos are also dull. No one is interested in AI Seinfeld or this short movie that AI created. Their only audience is just people admiring what the machines come to be able to do. Any AI content that's good, and there are a few of them, actually has plenty of human creativity in it. There are some AI artist that begin to emerge or there are some AI generated personas out there who are interesting but they are interesting only because the people behind it made it interesting. I am not fatalistic at all for the creatives. AI is going to wipe out the producers and integrators(people that specialize in putting things together, like coders who code when tasked, painters who paint when commissioned, musicians that play once provided with the score), not the creatives. The GOTCHA, IMHO, will be people not developing skills because the machine can do it but I guess maybe they will the skills that make the machine sing.
righthand 2y ago
So we’ll automate away entertainment jobs but none of the cool science jobs will be automated? I don’t understand how this proposed world will have an available work for scientists but not entertainers.
- supriyo-biswas 2y ago
  At least for Meta, this has implications for keeping people engaged in their metaverse.
farts_mckensy 2y ago
Science is never going to supplant art. They serve two very different functions in society. What I hope is that performance art and experiences that can't be easily replicated by AI become more mainstream. Things like ARGs and multimedia storytelling, where there is a back and forth participatory sort of process between the audience and the creator.
deleted 2y ago
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Fluorescence 2y ago
Cheaper more effective entertainment is likely to only cause more problems: it will be more addictive, better at hijacking our brains and attention, better at pushing the propaganda goals of the author, better at filling traditional "human needs" of relationships that forever separates us from each other into a civilisation of Hikikomori. I have little faith in an optimistic view of human nature where we voluntarily turn more toward more intellectual or worthy pursuits. On one hand, entertainment has often been the seed that drives us to make the imagined real, but the adjacent possible of rewarding adventure/discovery/invention only seems to get more unaffordable and out of reach. Intellectual revolutions are like gold rushes. They require discovery, that initial nugget in a stream, the novel idea that opens a door to new opportunities that draws in the prospectors. Without fresh opportunity, there is no enthusiasm and we stew in our juices. I suspect the only thing that might save us from total solipsistic brain-in-vat immersion in entertainment... is something like glp-1 type antagonists. If they can help us resist a plate of Danish maybe they can protect us from barrages of Infinite Jest brain missiles from Netflix about incestuous cat wizards or whatever. Who knows what alternatives this new permanently medicated society, Pharma-Sapiens, might pursue instead though.
- petesergeant 2y ago
  We'll be able to start fuzz testing the human brain. A horror film that uses bio-feedback to really push the bits that are actually terrifying you, in real-time. Campaign videos that lean in to the bit that your lizard brain is responding to.
  - slavik81 2y ago
    The Onion was ahead of the curve with "New Live Poll Lets Punits Pander To Viewers In Real Time". https://youtu.be/uFpK_r-jEXg https://youtu.be/uFpK_r-jEXg
- schmorptron 2y ago
  I believe you're right too. The internet and smartphones are great technology in general, and can do pretty great things but what they've ended up doing was screwing with the reward mechanisms in my brain since I was a teenager. Most optimized use case. Reading these threads sometimes feels like a bad idea, because you just get new sad ideas on how things will almost certainly be used to make it worse than just the ones you can come up on your own.
hindsightbias 2y ago
They will be creating for a very small crowd. It will be nice for me, because I can't stand all the blockbuster movies that prioritize stretching physics with unrealistic special effects over plot and dialog. I think the musicians that are barely hanging on at this point would prefer to create over having to slog around on tours to pay their health insurance. But nobody is paying for creation.
Alex-Programs 2y ago
> Maybe, at that point, we decide that exploring space, stretching our knowledge of physics and chemistry, and combating disease are far more interesting because they are real. It's a compelling thought - we all like hope - and I think it might be realistic if all of humanity were made up of the same kind of people who read hacker news. But is this not what the early adopters of the internet thought? I wasn't there - this is all second hand - but as far as I know people felt that, once everyone gained the ability to learn anything and talk to anyone, anywhere, humanity would be more knowledgeable, more thoughtful, and more compassionate. Once everyone could effortlessly access information, ignorance would be eliminated. After all, that's what it was like for the early adopters. But it wasn't so in practice. I worry that hopeful visions of the future have an aspect of projecting ourselves onto humanity.
kypro 2y ago
Why would humans explore space when AIs are more intelligent and more physically able to? Seems more likely we'll just plug ourselves into ever more addicting dopamine machines. That's certainly the trend so far anyway.
hcarvalhoalves 2y ago
Art and entertainment are different things.
earth_walker 2y ago
Paint didn't replace charcoal. Photography didn't replace drawings. Digital art didn't replace physical media. Random game level generation didn't replace architecture. AI generated works will find a place beside human generated works. It may even improve the market for 'artsy' films and great acting by highlighting the difference a little human talent can make. It's not the art that's at risk, it's the grunt work. What will shift is the volume of human-created drek that employed millions to AI-created drek that employs tens.
boogieknite 2y ago
Im hopeful US will have some subsidy for real creative works like ive seen in europe. My limited understanding is that AI could generate Netflix top 10 hits that mostly recycle familiar jokes. The creators made a great product, but i expect anyone who attended film school would rather try something new, only issue is Netflix wont foot the bill (i know, they take a few oscar swings a year now). Recent examples: TV Glow, Challengers, Strange Darling. All movies with specific, unique perspectives, visuals, acting choices, scripts, shots, etc. Think about the perspective in The Wire, The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm. There is plenty of great work that obviously is nearly impossible to reproduce by an AI and i hope that AI "art" is taxed in a way that funds human projects.
zoogeny 2y ago
Consider another angle. I follow a lot of the new AI gen crowd on Twitter. This community is made up of a lot of creative industry people. One guy who worked in commercials shared a recent job he was on for a name brand. They had a soundstage, actors, sound people, makeup, lighting, etc. setup for 3 days for the shoot. Something like 25 people working for 3 days. But behind that was about 3 months of effort if one includes pre-production and post-production. Think about editing, color correction, sound editing, music, etc. Your creative children may live in a world where they can achieve a similar result themselves. Perhaps as a small team, one person working on characters, one person doing audio, one person writing a script. Instead of needing tens of thousands of dollars of rented equipment and 25 experts, they will be able to take ideas from their own head and realize them with persistence and AI generation. I honestly believe these new tools will unlock potential beyond what we can currently imagine.
- Miraste 2y ago
  That will be the end of creative work. Marketing and promotion is already the most difficult part of any creative endeavor. With literally unlimited trash being produced, it'll become impossible.
  - deisteve 2y ago
    There's a term to describe this: creative destruction, literally. We are at the cusp of a full scale commoditization stage of generative AI that will impact all aspects of the creative/software fields. If you want to know what this creative destruction will look like, look no further than previous centers of innovation like Detroit, the emptying naval shipyards of Busan, the zombie game studios around Osaka as a sign of things to come. TLDR: AI is going to destroy a lot of white collar, high creativity, high intellect jobs that isn't protected by a union or occupational collective associations which were all created to counter against creative destructions from taking people's livelihoods away. Unfortunately, 10 years ago when I tried to create a union organization for software engineers/designers and creative workers, it was sabotaged by fellow software engineers who seem highly susceptible to psyops much more than any other group. We might see a repeat of what happened in Japan after mid 90s, when much of the country's stable and ample jobs disappeared thanks to internet, globalized financiering backed by authoritarian labour market. Instead this time its not a communist country working together with bankers rather its a small group of technology companies pushing out bankers and creating a sort of a dystopian AI dominated labour field where humans no longer dumpster dive for wages but any remaining labour industry that AI cannot infiltrate aka ppl literally switching careers to stay employed because their old jobs were outsourced to AI. I didn't even talk about the impact on wages (spoiler: it will enrich the 0.1% while shunning the 99.9% to temporary gigs and unstable employment not unlike regions which have experienced similar creative destruction back in the 90s and early 2000s). It's hard to see a future without some sort of universal basic income and increased taxation on billionaires who will no longer be able to hide their assets offshore without facing serious headwinds not unlike how Chinese billionaires fear the CCP.
echoangle 2y ago
If I imagine a random person on the street, they certainly aren’t enjoying fine human arts because it’s made by a real person. They are scrolling TikTok and don’t care if it’s AI generated or not, if they even notice. The people actually caring about art because it is art are maybe 20% of the population.
- alex_suzuki 2y ago
  I think 20% is being generous… more like 2%.
layer8 2y ago
Creativity is about having original ideas. So far, AI isn’t that good at that, and neither at maintaining a consistent idea throughout a production. Will AI be able to come up with a compelling novel series, music album, video game, movie or TV series in ten years? Possibly, but there’s also a good chance that it won’t.
- elwell 2y ago
  The same can be said about plain old I.
- energy123 2y ago
  Most creatives work in at-risk jobs like freelance writing, SEO, digital advertising, logo design
hackable_sand 2y ago
Are they gonna stay scared as adults? Lmao Are you?
atleastoptimal 2y ago
How would you know it's real? AI art could be portrayed as real and most people wouldn't care if it has a stronger emotional effect.
mlboss 2y ago
It is easy to do really creative work now but it is even easier to just browse instagram or tiktok. The real winner in the new world will be people with discipline who can use these tech to create stuff without too much capital or resources.
- WhyOhWhyQ 2y ago
  Why would anybody create stuff that the AI companies are just going to instantly subsume and reproduce far more cheaply? There is not going to be a meaningful economy based on creativity in the next 50 years, any more than there is one now. And then it is going to be far worse. The actual "winners" are just going to be the people who through arbitrary processes like fortunate birth or lucky circumstances are granted admission into elite institutions.
  - mlboss 2y ago
    That is a very pessimistic take. In my opinion things are much more accessible now. Nobody cares about your background on internet as long as you can provide value. For example, you can build a wrapper over an LLM focussed on a niche this weekend(using cursor/copilot) and launch it over twitter. It is very much possible with the tools we have. If you market it hard and provide value consumers will line up. This kind of power was not available 50 years back. Things are easier if you want to hit big. But also it is easy to just be a consumer of media and social media. Depends on which side of the algorithm you are. Also it does not help to think like a victim of your circumstances. You need to start where you are and try to keep pushing what is possible.
    - WhyOhWhyQ 2y ago
      I said 50 years from now. People like you who think you're going to come out on top of this by throwing everyone else under the bus, treating them like consumers, are a huge part of the problem. That kind of parasitic behavior is not "providing value" except in the cynical way that it let's you devalue other people's lives for your own gain.
wraptile 2y ago
Recently I've been cutting back on TV in favor of non fiction reading and I feel you have a point. Entertainment comes in many forms and tbh all of them are interesting and rewarding in their own ways so I'm not worried of AI ruining entertainment for us. That's the least of our actual worries and I'm honestly surprised people find this issue so important. I guess visualizing AI doing political or social damage or AGI mind control is a bit harder than your favorite show being gone.
mvdtnz 2y ago
I have yet to see any AI produce a single morsel of content of any kind that I would class as even remotely entertaining. So we'll see.
spaceman_2020 2y ago
It really bugs me that the first bits AI has targeted are the parts people actually enjoy doing for fun. As things stand, AI is okay at writing, art/photos, coding, and now, videos. These are all things people like doing. Even coding is something a lot of people get a ton of pleasure from.

solaris152000 2y ago

I had a similar thought. I knew someone who lived a life of crime, for a long time he was very poor like most criminals, but for a while made it big. He could buy anything he wanted, he always liked suits so bought very nice suits. But they meant nothing to him, he couldn't enjoy them, as he didn't earn then. I wonder if it will be the same with AI. When you can have anything for nothing, it has no value. So the digital world will have little meaning.

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
That's my optimistic belief as well but I've also been disappointed at every turn. The future feels like a nihilistic joke constantly competing to plot the most disappointing course forward. More likely the average person will happily lap up AI generated slop.
- deleted 2y ago
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dyauspitr 2y ago
He might be an exception because most people would have no problems riding around in a million dollar car whether they earned it or not.
- jprete 2y ago
  Nobody cares about driving around in a million-dollar car. They want the money/power/status of the person who owns the million-dollar car. An unearned million-dollar car is practically a liability instead of an asset.

CooCooCaCha 2y ago

The idea that we won’t care about art is frankly strange. But I think people will still need to make interesting art regardless of the tools. So far AI doesn’t seem very good at the creative element.

jppittma 2y ago

Or maybe, the limiting factor in one's ability to create art will be... creativity rather than the technical skills necessary to make movies, draw, or pluck strings.

vouaobrasil 2y ago
Nah, creativity cannot be separated from the means. "The medium is the message". It is precisely the interaction of technical skill and the mind that creates something truly wonderful.
- farts_mckensy 2y ago
  That's not exactly what McLuhan meant by that statement. "The medium is the message" refers more to how the medium itself influences the way a message is perceived by an audience. It is not an assessment of the creative process itself. It's not as though I disagree entirely with what you're saying though. There are certainly ways in which the medium is highly influential over the process of creating something. But it's a mixed bag, and technical skill is not something to be celebrated in all cases. A technically accurate painting is oftentimes quite dull and uninspired. One could argue that creativity isn't just the interaction of skill and mind, but rather the ability to think beyond the medium, to embrace accidents, imperfections, and impulsive decisions.
judge2020 2y ago
The issue is that the human performance of those things is precisely how creativity is expressed. You can tell an AI to write a story you envision but if there’s nothing unique in the presentation (or it copies the presentation from existing media to a large extent) you still end up with boring output.
ativzzz 2y ago
A lot of creativity is generated by spending countless hours sharpening > the technical skills necessary to make movies, draw, or pluck strings AI will (hopefully) be an accelerator for the people still putting in the hours. At least it is for coding
2y ago

Animats 2y ago

"And, through the same lens, maybe human-created art is more interesting because it is real." Most human-created art is rather bad. I used to go to a lot of art openings, and we'd look at some works and ask "will this have been tossed in five years?"

sbarre 2y ago
[flagged]
causal 2y ago
Being pleasing to the eye is often not the point. Technical ability is a small part of the art experience. That's one reason a lot of people hate calling image gens "art" - it's so flashy without substance. But it's also a reason I don't think generative AI is much of a threat to the human practice of art-making. That said, AI is probably a threat to roles in the entertainment industry. But it's also worth noting that much of the creativity was being sucked out of entertainment well before AI arrived.

teaearlgraycold 2y ago

Unless we have god-like robotics I don't see AI making physical art any time soon. We can print out photos but people still buy paintings. We can 3D print but people still buy sculptures. People are paid to design and build beautiful buildings and interiors. And of course if you can combine skills with sculpture with graphic design you're getting more specialized and are more likely to make a living - even if the field of graphic design is decimated by AI. That's generally how I feel about my skills as a programmer. I'm not just a programmer. So even if AI does most of the work with coding I can still write code for income as long as it's not the only reason I'm getting paid.

sk11001 2y ago

Earning a living through creativity doesn't work for the majority of people anyway even without AI in the picture. Creative expression is a thing that exists for its own sake, the people who make a living out of it are lucky outliers.

vouaobrasil 2y ago
And so what if they are outliers? It is precisely the outliers that spice up our artistic wealth to make it truly interesting.
- bigstrat2003 2y ago
  "So what" is that OP's children shouldn't be terrified about the prospects of an artistic career because of AI. It is not going from "good career choice" to "long shot", more like "long shot" to "somewhat longer shot".

briandear 2y ago

We heard this same argument when cameras were invented. Yet some of the most valuable paintings in the world were created in the 20th century. We heard it again when electronic music started becoming a thing. Formula 1 wouldn’t exist if the blacksmiths had their way. The unknown scares people because they are afraid of their known paradigms being shattered. But the new things ahead are often beyond anything of which we could ever dream. Be optimistic.

vouaobrasil 2y ago
One must not use analogy to analyze individual technologies. People were afraid of the camera, yes, but the camera does not attempt to replace painting. AI attempts to replace photography, painting, and all sorts of art with something that looks like the real thing. Photography never tried to do that, as photographs don't look anything like paintings.
- ToValueFunfetti 2y ago
  When the camera was invented, it did replace what paintings were used for at the time. Photographs don't look like paintings, but up until the camera paintings were trying to look like photographs. It's no coincidence that impressionism arrived at the same time as the camera.
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    There is a difference between replacing usage and replacing the exact art and the people who make it. Yes, the camera influenced painting, but it did not destroy it. AI attempts to destroy natural human expression.
- hindsightbias 2y ago
  Is anyone working on a painting robot that would use colors, strokes and textures based off of great painters?
- hyperG 2y ago
  You are just wrong. Before the camera, portrait painting was how most painters would make their living and the camera upended that completely. On the last line, look up hyperrealist painter on a search engine. That is the reverse , an artistic movement in painting inspired by the photograph.

beezlebroxxxxxx 2y ago

> And, through the same lens, maybe human-created art is more interesting because it is real. Conversations I have with people in real life almost always come back to this point. Most people find AI stuff novel, but few find it particularly interesting on an artistic level. I only really hear about people being ecstatic about AI online, by people who are, for lack of a better term, really online, and who do not have the skills, know-how, or ability, to make art themselves. I always find the breathless joy that some people express at this stuff with confusion. To me, the very instant someone mentions "AI generated" I just instantly find it un-interesting artistically. It's not the same as photoshop or using digital art suites. It's AI generated. Insisting on the bare minimum human involvement as a feature is just a non-starter for me if something is presented as art. I'll wait to see if the utopian vision people have for this stuff comes to fruition. But I have enough years of seeing breathless positivity for some new tech curdle into resignation that it's ended up as ad focused, bland, MBA driven, slop, that I'm not very optimistic.

vouaobrasil 2y ago
I think the main point is that art is interesting precisely because it can transmit human experience. It's communication from another human being. AI "media" completely lacks that. It's more of an expression of the machine-soul, which is tempting us to continue its development until it takes over.
- polishdude20 2y ago
  For me, art is more interesting, moving, soul connecting the more it is made by less and less people. Art by one person gives me a unique perspective to the artists mind. AI generated art is the opposite of being created by one person. It's an amalgamation of millions or billions of people's input. To me that's uninteresting, not novel and not mind-expanding at all.
visarga 2y ago
> Insisting on the bare minimum human involvement as a feature is just a non starter for me if something is presented as art You can make the guidance as superficial or detailed as you like. Input detailed descriptions, use real images as reference, you can spend a minute or a day on it. If you prompt "cute dog" you should expect generic outputs. If you write half a screen with detailed instructions, you can expect it to be mostly your contribution. It's the old "you're holding it wrong" problem. BTW, try to input an image in chatGPT or Claude and ask for a description, you will be amazed how detailed it can get.

phainopepla2 2y ago

I suspect the demand for human creative output will shrink, as AI generated content will be so cheap and prevalent, even as it will only ever be an imitation of human art. The same way that most people eat terrible, flavorless tomatoes from the supermarket, instead of the harder to grow heirloom varieties. But I don't think human creativity is going anywhere. Unless there is some breakthrough that moves it far beyond anything we've seen so far, AI will always be trailing behind us. Human creativity might become a more boutique product, like heirloom tomatoes, but there will always be people who value it.

throwaway2203 2y ago
There might be more creating it than there are those valuing it

GaggiX 2y ago

Most of my entertainment is watching dudes sitting in their chairs talking into a microphone. I find it more entertaining than the billion dollar entertainment industry.

AddCommentz 2y ago

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batch12 2y ago

I think there will be a body that certifies artistic content as organic similar to food. This will create a premium offering for organic content and a lower tier AI /uncertified level.

createacct 2y ago

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mrtksn 2y ago

AI content is already very dull, the text is dull the music is dull the images and videos are also dull. No one is interested in AI Seinfeld or this short movie that AI created. Their only audience is just people admiring what the machines come to be able to do. Any AI content that's good, and there are a few of them, actually has plenty of human creativity in it. There are some AI artist that begin to emerge or there are some AI generated personas out there who are interesting but they are interesting only because the people behind it made it interesting. I am not fatalistic at all for the creatives. AI is going to wipe out the producers and integrators(people that specialize in putting things together, like coders who code when tasked, painters who paint when commissioned, musicians that play once provided with the score), not the creatives. The GOTCHA, IMHO, will be people not developing skills because the machine can do it but I guess maybe they will the skills that make the machine sing.

righthand 2y ago

So we’ll automate away entertainment jobs but none of the cool science jobs will be automated? I don’t understand how this proposed world will have an available work for scientists but not entertainers.

supriyo-biswas 2y ago
At least for Meta, this has implications for keeping people engaged in their metaverse.

farts_mckensy 2y ago

Science is never going to supplant art. They serve two very different functions in society. What I hope is that performance art and experiences that can't be easily replicated by AI become more mainstream. Things like ARGs and multimedia storytelling, where there is a back and forth participatory sort of process between the audience and the creator.

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Fluorescence 2y ago

Cheaper more effective entertainment is likely to only cause more problems: it will be more addictive, better at hijacking our brains and attention, better at pushing the propaganda goals of the author, better at filling traditional "human needs" of relationships that forever separates us from each other into a civilisation of Hikikomori. I have little faith in an optimistic view of human nature where we voluntarily turn more toward more intellectual or worthy pursuits. On one hand, entertainment has often been the seed that drives us to make the imagined real, but the adjacent possible of rewarding adventure/discovery/invention only seems to get more unaffordable and out of reach. Intellectual revolutions are like gold rushes. They require discovery, that initial nugget in a stream, the novel idea that opens a door to new opportunities that draws in the prospectors. Without fresh opportunity, there is no enthusiasm and we stew in our juices. I suspect the only thing that might save us from total solipsistic brain-in-vat immersion in entertainment... is something like glp-1 type antagonists. If they can help us resist a plate of Danish maybe they can protect us from barrages of Infinite Jest brain missiles from Netflix about incestuous cat wizards or whatever. Who knows what alternatives this new permanently medicated society, Pharma-Sapiens, might pursue instead though.

petesergeant 2y ago
We'll be able to start fuzz testing the human brain. A horror film that uses bio-feedback to really push the bits that are actually terrifying you, in real-time. Campaign videos that lean in to the bit that your lizard brain is responding to.
- slavik81 2y ago
  The Onion was ahead of the curve with "New Live Poll Lets Punits Pander To Viewers In Real Time". https://youtu.be/uFpK_r-jEXg https://youtu.be/uFpK_r-jEXg
schmorptron 2y ago
I believe you're right too. The internet and smartphones are great technology in general, and can do pretty great things but what they've ended up doing was screwing with the reward mechanisms in my brain since I was a teenager. Most optimized use case. Reading these threads sometimes feels like a bad idea, because you just get new sad ideas on how things will almost certainly be used to make it worse than just the ones you can come up on your own.

hindsightbias 2y ago

They will be creating for a very small crowd. It will be nice for me, because I can't stand all the blockbuster movies that prioritize stretching physics with unrealistic special effects over plot and dialog. I think the musicians that are barely hanging on at this point would prefer to create over having to slog around on tours to pay their health insurance. But nobody is paying for creation.

Alex-Programs 2y ago

> Maybe, at that point, we decide that exploring space, stretching our knowledge of physics and chemistry, and combating disease are far more interesting because they are real. It's a compelling thought - we all like hope - and I think it might be realistic if all of humanity were made up of the same kind of people who read hacker news. But is this not what the early adopters of the internet thought? I wasn't there - this is all second hand - but as far as I know people felt that, once everyone gained the ability to learn anything and talk to anyone, anywhere, humanity would be more knowledgeable, more thoughtful, and more compassionate. Once everyone could effortlessly access information, ignorance would be eliminated. After all, that's what it was like for the early adopters. But it wasn't so in practice. I worry that hopeful visions of the future have an aspect of projecting ourselves onto humanity.

kypro 2y ago

Why would humans explore space when AIs are more intelligent and more physically able to? Seems more likely we'll just plug ourselves into ever more addicting dopamine machines. That's certainly the trend so far anyway.

hcarvalhoalves 2y ago

Art and entertainment are different things.

earth_walker 2y ago

Paint didn't replace charcoal. Photography didn't replace drawings. Digital art didn't replace physical media. Random game level generation didn't replace architecture. AI generated works will find a place beside human generated works. It may even improve the market for 'artsy' films and great acting by highlighting the difference a little human talent can make. It's not the art that's at risk, it's the grunt work. What will shift is the volume of human-created drek that employed millions to AI-created drek that employs tens.

boogieknite 2y ago

Im hopeful US will have some subsidy for real creative works like ive seen in europe. My limited understanding is that AI could generate Netflix top 10 hits that mostly recycle familiar jokes. The creators made a great product, but i expect anyone who attended film school would rather try something new, only issue is Netflix wont foot the bill (i know, they take a few oscar swings a year now). Recent examples: TV Glow, Challengers, Strange Darling. All movies with specific, unique perspectives, visuals, acting choices, scripts, shots, etc. Think about the perspective in The Wire, The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm. There is plenty of great work that obviously is nearly impossible to reproduce by an AI and i hope that AI "art" is taxed in a way that funds human projects.

zoogeny 2y ago

Consider another angle. I follow a lot of the new AI gen crowd on Twitter. This community is made up of a lot of creative industry people. One guy who worked in commercials shared a recent job he was on for a name brand. They had a soundstage, actors, sound people, makeup, lighting, etc. setup for 3 days for the shoot. Something like 25 people working for 3 days. But behind that was about 3 months of effort if one includes pre-production and post-production. Think about editing, color correction, sound editing, music, etc. Your creative children may live in a world where they can achieve a similar result themselves. Perhaps as a small team, one person working on characters, one person doing audio, one person writing a script. Instead of needing tens of thousands of dollars of rented equipment and 25 experts, they will be able to take ideas from their own head and realize them with persistence and AI generation. I honestly believe these new tools will unlock potential beyond what we can currently imagine.

Miraste 2y ago
That will be the end of creative work. Marketing and promotion is already the most difficult part of any creative endeavor. With literally unlimited trash being produced, it'll become impossible.
- deisteve 2y ago
  There's a term to describe this: creative destruction, literally. We are at the cusp of a full scale commoditization stage of generative AI that will impact all aspects of the creative/software fields. If you want to know what this creative destruction will look like, look no further than previous centers of innovation like Detroit, the emptying naval shipyards of Busan, the zombie game studios around Osaka as a sign of things to come. TLDR: AI is going to destroy a lot of white collar, high creativity, high intellect jobs that isn't protected by a union or occupational collective associations which were all created to counter against creative destructions from taking people's livelihoods away. Unfortunately, 10 years ago when I tried to create a union organization for software engineers/designers and creative workers, it was sabotaged by fellow software engineers who seem highly susceptible to psyops much more than any other group. We might see a repeat of what happened in Japan after mid 90s, when much of the country's stable and ample jobs disappeared thanks to internet, globalized financiering backed by authoritarian labour market. Instead this time its not a communist country working together with bankers rather its a small group of technology companies pushing out bankers and creating a sort of a dystopian AI dominated labour field where humans no longer dumpster dive for wages but any remaining labour industry that AI cannot infiltrate aka ppl literally switching careers to stay employed because their old jobs were outsourced to AI. I didn't even talk about the impact on wages (spoiler: it will enrich the 0.1% while shunning the 99.9% to temporary gigs and unstable employment not unlike regions which have experienced similar creative destruction back in the 90s and early 2000s). It's hard to see a future without some sort of universal basic income and increased taxation on billionaires who will no longer be able to hide their assets offshore without facing serious headwinds not unlike how Chinese billionaires fear the CCP.

echoangle 2y ago

If I imagine a random person on the street, they certainly aren’t enjoying fine human arts because it’s made by a real person. They are scrolling TikTok and don’t care if it’s AI generated or not, if they even notice. The people actually caring about art because it is art are maybe 20% of the population.

alex_suzuki 2y ago
I think 20% is being generous… more like 2%.

layer8 2y ago

Creativity is about having original ideas. So far, AI isn’t that good at that, and neither at maintaining a consistent idea throughout a production. Will AI be able to come up with a compelling novel series, music album, video game, movie or TV series in ten years? Possibly, but there’s also a good chance that it won’t.

elwell 2y ago
The same can be said about plain old I.
energy123 2y ago
Most creatives work in at-risk jobs like freelance writing, SEO, digital advertising, logo design

hackable_sand 2y ago

Are they gonna stay scared as adults? Lmao Are you?

atleastoptimal 2y ago

How would you know it's real? AI art could be portrayed as real and most people wouldn't care if it has a stronger emotional effect.

mlboss 2y ago

It is easy to do really creative work now but it is even easier to just browse instagram or tiktok. The real winner in the new world will be people with discipline who can use these tech to create stuff without too much capital or resources.

WhyOhWhyQ 2y ago
Why would anybody create stuff that the AI companies are just going to instantly subsume and reproduce far more cheaply? There is not going to be a meaningful economy based on creativity in the next 50 years, any more than there is one now. And then it is going to be far worse. The actual "winners" are just going to be the people who through arbitrary processes like fortunate birth or lucky circumstances are granted admission into elite institutions.
- mlboss 2y ago
  That is a very pessimistic take. In my opinion things are much more accessible now. Nobody cares about your background on internet as long as you can provide value. For example, you can build a wrapper over an LLM focussed on a niche this weekend(using cursor/copilot) and launch it over twitter. It is very much possible with the tools we have. If you market it hard and provide value consumers will line up. This kind of power was not available 50 years back. Things are easier if you want to hit big. But also it is easy to just be a consumer of media and social media. Depends on which side of the algorithm you are. Also it does not help to think like a victim of your circumstances. You need to start where you are and try to keep pushing what is possible.
  - WhyOhWhyQ 2y ago
    I said 50 years from now. People like you who think you're going to come out on top of this by throwing everyone else under the bus, treating them like consumers, are a huge part of the problem. That kind of parasitic behavior is not "providing value" except in the cynical way that it let's you devalue other people's lives for your own gain.

wraptile 2y ago

Recently I've been cutting back on TV in favor of non fiction reading and I feel you have a point. Entertainment comes in many forms and tbh all of them are interesting and rewarding in their own ways so I'm not worried of AI ruining entertainment for us. That's the least of our actual worries and I'm honestly surprised people find this issue so important. I guess visualizing AI doing political or social damage or AGI mind control is a bit harder than your favorite show being gone.

mvdtnz 2y ago

I have yet to see any AI produce a single morsel of content of any kind that I would class as even remotely entertaining. So we'll see.

spaceman_2020 2y ago

It really bugs me that the first bits AI has targeted are the parts people actually enjoy doing for fun. As things stand, AI is okay at writing, art/photos, coding, and now, videos. These are all things people like doing. Even coding is something a lot of people get a ton of pleasure from.