3 ms·

A bold assumption, that it will continue not to. I have a 185 year old treatise on wood engraving. At the time, to reproduce any image required that it be engr

by ajb 1y ago

A bold assumption, that it will continue not to. I have a 185 year old treatise on wood engraving. At the time, to reproduce any image required that it be engraved in wood or metal for the printer; the best wood engravers were not mere reproducers, as they used some artistry when reducing the image to black and white, to keep the impression from continuous tones. (And some, of course, were also original artists in their own right). The wood engraving profession was destroyed by the invention of photo-etching (there was a weird interval before the invention of photo etching, in which cameras existed but photos had to be engraved manually anyway for printing). Maybe all the wood engravers found employment; although I doubt it. But at this speed, there will be a lot of people who won't be able to retrain during employment and will either have to use up their savings while doing so, or have to take lower paid jobs.

asadotzler 1y ago
As a graphic designer, my work didn't evaporate because Aldus shipped PageMaker. It didn't collapse when Office and the Web made clip art available to everyone. It didn't disappear when credit card, letterhead, and logo templates and generators came online. Every time a new tool allowed more DIY, the gulf between the low-effort stuff and my stuff grew and I was able to secure even more and better paying work. And using those tools early myself, I also gained advantage over my professional competition for various lengths of time. This is how engraving went too. It wasn't overnight. The tools were not distributed evenly and it was a good while before amateurs could produce anything like what the earlier professionals did. Because you can buy a microwave and pizza rolls doesn't make you a chef. Maybe in 100 years the tooling will make you as good as the chefs of our time, but by then they'll all be doing even better work and there are people who will pay for higher quality no matter how high the bar is raised for baseline quality so eliminating all work in a profession is rare.
- ajb 1y ago
  I hope you are right I'm a little confused by your point here: >This is how engraving went too. It wasn't overnight. The tools were not distributed evenly and it was a good while before amateurs could produce anything like what the earlier professionals did. In the case of engraving, most engravers weren't the original artist. The artist would draw their illustration on a wood blank, and the engraver would convert it to a print block. So artists were not completely replaced by photographers, except for journalistic sketchers, but the entire process changed and eliminated the job of engraving. Sure, high end artist-engravers kept going, but jobbing engravers were out of luck. There are still a few artists who specialise in engraving. But the point here isn't whether a few of the most accomplished professionals will still be in demand, but what happens to the vast bulk of average people.

by ajb 1y ago

asadotzler 1y ago

As a graphic designer, my work didn't evaporate because Aldus shipped PageMaker. It didn't collapse when Office and the Web made clip art available to everyone. It didn't disappear when credit card, letterhead, and logo templates and generators came online. Every time a new tool allowed more DIY, the gulf between the low-effort stuff and my stuff grew and I was able to secure even more and better paying work. And using those tools early myself, I also gained advantage over my professional competition for various lengths of time. This is how engraving went too. It wasn't overnight. The tools were not distributed evenly and it was a good while before amateurs could produce anything like what the earlier professionals did. Because you can buy a microwave and pizza rolls doesn't make you a chef. Maybe in 100 years the tooling will make you as good as the chefs of our time, but by then they'll all be doing even better work and there are people who will pay for higher quality no matter how high the bar is raised for baseline quality so eliminating all work in a profession is rare.

ajb 1y ago
I hope you are right I'm a little confused by your point here: >This is how engraving went too. It wasn't overnight. The tools were not distributed evenly and it was a good while before amateurs could produce anything like what the earlier professionals did. In the case of engraving, most engravers weren't the original artist. The artist would draw their illustration on a wood blank, and the engraver would convert it to a print block. So artists were not completely replaced by photographers, except for journalistic sketchers, but the entire process changed and eliminated the job of engraving. Sure, high end artist-engravers kept going, but jobbing engravers were out of luck. There are still a few artists who specialise in engraving. But the point here isn't whether a few of the most accomplished professionals will still be in demand, but what happens to the vast bulk of average people.