I think effort is a signal that whatever the thing is, the artist/team -really- wanted to put it out there and have people view it. They had -something- that dr

I think effort is a signal that whatever the thing is, the artist/team -really- wanted to put it out there and have people view it. They had -something- that drove them to take the time and effort to make the thing. Zero-effort output generators like prompting means people are just generating trash that they themselves don't even care about. So why should I take my time to watch/experience that? The whole "GenAI is accessible" sentiment is ridiculous in my opinion. Absolutely nothing is stopping people from learning various art mediums, and those are skills they'll always have unlike image generators which can change subscription plans or outright the underlying model. Absolutely no one should be lauding being chained to a big corp's tool/model to produce output. --- Why should being an artist be a viable job? Well, people should get paid for their work. That applies to all domains except technical people love to look down on art while still wanting to watch movies, well produced youtube videos, etc. You can see it in action here on HN frequently: someone will link a blog post they took time to write and edit... and then generate an image instead of paying an artist. They want whatever effect a big header image provides, but are not willing to pay a human to do it or do it themselves. Somehow because it's "just art" it's okay to steal. --- If tech has progressed to the point of true "general artificial intelligence", then likely all jobs will be obsolete and we're going to have to rethink this whole capitalism thing. I think all industries should be utilizing tech to augment their capabilities, but I don't think actual people should be replaced with our current guesstimator/bullshitter "AI". Especially not critical roles like doctors and nurses.