I mean, twofold questions here. Were artists really wanting those jobs in the first place, for one? I would think that, you know, along those lines, this is just kinda the long end of a process that has been taking place throughout the whole of the 20th century. Used to be that you would have to get someone to paint your billboard, paint your glass storefront, used to be that you would have to hire skilled draftsmen to draw up blueprints on huge boards, for basically every product. Now we’re at the point where you only hire an artist to draw something if you really want to get something that looks very original, for some reason, because otherwise you can probably just get it in a stock library, and make whatever you want with stock assets, even without AI. You might also still be looking to artists for product design, but that’s maybe going to be less and less the case as you get design processes that are driven more by committee, and consumer feedback.
So along those lines, the total number of art available to artists to do, would be dwindling all the time, basically because the total amount of art floating around in culture, or at least, the total amount of art monetizable by culture, has remained the same for much of the 20th century, and automation has simply made it easier to get rid of artists.
Second question, right, is… I dunno, I forgot it. damn. There’s probably also some theoretical point about capitalism and how this is just the mechanism through how it’s working at current, and not the fault of the technology specifically as much as the organization and forces of the market, but I feel like everyone’s already made that point mostly, and it wasn’t gonna be my second question. I dunno maybe if I cook long enough I’ll remember what it was gonna be.
I’d argue that those are still jobs lost to automation, that just weren’t mourned like jobs are today because they weren’t lost after decades of huge swatches of jobs being taken over by automation.
When billboard painters were replaced there were 1000 other places they could go. When today’s fiverr app artist loses their small niche income to AI, they’re losing what was already their last ditch artistic income. It’s the same issue, but the scale makes it hit WAY harder now.
I mean, twofold questions here. Were artists really wanting those jobs in the first place, for one? I would think that, you know, along those lines, this is just kinda the long end of a process that has been taking place throughout the whole of the 20th century. Used to be that you would have to get someone to paint your billboard, paint your glass storefront, used to be that you would have to hire skilled draftsmen to draw up blueprints on huge boards, for basically every product. Now we’re at the point where you only hire an artist to draw something if you really want to get something that looks very original, for some reason, because otherwise you can probably just get it in a stock library, and make whatever you want with stock assets, even without AI. You might also still be looking to artists for product design, but that’s maybe going to be less and less the case as you get design processes that are driven more by committee, and consumer feedback.
So along those lines, the total number of art available to artists to do, would be dwindling all the time, basically because the total amount of art floating around in culture, or at least, the total amount of art monetizable by culture, has remained the same for much of the 20th century, and automation has simply made it easier to get rid of artists.
Second question, right, is… I dunno, I forgot it. damn. There’s probably also some theoretical point about capitalism and how this is just the mechanism through how it’s working at current, and not the fault of the technology specifically as much as the organization and forces of the market, but I feel like everyone’s already made that point mostly, and it wasn’t gonna be my second question. I dunno maybe if I cook long enough I’ll remember what it was gonna be.
I’d argue that those are still jobs lost to automation, that just weren’t mourned like jobs are today because they weren’t lost after decades of huge swatches of jobs being taken over by automation.
When billboard painters were replaced there were 1000 other places they could go. When today’s fiverr app artist loses their small niche income to AI, they’re losing what was already their last ditch artistic income. It’s the same issue, but the scale makes it hit WAY harder now.