zlacker

>>dredmo+(OP)
I've been finding that the strangest part of discussions around art AI among technical people is the complete lack of identification or empathy: it seems to me that most computer programmers should be just as afraid as artists, in the face of technology like this!!! I am a failed artist (read, I studied painting in school and tried to make a go at being a commercial artist in animation and couldn't make the cut), and so I decided to do something easier and became a computer programmer, working for FAANG and other large companies and making absurd (to me!!) amounts of cash. In my humble estimation, making art is vastly more difficult than the huge majority of computer programming that is done. Art AI is terrifying if you want to make art for a living- and, if AI is able to do these astonishingly difficult things, why shouldn't it, with some finagling, also be able to do the dumb, simple things most programmers do for their jobs?

The lack of empathy is incredibly depressing...

>>meebob+kc
My (admittedly totally non-rigorous) intuition is that the advances in AI might "grow the pot" of the software engineering, IT, and related industries at roughly the same rate that they can "replace professionals" in those industries. If that's the case, then there wouldn't be some existential threat to the industry. Of course, that doesn't mean that certain individuals and entire companies aren't at risk, and I don't want to minimize the potential hardship, but it doesn't seem like a unique or new problem.

As a crude analogy, there are a lot of great free or low-cost tools to create websites that didn't exist 15 years ago and can easily replace what would be a much more expensive web developer contract 15 years ago. And yet, in those last 15 years, the "size of the web pot" has increased enough that I don't think many professional web developers are worried about site builder tools threatening the entire industry. There seem to be a lot more web developers now then there were 15 years ago, and they seem to be paid as well or better than they were 15 years. And again, that doesn't mean that certain individuals or firms didn't on occasion experience financial hardship due to pressure from cheaper alternatives, and I don't want to minimize that. It just seems like the industry is still thriving.

To be clear, I really have no idea if this will turn out to be true. I also have no idea if this same thing might happen in other fields like art, music, writing, etc.