zlacker

Most art consumed today isn't about human expression, and it hasn't been for a very long time. Most art is produced for commercial reasons with the intent of making as much profit as possible.

Art-as-human-expression isn't going anywhere because it's intrinsically motivated. It's what people do because they love doing it. Just like people still do woodworking even though it's cheaper to buy a chair from Walmart, people will still paint and draw.

What is going to go away is design work for low-end advertising agencies or for publishers of cheap novels or any of the other dozens of jobs that were never bastions of human creativity to begin with.

>>lolind+(OP)
I think fine artists and others who make and sell individual art pieces for a living will probably be fine, yeah. (Or at least won't be struggling much worse than they are already.)

There are a lot of working commercial artists in between the fine art world and the "cheap novels and low-end advertising agencies" you dismiss, and there's no reason to think AI art won't eat a lot of their employment.

>>Phasma+Na
Of course it will. Their employment isn't sacred. They have a skill, we're teaching that skill to computers, and their skill will be worth less.

I don't pay someone to run calculations for me, either, also a difficult and sometimes creative process. I use a computer. And when the computer can't, then I either employ my creativity, or hire a creative.

>>Phasma+Na
Just like AI can't replace programmers completely because most people are terrible at defining their own software requirements, AI won't replace middle-tier commercial artists because most people have no design sense.

Commercial art needs to be eye catching and on brand if it's going to be worth anything, and a random intern isn't going to be able to generate anything with an AI that matches the vision of stakeholders. Artists will still be needed in that middle zone to create things that are on brand, that match stakeholder expectations, and that stand out from every other AI generated piece. These artists will likely start using AI tools, but they're unlikely to be replaced completely any time soon.

That's why I only mentioned the bottom tier of commercial art as being in danger. The only jobs that can be replaced by AI with the technology that we're seeing right now are in the cases where it really doesn't matter exactly what the art looks like, there just has to be something.

>>lolind+(OP)
It's an important distinction you make and hard to talk about without a vocabulary. The terms I've seen music historians use for this concept were:

- generic expression: commercial/pop/entertainment; audience makes demands on the art

- autonomous expression: artist's vision is paramount; art makes demands on the audience

Obviously these are idealized antipodes. The question about whether it is the art making the demands on the audience or the audience making demands on the art is especially insightful in my opinion. Given this rubric, I'd say AI-generated art must necessarily belong to "generic expression" simply because it's output has to meet fitness criteria.

>>archon+re
Okay, but that's a different argument from your original. First you said "only bad artists will lose their jobs," now it's "good artists will lose their jobs but I don't care."

>>Phasma+jk1
It's a different person. I'm the person you first replied to, and I don't believe good artists will lose their jobs.

This was my reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34005604

I also agree that artist employment isn't sacred, but after extensive use of the generation tools I don't see them replacing anything but the lowest end of the industry, where they just need something to fill a space. The tools can give you something that matches a prompt, but they're only really good if you don't have strong opinions about details, which most middle tier customers will.