OpenAI's latest image-generation update has taken social media by storm, as users are flooding X, Instagram, and Reddit with Studio Ghibli-style images
The bigger problem here is the loss of jobs and we are talking about a huge loss of employment that will affect economies really hard.
I would say that’s a tangential problem. Because, you know, in theory…
But the deeper problem is ultimately in expertise as a learned skill developed over time and through practice. If you’re de-skilling work, you’re dismantling the tools by which we train the next generation of artists and production crews. If we were just replacing humans with machines for some route manual labor (like Pixar replaced Disney’s old hand drawn animations with a newer CGI look), the result would be a new style and perhaps less tendentious from route reproductions.
But we’re gutting the whole process of development which means you’re losing the pool of skilled professionals who know how to create CGI (or even flip-book style 60s animation) from first principles. That means sacrificing whole fields of specialized expertise for… what? This?
Reminds me of how millennials and generations onward have learned less and less maintainence skills to the point where most of us can’t sow or fix shit if it’s broken because we grew up in a consumer culture where you just buy a new one when the old one breaks. The quality of products have decreased too so they break quicker which gives people incentive to buy a new one instead of fixing.
My parents generation hold on to old items and they patch up their clothes and know how to fix shit around the house but they didn’t teach me any of that because the culture shifted and it wasn’t really needed.
We are not only losing skills and tactile learning and understanding, we are also rapidly torpedoing out planet into a massive trash heap. Which is a bit of a duh, I know, but still.
I for one have noticed the insane decline in the quality of clothes after covid. It is shockingly shitty now and tears faster than ever. Shirts and leggings I bought ten years ago still hold up while similar shirts and leggings from a few years ago already tear or unravel. It is shocking.
I guess this is what will eventually happen to art too.
millennials and generations onward have learned less and less maintainence skills to the point where most of us can’t sow or fix shit if it’s broken because we grew up in a consumer culture where you just buy a new one when the old one breaks
Planned Obselecence means a lot of modern consumer goods are deliberately designed to be difficult to repair.
More cheap plastic used for buckles and clasps. More glue used in place of screws or latches. More electronics soddered or otherwise made irreplaceable/inaccessible to an amateur. Shoes, in particular, leap to mind. Shoe repair used to be a standard dry cleaning service. It’s practically extinct today. Very few good ways to repair a modem sneaker.
My parents generation hold on to old items and they patch up their clothes and know how to fix shit around the house but they didn’t teach me any of that because the culture shifted and it wasn’t really needed.
There’s a time cost to repair and maintenance that’s often frustrating. I don’t blame folks for opting towards convenience. But I feel horrible every time I take out the trash, knowing how much plastic waste I accrue every month.
That will only happen if a society completely is reorganized to get rid of money or if they introduce universal basic income (at a rate that actually allows people to live).
Realistically I can’t see either of those things happening.
Just shifting the tax burden from salaries toward capital should make it less of a problem. When capital income is taxed less than salaries wealth concentration gets worse as workers are replaced.
But hey, GDP line goes up, so it must be good right?
Or, more broadly, when individuals are recognized as valued participants in the community rather than obsolete expenses to try and scratch off the books.
Realistically I can’t see either of those things happening.
Not under current business and political leadership, no. But with a strong union movement leading a next generation of working class people… maybe.
Because this will take time to happen, and the thing about not eating because you have literally no money, is it’s a rather immediate concern. You can’t just wait a decade or so for everyone to sort it out.
I’ve seen pretty much the same thing happening in the programming space. In another 10 years there’s going to be a massive shortage of senior programmers who are capable of doing anything more complicated than the AI, and able to sort out the messes everyone’s creating with it.
All the companies not wanting to hire entry level programmers right now is also a big problem for those starting now. I can only hope companies realize AI is not a replacement for a human’s learning ability.
I think it’s intentional. Where you had to think to do something, you’d inevitably learn to think. Where you had to put soul and wisdom and aesthetic feeling into your work, you’d inevitably touch those things for other parts of your life.
There are people higher in the society, who think lower castes shouldn’t have that and will be fine with knowledge and expertise just sufficient to do their jobs.
They wouldn’t be so hellbent on this particular technology, if they didn’t see how relatively recent progress changed that curve of expertise for radio, electric engineering, all engineering, computer science, automobiles, home appliances, and what not. So they see this consistently works for 25+ years.
So they work to deprive us of practice that allows to do more in all those directions. There’s a moat that could as well be an abyss between what we know and what we’d need to know to make relevant things. That moat wasn’t there 25 years ago. The path from a novice computer user to someone knowing all DOS interrupts and what DMA and IRQ are was less than the path from a novice computer user today to making a simple GUI application.
(I’ve got executive dysfunction, so feel these things more, but I’m certain they are true.)
I would say that’s a tangential problem. Because, you know, in theory…
But the deeper problem is ultimately in expertise as a learned skill developed over time and through practice. If you’re de-skilling work, you’re dismantling the tools by which we train the next generation of artists and production crews. If we were just replacing humans with machines for some route manual labor (like Pixar replaced Disney’s old hand drawn animations with a newer CGI look), the result would be a new style and perhaps less tendentious from route reproductions.
But we’re gutting the whole process of development which means you’re losing the pool of skilled professionals who know how to create CGI (or even flip-book style 60s animation) from first principles. That means sacrificing whole fields of specialized expertise for… what? This?
“A real labor of love”
Christ. It’s like people cosplaying as real artists.
I’m not sure Sam Altman even knows what labor is.
Oh God I just thought that was some random “AI artist.” It’s so much more cringe now that you’ve brought my attention to who posted it.
Reminds me of how millennials and generations onward have learned less and less maintainence skills to the point where most of us can’t sow or fix shit if it’s broken because we grew up in a consumer culture where you just buy a new one when the old one breaks. The quality of products have decreased too so they break quicker which gives people incentive to buy a new one instead of fixing.
My parents generation hold on to old items and they patch up their clothes and know how to fix shit around the house but they didn’t teach me any of that because the culture shifted and it wasn’t really needed.
We are not only losing skills and tactile learning and understanding, we are also rapidly torpedoing out planet into a massive trash heap. Which is a bit of a duh, I know, but still.
I for one have noticed the insane decline in the quality of clothes after covid. It is shockingly shitty now and tears faster than ever. Shirts and leggings I bought ten years ago still hold up while similar shirts and leggings from a few years ago already tear or unravel. It is shocking. I guess this is what will eventually happen to art too.
Planned Obselecence means a lot of modern consumer goods are deliberately designed to be difficult to repair.
More cheap plastic used for buckles and clasps. More glue used in place of screws or latches. More electronics soddered or otherwise made irreplaceable/inaccessible to an amateur. Shoes, in particular, leap to mind. Shoe repair used to be a standard dry cleaning service. It’s practically extinct today. Very few good ways to repair a modem sneaker.
There’s a time cost to repair and maintenance that’s often frustrating. I don’t blame folks for opting towards convenience. But I feel horrible every time I take out the trash, knowing how much plastic waste I accrue every month.
That will only happen if a society completely is reorganized to get rid of money or if they introduce universal basic income (at a rate that actually allows people to live).
Realistically I can’t see either of those things happening.
Just shifting the tax burden from salaries toward capital should make it less of a problem. When capital income is taxed less than salaries wealth concentration gets worse as workers are replaced.
But hey, GDP line goes up, so it must be good right?
Or, more broadly, when individuals are recognized as valued participants in the community rather than obsolete expenses to try and scratch off the books.
Not under current business and political leadership, no. But with a strong union movement leading a next generation of working class people… maybe.
What about the transition.
Because this will take time to happen, and the thing about not eating because you have literally no money, is it’s a rather immediate concern. You can’t just wait a decade or so for everyone to sort it out.
It’ll likely be a bloodsoaked mess, given the history of these things.
I’ve seen pretty much the same thing happening in the programming space. In another 10 years there’s going to be a massive shortage of senior programmers who are capable of doing anything more complicated than the AI, and able to sort out the messes everyone’s creating with it.
All the companies not wanting to hire entry level programmers right now is also a big problem for those starting now. I can only hope companies realize AI is not a replacement for a human’s learning ability.
I think it’s intentional. Where you had to think to do something, you’d inevitably learn to think. Where you had to put soul and wisdom and aesthetic feeling into your work, you’d inevitably touch those things for other parts of your life.
There are people higher in the society, who think lower castes shouldn’t have that and will be fine with knowledge and expertise just sufficient to do their jobs.
They wouldn’t be so hellbent on this particular technology, if they didn’t see how relatively recent progress changed that curve of expertise for radio, electric engineering, all engineering, computer science, automobiles, home appliances, and what not. So they see this consistently works for 25+ years.
So they work to deprive us of practice that allows to do more in all those directions. There’s a moat that could as well be an abyss between what we know and what we’d need to know to make relevant things. That moat wasn’t there 25 years ago. The path from a novice computer user to someone knowing all DOS interrupts and what DMA and IRQ are was less than the path from a novice computer user today to making a simple GUI application.
(I’ve got executive dysfunction, so feel these things more, but I’m certain they are true.)