No, there was no empathy for them. And I feel there's no real empathy for artists, either.
Before the eeeevil robot came to be, no one gave much of a damn about artists or their opinion. Suddenly we are instrumental to humanity's culture, but people is too busy spreading hatred to listen to any artists that aren't in agreement, what makes me feel it's less about being an artist and more about being emotionally-charged "useful idiots" for anti-AI agendas.
Have you seen AI outputs carefully? I have for the last seven months, and if an artist can be replaced by it, maybe that artist deserves it. I say this as an artist, 36 years of experience.
The worst is that this will be considered a hot take and mean-spirited by the immensely biased HN crowd, but lifeless art can be replaced by lifeless art, and that's the artist's fault for just coasting from check to check without putting much effort, therefore producing empty, emotionless art. We all know this, we all call it out when it happens, but for some reason this entire AI topic is making people forget it's a thing.
This is no different from that lazy guy at the office that just does the bare minimum to not get fired. Getting rid of them may give a more talented and unique but less popular artist a chance to get a job.
> if an artist can be replaced by it, maybe that artist deserves it. I say this as an artist, 36 years of experience.
This is such an insane take to me at this point. I've used a few of the AI art generators and there is close to zero chance I will ever hire an artist or a graphic designer again (yes, I've hired artists).
I've seen the shortcomings, and sure a very expensive artist can fulfill my needs at an A+ level 100% of the time. But why would I pay so much money to a human artist when after a few minutes and a couple prompts I have a B+ or A- result? As a person with finite money, that last teeny bit of quality is not worth hundreds or thousands of dollars when compared with a very good result for essentially nothing.
People are saying the same thing about programming. That if you're set to be replaced by this you're not "very good". I cost a LOT of money. I am good at what I do. AI is essentially free at that too and learning at an insane rate.
I am not talking about GPT and LLM models. I have no opinion on those. I have an opinion on art because it's something I know intimately.
Art is a form of expression available to all, it's not just art for business or commission. That only the business side of art is being discussed is ignoring what art actually means. Not everything is business, and I loathe "time is money" kinda worldviews, honestly.
I'm already able to create excellent models of any subject I desire in 15-45 minutes, with remarkable quality aside from bad hands, and usable forever once trained, then how come I'm still drawing? (more than usual, in fact)
Understand that and you'll understand my argument.
> Before the eeeevil robot came to be, no one gave much of a damn about artists or their opinion. Suddenly we are instrumental to humanity's culture, but people is too busy spreading hatred to listen to any artists that aren't in agreement, what makes me feel it's less about being an artist and more about being emotionally-charged "useful idiots" for anti-AI agendas.
Artists spread disinformation and hate too, in fact I'd count them as one of the primary sources of those things. Mere existence of political cartoonists is the simplest example if we go by the literal term "artist". Artists are rarely if ever divorced from their work either, so I don't think they can claim that the art really takes on it's own life.
I do agree with you on everything else you have said.
Before the eeeevil robot came to be, no one gave much of a damn about artists or their opinion. Suddenly we are instrumental to humanity's culture, but people is too busy spreading hatred to listen to any artists that aren't in agreement, what makes me feel it's less about being an artist and more about being emotionally-charged "useful idiots" for anti-AI agendas.
Have you seen AI outputs carefully? I have for the last seven months, and if an artist can be replaced by it, maybe that artist deserves it. I say this as an artist, 36 years of experience.
The worst is that this will be considered a hot take and mean-spirited by the immensely biased HN crowd, but lifeless art can be replaced by lifeless art, and that's the artist's fault for just coasting from check to check without putting much effort, therefore producing empty, emotionless art. We all know this, we all call it out when it happens, but for some reason this entire AI topic is making people forget it's a thing.
This is no different from that lazy guy at the office that just does the bare minimum to not get fired. Getting rid of them may give a more talented and unique but less popular artist a chance to get a job.