Comment by ZephyrBlu
3 years ago
> Because despite controlnet solving their complaints about how the AI isn't controllable precisely, it doesn't solve the real problem, that drawing skills are massive devalued
At this point if I was an artist I'd probably be looking for a way to leverage my existing skills into AI art, because it seems like drawing skills will go the way of the horse and carriage.
I feel bad because this has happened so quickly. Previously it seems like there was a longer transition period.
This kind of transition has got me thinking the same about coding though. If AI programming does indeed take over, my programming skills will likely be massively devalued.
If you believe this is going to happen, how should you prepare for it? Start learning prompting now? Get involved with building these AIs? Etc.
I've tried to convince artists to transition to the AI-augmented future, since October. There's almost no successes. I've seen artist communities on multiple websites, in multiple languages. At first they tried to laugh at the AI. Now the AI has improved so radically so fast, they universally prefer to stick their head in the sand, and ban discussion of AI altogether, its all denial and rage.
On the more optimistic side. I see an extraordinary explosion in artistic innovation, just look at websites like CivitAI. The massive community all training subcomponents of the models for each other to share. The models rapidly improving every month just through fine-tuning and theoretical innovation, without stabilityAI's involvement (They are distracted by lawsuits now). There are many 3d-artists intensely experimenting with AI art, to say make AI-anime, which has illustration qualities on every frame (A previous impossibility due to the costs involved).
It seems with AI, it'll really cleave communities in two. The ones who eagerly embrace it, seem to enjoy it extraordinarily, and achieve quite a lot of popularity and success. But the rest just want to pretend it doesn't exist, waiting till employers realize that they are no longer needed.
Regarding programming, it doesn't appear that AI programming can replace humans. Programming is very similar to novel writing in terms of complexity for AIs. And AIs are still extremely terrible at long-form storytelling. The lesson is to aggressively use AI tools as much as possible, to understand the long-term weaknesses of AIs, and deliver your values in those areas as a human.
I've tried to convince artists to transition to the AI-augmented future, since October.
This comment is funny, "I've given the artists fair warning of 6 months that they're careers are over."
But the rest just want to pretend it doesn't exist, waiting till employers realize that they are no longer needed.
So when the employers fire the artists, who will replace them sorry? Will the C-level executives at my company be using DALL-E instead? How does it work? Would they just not hire a "creative assistant" who will probably hire other assistants ?
I've seen artist communities on multiple websites, in multiple languages. At first they tried to laugh at the AI. Now the AI has improved so radically so fast, they universally prefer to stick their head in the sand, and ban discussion of AI altogether, its all denial and rage.
I'd love to see these raging artist discussions? Can you link a few?
I'd also love to see a comparable thread on HN where some non-programmer rocks up, starts linking some forms he built using a low code tool to prove HN's skills are obsolete whilst modestly proposing that everyone here should forget about writing code and focus on business analysis and sales...
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>who will replace them sorry?
A group of individuals who will use AI as an augmentation, even people with inferior drawing skills but able to get better results faster, a man with an excavator replaces several people with a shovel.
I'd love to see these raging artist discussions? Can you link a few?
I'm not OP but Twitter is full, you can start from @kortizart and find all kinds of account of people who are illustrators but now only rage against AI art.
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I understand AI programming isn't there yet, but it seems likely that sometime in the next decade the same thing that's happening to artists will happen to programmers.
I've heard the analogy (I think I might have originally read it on HN) that software engineers in the 2020s are like Detroit auto workers in the 1950s - highly skilled, highly paid, and doomed. I hope this is wrong.
I don't think the market for highly technical "computer guys" is going to disappear, but the nature of the job is probably going to change dramatically. But then it wouldn't be the first time - hasn't the job already changed completely since, say, the 1980s? I can't imagine working in this job before the internet existed, but many did. Maybe in another decade or two I'll be saying that I can't remember what it was like to do this kind of work before AI was this good.
Already happened. It’s called product management and spec writing. The vast majority of professional programmers today are essentially sign painters working from spec.
> seems like drawing skills will go the way of the horse and carriage.
The exact same thing happened to technical drafters when CAD destroyed the entire (sub-)industry.
And to typesetting, for that matter[1].
Which is a pity in the human sense and the sense that both were forms of artistry and produced things of great beauty, both the product and the machines used to enable them, but they're simply not economical in the face of Solidworks and digital composition. And yet the replacement technologies have also enabled a lot more creativity and further advances. Objects with complex geometries are now possible to specify and manufacture, when they previously could not even be accurately drawn.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wapping_dispute, where not only could the unions not simply oppose the rising sea-level of technology, but their failure seriously damaged union credibility in general.
> At this point if I was an artist I'd probably be looking for a way to leverage my existing skills into AI art, because it seems like drawing skills will go the way of the horse and carriage
Drawing skills were made redundant for producing most types of high quality image before the motor car but people still pay for hand drawn items
Not sure AI lowering the skill barrier for and speeding up the generation of digital art is really going to change that
> my programming skills will likely be massively devalued
I see this in the context of the drawing vs. art analogy. Yes, your typing and maybe syntax skills will be devalued, but your higher level, creative programming skills are probably safe for a good long time yet.
Depends what you mean by 'good long time'. I think at this point it's worth acting under the assumption that programming will not be a well compensated career in 5-10 years, and either be prepared to switch to something else or try to make a lot of money in the near term.
Also, if I'm wrong then I get to be pleasantly surprised.
AI has yet to completely replace people in any industry. I fail to see how it would replace an industry that creates massive, complicated code bases in 10 years. Let alone 5. All roads seem to point to AI assisted work. Programmers will move “higher level”. That doesn’t mean they become poorly compensated.
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I'm sure there will be some overlap, but prompting is sufficiently different from programming that I think a lot of skills will not translate.
They will, because you need to know to prompt for (as an example) "a real-time data-tracking and reporting application backed by a column database with logical replication fed by a task queue, having an isomorphic client cached across multiple regions via a CDN."
Without the engineering know-how, your "write me an app that displays data from this source in a dashboard" prompt might work, but it won't be robust and when it doesn't work you won't be able to figure out why.
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Especially combined with deep knowledge of the business domain you work in.
>If you believe this is going to happen, how should you prepare for it? Start learning prompting now? Get involved with building these AIs? Etc.
If you still want to work as someone who produces code - except your personal code factory has changed from brain and fingers to AI - then yeah, you should probably do both of those things.
Even if you spend 1-2 years and this AI hype doesn't work out, you still have those skills to go back to.
Frankly, this mainstream adoption by Google and Microsoft is, uh, not going great. So you can afford to observe for now, but AI advancements have been made very rapidly, so it's not wise to completely ignore it either.
> If you believe this is going to happen, how should you prepare for it? Start learning prompting now? Get involved with building these AIs? Etc.
Short of advocating for artists' unions...
Law is still going to govern anything AI creates, so anyone who develops a skillset in both art and law would be well-positioned to gatekeep as a copyright troll. This carves out a career for yourself and enacts revenge by making it a liability for employers to use AI to replace artists.
HR is the theocratic version of that, since law school isn't cheap. You can still gatekeep, but you'd be playing by more-arbitrary rules ("you can't use that AI because it incorporates images of Women Without Penises," etc.).
Security is pragmatic, but I worry about the long-term stability of it. Every time a breach is announced, there are no consequences, so why even pretend to need it?
I used to suggest pivoting to tangible works and experiences (architecture, sculpture, etc.), but those are easily displaced as well-- I would bet against it now.
Look at porn-- what started as a handful of performers in studios is now done by any college student with a webcam in their bedroom (next up to be replaced with AI-generated content).
For now, you can still add value as a sex worker by offering the GFE, but even that's about to be obsolete. You can get your fix of flirting from a chatbot (TTS or sexting) and 3D print a copy of anybody else's genitalia. Remote-controls, vibrators and fluid pumps add some life to it. And you don't even have to leave the house, which affords you privacy to pursue darker subjects without oversight and save you more time for repeat consumption.
Truly, what a wonderful world...
Go with the flow. AI will need humans to be effective, humans will need AI to remain competitive. But everyone will have the same base models, just like we all have the same web search and electricity. AI won't be a competitive advantage, it will be a basic requirement.
Do you believe the number and complexity of software applications will decrease in the next 10 years because of AI, or that it will spawn whole new ecosystems of software and new types of jobs? I believe the second is more reasonable, we will have higher expectations from software in 2033 than in 2023. The easier AI makes it, the more difficult we make the tasks.
Human desires fill the available space like air, AI exponential is slower than our entitlement. So we still need to work.
> If you believe this is going to happen
I believe this is going to happen (and is happening right now, in front of us) not just for programmers but for any role that can be automated.
> How should you prepare for it?
Get equity. I mean ownership stake. If you don't have a legal/financial claim on the output of the machine then you're about to be part of the worthless surplus from the POV of the system.
> Start learning prompting now?
No, the machines will do that well enough in a minute or two.
> Get involved with building these AIs?
No, the machines will do that well enough in a minute or two too.
- - - -
Artificial Intelligence destroys scarcity, which is the fundamental basis of our societies and economies.
Think about it: scarcity is the very problem that societies and economies evolved to solve in the first place.
Now science and capitalism have delivered technology and wealth. There is enough to go around if we just worked out the logistics, and computers can do that for us in a matter of moments. In other words, the "World Game" is not hard! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Game we just have to get over our hangups.
Now here's where it gets really interesting: ChatGPT et. al. don't have glands, they don't have emotional trauma, no PTSD from being humans-on-Earth for generations, etc. We can program them to be sane and perhaps even wise.
We can also attach empirical feedback devices to them, make them scientists...
So we have physical abundance and benevolent, sane, empirically-grounded AI advisors, how much longer will it take to sort things out? I think we could be looking at the start of a Golden Age?