Comment by fatbird
2 days ago
I keep thinking about how, 20 years, 3D printers became accessible for tech/price, and there was a lot of talk about how we'd all just print what we need (pretty much like in Stephenson's book Diamond Age), and you'd get rich selling digital patterns for material goods.
Instead, we got the elevation of the handmade, the verifiably human created, typified by the rise of Etsy. The last 20 years have been a boom time for artists and craftspeople.
I keep seeing AI slop and thinking that all this will do is make verifiably human created content more valuable by comparison, while generative AI content will seem lowbrow and not worth the cost to make it.
Sturgeon's law: 90% of everything is crap. Ergo we shouldn't be surprised if AI can replace 90% of supposed art and media in the long run. Not sure I will particularly notice since I can't stand most media already.
But good luck with that remaining 10% AI...
I think the reason 3D printers can't print anything is because most things are mixed media and 3D printers aren't so great at that yet. There are also issues with topology and the structural quality of 3D printed things compared to things put in a mold. And that's not entirely unlike people (who I once would have thought would know better ) oversimplifying the engineering and scientific challenges of AI for it to be human equivalent or better.
Creative people are on the whole a lot better at keeping AI slop out of art and craft fairs than they have been with the lazier output of 3D printers, CNC, laser engravers and off-the-shelf resin mould art.
It is as if the relatively unspoken feelings about the downsides of technologies as a gateway to art have been rapidly refined to deal with AI (and of course, even the CNC and laser engraver people have common cause).
But I think it is fair to say that if they feel success, there will be a growing pushback against the use of 3D printers, eufyMake resin printing and CNC in a niche where hand tools used to be the norm.
And speaking even as someone who has niche product ideas that will be entirely 3D printed/CNC cut/engraved, I don't really disagree with it. I am mostly not that kind of creative person (putting aside experimental photography techniques) and I see no reason why they shouldn't push back.
The reality is that "craft" fairs are an odd mix of people who spent a lot of time refining their art and selling things that are the work of hours of expressive creativity and effort, and table upon table of glittery resin mould art and vinyl cut stencil output stuck on off-the-shelf products. I think AI might help people refine their feelings about this stuff they once felt bad/incorrect/unkind about excluding.
It's a bit like the way the art photography market is rediscovering things like carbon printing, photosensitive etching and experimental cyanotype, and getting a lot more choosy about inkjet-printed DSLR output.