Comment by Chance-Device
17 hours ago
I think this is probably a trend that will erode with time, even now it’s probably just moved underground. How many human artists are using AI for concepts then laundering the results? Even if it’s just idea generation, that’s a part of the process. If it speeds up throughput, then maybe that’s fewer jobs in the long run.
And if AI assisted products are cheaper, and are actually good, then people will have to vote with their wallets. I think we’ve learned that people aren’t very good at doing that with causes they claim to care about once they have to actually part with their money.
A huge issue with voting with your wallet is fraud. It's easy to lie about having no AI in your process. Especially if the final product is laundered by a real artist.
Because voting with your wallet is nonsense, we can decide what society we want to live in we don't have to accept one in which human artists can't make a living. Capitalism isn't a force of nature we discovered like gravity, it's deliberate choices we made.
Which I assume is why you pay someone to hand-paint scenes from your holidays instead of taking photographs? And why you employ someone to wash your clothes on a scrubbing board instead of using a machine?
Or would you prefer these things be outlawed to increase employment?
You have to always devolve to individual responsibility and freedom to make your case. But games are a 250+ billion dollar industry employing hundreds of thousands of artists who's jobs are all threatened by generative ai in the future, that's systemic, structural. We can all look at that future and decide to make a different choice, that is actual freedom, what you describe is collective helplessness.