Find the weaknesses of AI generated imagery and do the things that it can't.
Ask HN: What am I supposed to do after I’m “disrupted”? Work in video and CG
21–30 of 225 posts
Re: Ask HN: What am I supposed to do after I’m “disrupted”? Work in video and CG
#22I am a 2d artist and I have similar feelings.
Are you as full of loathing for all the HN people saying “just integrate the AI into your practice” as I am? I like drawing stuff and I love that this pays my bills and I really have zero interest in becoming a “prompt engineer” instead.
I think a strategy of creating an image of AI art as cheap and tacky is useful. For how long, I don’t know. If we’re lucky then it’ll turn out that getting these things out of the domain of creepy claw hands is a lot harder than anyone thinks it will be, and there will be a lot of obvious tells for a long time.
It may also be useful to try and get your professional associations to bring some suits against these things for playing fast and loose with “fair use”. The legality of these things is debatable, and so’s where “fair use” should fall - personally I feel like nobody posting work on the internet anticipated their stuff being scraped and fed into a giant neural net designed to take their job. Make this shit a lot pricier by demanding that it be built on art explicitly licensed for machine training.
Figuring out where the intersection of “art you like to make” and “art the AI sucks at” lies is worthwhile. If your passion is realistic painterly work then you’re fucked, what do you enjoy doing that isn’t that?
Re: Ask HN: What am I supposed to do after I’m “disrupted”? Work in video and CG
#23Become a plumber. It'll be a while till robots can replace you in the trades.
Re: Ask HN: What am I supposed to do after I’m “disrupted”? Work in video and CG
#24Some excerpts from your website in the future: "We use AI to optimise our early-stage iterations" "AI is great for generating initial concepts. Here are some of ourfavourites, and some that didn't turn out so well!" "Did you know AI can reduce our turnaround for clients by up to 50%?" In other words: it'll help. It won't replace you.
...which, by the way, is how most automation turns out. I've worked in semiconductor manufacturing and software, and in both cases the automation that was at one point predicted to eliminate jobs, just made the people more productive, which made them more valuable, and instead of fewer jobs there were more, because more could be done by each person (so the range of applications that were economical to do was increase…
It made them appear more productive. The machines just did the once basic work. Numerous studies have been conducted to quantify which technology made workers more productive. They all ended up with models too complex and variable to be practical.
Society just needs to accept a whole of our social truism is politically correct LARP to the drum beat of a financiers profit memes. What are a bunch of rich elders going to do if billions quit dancing like jesters for coin? Fight us from their far off estates?
800k sworn LEO in the US working for a paycheck, not fealty to a billionaire. The public has all the advantage but isn’t allowed to know it. Communal health is the future of work whether outsider financiers accept or not. We’ll just flood the inter tubes with AI media and crash the value of their copyright constraint system if they don’t like it. I have zero obligation to do-nothing daddy deep pockets who can point to a contract I wasn’t a party to. I don’t believe such people are worth coddling with my agency.
Re: Ask HN: What am I supposed to do after I’m “disrupted”? Work in video and CG
#25I am a 2d artist and I have similar feelings. Are you as full of loathing for all the HN people saying “just integrate the AI into your practice” as I am? I like drawing stuff and I love that this pays my bills and I really have zero interest in becoming a “prompt engineer” instead. I think a strategy of creating an image of AI art as cheap and tacky is useful. For how long, I don’t know. If we’re lucky then it’ll tu…
What's the difference between a human artist walking around in the world, seeing images and videos (many of which are under copyright) and then using those images as inspiration, versus an AI being fed millions of images and videos as part of a large training set?
I am not a lawyer but I don't really see the "it's not fair use" argument.
Re: Ask HN: What am I supposed to do after I’m “disrupted”? Work in video and CG
#26Get out of the race to $0.
Develop business relationships.
Good clients are mostly insensitive to price.
That’s what makes them good clients.
Good luck
Re: Ask HN: What am I supposed to do after I’m “disrupted”? Work in video and CG
#27Add these technologies to your toolbox. It is not easy to do "prompt engineering". Keep in mind that most generated material looks awful -- there is a huge selection bias going on. The outputted stuff needs to made production ready also, distribution, etc. If anything, the emergence of these technologies should greatly expand. You will have a new customer base that was not available before, and you will be able to de…
Agreed, we're still decades away from solid results. I compare this to automated driving: Truck drivers and cab drivers are still in business.
Another example is the uncanny valley of CGI people: at what point was it acceptable to audiences, and at what point was it excellent?
Re: Ask HN: What am I supposed to do after I’m “disrupted”? Work in video and CG
#28I am a 2d artist and I have similar feelings. Are you as full of loathing for all the HN people saying “just integrate the AI into your practice” as I am? I like drawing stuff and I love that this pays my bills and I really have zero interest in becoming a “prompt engineer” instead. I think a strategy of creating an image of AI art as cheap and tacky is useful. For how long, I don’t know. If we’re lucky then it’ll tu…
What's the difference between a human artist walking around in the world, seeing images and videos (many of which are under copyright) and then using those images as inspiration, versus an AI being fed millions of images and videos as part of a large training set? I am not a lawyer but I don't really see the "it's not fair use" argument.
There's a whole lot of unapologetic artistic theft of others’ work that has contributed to the creation of new art.
Re: Ask HN: What am I supposed to do after I’m “disrupted”? Work in video and CG
#29I am a 2d artist and I have similar feelings. Are you as full of loathing for all the HN people saying “just integrate the AI into your practice” as I am? I like drawing stuff and I love that this pays my bills and I really have zero interest in becoming a “prompt engineer” instead. I think a strategy of creating an image of AI art as cheap and tacky is useful. For how long, I don’t know. If we’re lucky then it’ll tu…
This really resonates with me. I used to enjoy working as a 35mm film projectionist. Now that everything is digital the opportunities for making money doing it have basically disappeared. Am I supposed to be excited that now I can just push a button and focus more of my attention on selling popcorn?
Fortunately I enjoy writing code.
Re: Ask HN: What am I supposed to do after I’m “disrupted”? Work in video and CG
#30I am a 2d artist and I have similar feelings. Are you as full of loathing for all the HN people saying “just integrate the AI into your practice” as I am? I like drawing stuff and I love that this pays my bills and I really have zero interest in becoming a “prompt engineer” instead. I think a strategy of creating an image of AI art as cheap and tacky is useful. For how long, I don’t know. If we’re lucky then it’ll tu…
this reads a lot like what some painters said when photography hit, and they weren't interested in "painting with the light" as so many photographer would love calling it nowadays. Technology disrupts and it is neutral to taste. Seems like those who knew the way should probably try and instil better taste for the future generation; otherwise we'd be reinventing wheels with different tools for the foreseeable future.