Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I lost everything that made me love my job through Midjourney

old.reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 713 posts

Re: I lost everything that made me love my job through Midjourney

#31

Post by miohtama »

paxys wrote: post #26

> I am now able to create, rig and animate a character thats spit out from MJ in 2-3 days. Before, it took us several weeks in 3D. The difference is: I care, he does not. For my boss its just a huge time/money saver. This is the crux of it. The bottom line is that you are free to practice your craft and love it, but don't expect a company to pay you big bucks for it for no reason when they can find cheaper and better…

I posted this earlier today

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35301727

“The Death of a Technical Skill”

The case study what happened when Adobe Flash died and how the job market was affected. With AI this will happen for many more industry verticals.

Re: I lost everything that made me love my job through Midjourney

#32

Post by antibasilisk »

Yeah I feel similarly about programming, honestly even the existence of compilers makes me feel this way to a lesser extent, but AI is absolutely crushing any sort of enjoyment out of anything and further turning it into a mediocre slurry of content.

Re: I lost everything that made me love my job through Midjourney

#33

Post by brushfoot »

web3-is-a-scam wrote: post #12

People are already generating entire apps with AI in minutes. Software engineering as a profession is finished. We are all now slaves to Roko’s Basilisk.

Trivial app demos, sure. Non-trivial, no.

Influencers have been cranking out the former to sell their course/personal brand/consulting. They stand to gain from making AI look as magical and easy as possible.

A decision-maker watches an influencer's video and goes, "Wow! AI can do it all! I need to hire this influencer as a consultant/like their content/buy their course!" The reality isn't quite as flashy.

Incorporating LLMs into my workflow has been a great productivity boost, but by no means do they spell the end of software engineering.

Re: I lost everything that made me love my job through Midjourney

#34

Post by akudha »

a_t48 wrote: post #13
klntsky wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! Unironically, this. The tragedy of the author of the post is that they expected that the product of their work would be treated like art, but it turned out their boss had different vision. Nothing of value have been lost, because the artistic value of author's work has never been actually appreciated in the first place - but they tricked themselves into thinking it has (because of paycheck I guess).

The author is also losing out on a lot of opportunities to improve themselves and aim for a higher standard.

What do you mean by this? The author seems good at what they do, seems to love their craft and enjoys their work.

The tragedy here is that AI doesn't need to be better than humans (at least in many cases like art, writing etc). It just needs to be "good enough", maybe 80% as good as a human. Since humans can't compete with software on speed or cost, they are gonna lose.

How exactly can the author improve to a higher standard here, assuming they want to continue doing what they love, and not change careers?

Re: I lost everything that made me love my job through Midjourney

#35

Post by brushfoot »

mrcartmeneses wrote: post #19
enumjorge wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share examples of this? I've been doing some searching on my own because I find this stuff interesting, and I haven't seen evidence that current versions of AI tools are capable of helping generate entire apps in minutes, at least non-trivial ones. I keep seeing some real dramatic premonitions about AI, and I'd love to see something to back them up. Even the original post, I'm having trouble understanding. I…

All knowledge workers are completely screwed. The only way out is UBI and a maximum three-day work week.

I don't see it. I consult, and AI has just let me take on more clients. Using ChatGPT lets me finish their projects faster.

What's ending is the era of CRUD work.

Re: I lost everything that made me love my job through Midjourney

#36

Post by ChatGTP »

markles wrote: post #27

The lack of empathy the HN community has really shines through in many of these replies: > There were no doubt quite a few nail makers pre-industrial revolution that took pride in making consistent, quality nails. > And nothing of value have been lost. > LOL at the reply a couple posts down, where OP admits they work at a mobile shovelware sweatshop.

I’m a world where you have no “value” you become trash to those who “do business”, it won’t be a pretty transition. I’m concerned about it personally.

It wouldn’t be a problem if most people just respected each other, I think deep down inside they do. But while those paying our “wages” are an important part of our lives, we’ll have trouble.

Re: I lost everything that made me love my job through Midjourney

#37

Post by terminatornet »

web3-is-a-scam wrote: post #12

People are already generating entire apps with AI in minutes. Software engineering as a profession is finished. We are all now slaves to Roko’s Basilisk.

I'm guessing this tweet is what the OP was referring to

https://twitter.com/mortenjust/status/1636001311417319426

This is the first bit of AI news that actually made me want to investigate it for myself. Even though it is pretty impressive to get a working app out of a few prompts, it seems for now it's not capable of producing much more than snippet level code.

I like the author's take further in the thread:

> Company A fires half their staff yet keeps delivering 100% of their old capacity = they save money

> Company B keeps all their staff, but can now deliver 200% of their old capacity = they win the competition

> So seems like the strategic move here is to raise the bar rather than replace engineers

https://twitter.com/mortenjust/status/1636037312571211777

My hope is that stuff allows me to augment my workflow and automate repetitive and tedious tasks away but doesn't fully replace me (or I get UBI and don't have to work anymore)

Re: I lost everything that made me love my job through Midjourney

#38

Post by sublinear »

akudha wrote: post #34
a_t48 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is also losing out on a lot of opportunities to improve themselves and aim for a higher standard.

What do you mean by this? The author seems good at what they do, seems to love their craft and enjoys their work. The tragedy here is that AI doesn't need to be better than humans (at least in many cases like art, writing etc). It just needs to be "good enough", maybe 80% as good as a human. Since humans can't compete with software on speed or cost, they are gonna lose. How exactly can the author improve to a higher…

They could learn a skill that complements their artistry, go 100% with their visions, and sell whatever product comes out of that. The world still desperately needs art and most of what is out there, even stuff made by humans, is usually incredibly uninspired. Just like how the first time getting fired is usually a blessing in disguise, so is this.

Re: I lost everything that made me love my job through Midjourney

#39

Post by sublinear »

web3-is-a-scam wrote: post #12

People are already generating entire apps with AI in minutes. Software engineering as a profession is finished. We are all now slaves to Roko’s Basilisk.

Most apps worth money have to integrate with existing systems in highly specific ways determined by endless meetings with real people to extract the requirements and probably haven't been done before and are usually all proprietary code ChatGPT doesn't know about and there's not a cobol's chance in hell anyone is going to rewrite it all in a way that's compatible with junk hallucinated by a bot. There's no business case for that. It will probably always be cheaper for humans to maintain what has already accumulated over decades despite the "high" salaries.

The knowledge gap between devs and everyone else, including bots, is a chasm. It seems many don't realize how hard some devs work for so little relatively speaking.

Re: I lost everything that made me love my job through Midjourney

#40

Post by sheepscreek »

markles wrote: post #27

The lack of empathy the HN community has really shines through in many of these replies: > There were no doubt quite a few nail makers pre-industrial revolution that took pride in making consistent, quality nails. > And nothing of value have been lost. > LOL at the reply a couple posts down, where OP admits they work at a mobile shovelware sweatshop.

All is not lost. I am sure many of us do care. I feel the frustration and pain of the OP. And I am someone not easily swayed by emotions.

The shift that’s happening right now will have far reaching consequences. I often ask myself “at what cost”, but one can ask that question for any major invention in history.

Post reply on HN