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I lost everything that made me love my job through Midjourney

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

#151

Post by coldtea »

rafaelero wrote: post #78

When DALL-E 2 was released, I remember reading lots of people here in HN saying it would never take the jobs of artists. Well, seems like this argument is aging badly. This is exactly the type of conversation we need to have as a society. Instead of deluding ourselves that our skills are impossible to be reproduced by a machine, we should strive to build a system with values in which we can find a way to build a good…

It's like how Dropbox would never replace running SFTP and rsync or something to that effect...

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

#152

Post by coldtea »

kodah wrote: post #105
rafaelero wrote: post #78

When DALL-E 2 was released, I remember reading lots of people here in HN saying it would never take the jobs of artists. Well, seems like this argument is aging badly. This is exactly the type of conversation we need to have as a society. Instead of deluding ourselves that our skills are impossible to be reproduced by a machine, we should strive to build a system with values in which we can find a way to build a good…

AI won't take a thought workers job. It just sucks the life out of it. Like the person who wrote this post, I make bespoke software. I tinker, I experiment, and I produce high quality results in reasonable timelines. Executives could not give a shit about that, except that those qualities in me are a good signal that I am dependable. Now, if most companies allow AI bottom performers will speed up and their quality wi…

>AI won't take a thought workers job. It just sucks the life out of it.

It already has started taking them.

Also note that it sucking the life out of them doesn't preclude this, since nobody cares for quality anyway. Neither the companies, who prefer profit, nor most consumers, who will eat up whatever mediocre shit.

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

#153

Post by Aeolun »

LesZedCB wrote: post #145
8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's an analogy in the software world to this sort of tragic disappointment? Going from building fun videogame side projects to having to crank out dozens of over-engineered B2B SaaS microservices, for the sake of job security, for yet another sales workflow optimization tool?

yes. instead of spending weeks thinking about and designing some sweet algorithm Knuth himself would be proud of, you write the same CRUD app with the same design patterns.

> the same CRUD app with the same design patterns

The same —hilariously inefficient— design patterns.

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

#154

Post by nirvdrum »

chii wrote: post #87
Waterluvian wrote: post #42

I saw AI as a tool like Photoshop, and for that reason wasn’t buying all this anxiety. I still see it as a tool, but this post has changed my entire perception of the issue: It’s not that a new tool will replace you. It’s that a new tool might be too compelling to avoid, but be boring and miserable to work with and suck the joy out of your craft.

> be boring and miserable to work with and suck the joy out of your craft you don't have to use the tool - just don't complain that you're not as competitive commercially as someone else who does. If the craft is what you enjoy, then do it apart from the craft's commercial utility. Make it a separate part of your life - use the AI in your job, and don't use it in your spare time doing art for joy.

Humans are allowed to be upset when their lives and livelihoods are upended. "Suck it up" doesn't really help anyone. We shouldn't accept maximizing profitability as the only worthwhile outcome.

I'm a developer. I really hope my day doesn't end up being code review of shitty Copilot generated code because the person accepting the prompt did have the knowledge or care to check it themselves. Sure, I'd still be valuable and I'd still get paid, but I'd be miserable. At least until that skill is no longer needed. Or someone can do it for cheaper.

Setting aside I have other responsibilities outside of work that really don't leave much time for side projects, about the last thing I want to do is work on personal code projects just so they can be sucked up by Copilot. Not to mention I'm also supposed to allocate time to learn a new skill so I can be competitive in a new, rapidly shrinking job market.

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

#155

Post by rakejake »

kodah wrote: post #105
rafaelero wrote: post #78

When DALL-E 2 was released, I remember reading lots of people here in HN saying it would never take the jobs of artists. Well, seems like this argument is aging badly. This is exactly the type of conversation we need to have as a society. Instead of deluding ourselves that our skills are impossible to be reproduced by a machine, we should strive to build a system with values in which we can find a way to build a good…

AI won't take a thought workers job. It just sucks the life out of it. Like the person who wrote this post, I make bespoke software. I tinker, I experiment, and I produce high quality results in reasonable timelines. Executives could not give a shit about that, except that those qualities in me are a good signal that I am dependable. Now, if most companies allow AI bottom performers will speed up and their quality wi…

Amen. AI will make us all "managers" of some sort. Goodbye to getting in flow state and trying to build something yourself, and say hello to a gazillion meetings from morning until evening figuring out what to build and what prompt to feed to the AI.

AI is going to make our bullshit jobs even shittier.

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

#156

Post by nmz »

orbital-decay wrote: post #130
rafaelero wrote: post #78

When DALL-E 2 was released, I remember reading lots of people here in HN saying it would never take the jobs of artists. Well, seems like this argument is aging badly. This is exactly the type of conversation we need to have as a society. Instead of deluding ourselves that our skills are impossible to be reproduced by a machine, we should strive to build a system with values in which we can find a way to build a good…

It didn't take OP's job, though. It gave them another tool that produces better output, but which they don't happen to like (in contrast to their colleague who doesn't have issues with it).

We never needed to be this productive anyway, we are completely swarmed with content, to the point that if we stopped producing today we would still be consuming new media after 100 years.

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

#157

Post by coldtea »

kodah wrote: post #116
rafaelero wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI won't take a thought workers job. I don't understand how you can hold this position considering not only where we are but also the rate of progress in AI. It has been taking thought workers job and it will increasingly do so in the future until the surplus cognitive workers offer is just so minimal that it's not worth to automate it.

What jobs have been totally replaced thus far?

First, of all, why it has to be "totally replaced"? It's enough for positions to be dramatically reduced, and most such "though workers" tasks getting done automatically, e.g. under the final supervision of much fewer people.

Second, why it has to be "thus far"? If it happens in 1 or 5 or 10 years does it disqualify it?

Because above you claimed it will "never take thought workers' jobs". Suddenly the goalposts moved so that it has to have happened "totally" and "thus far" to qualify as taking their jobs?

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

#158

Post by coldtea »

whateveracct wrote: post #146
jay_kyburz wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies are slow to move on things, but I think "video game concept artist" is done. An art director can now sit down in front of Midjourny and pump out years and years of a concept artists work in just an afternoon.

This feels like a comment written by someone without practical experience with concept art (creator or consumer) - correct me if I'm wrong though! Like personally, I think I will still draw concept art instead of asking a GAN. Feels like that greases my creative wheels more. Just me though.

Whether you have experience or not, game companies already use AI for concept art.

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

#159

Post by coldtea »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #139
gwbrooks wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> This is exactly the type of conversation we need to have as a society. Comments like this always make me wonder: How would that happen? Here in the U.S., there's relatively little appetite for job-saving labor protections and, once you leave the regulatory sphere, everyone -- employers, employees, consumers of products and services -- is consistently self-interested. Not saying that sort of societal conversation i…

I don't think the conversion we need to have is about how to stop it, its about what we do with all the unemployed artists, accountants, journalists, truck and taxi drivers. Do we pay half of them to dig holes, then pay the other half to fill them? We just need to keep the economy wheel turning while everybody finds new meaningful work.

Who is "we"? The rich will decide, and probably that they can do without most of the "we".

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

#160

Post by linkjuice4all »

nirvdrum wrote: post #137
orbital-decay wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn't take OP's job, though. It gave them another tool that produces better output, but which they don't happen to like (in contrast to their colleague who doesn't have issues with it).

It didn't take the job in the sense that the OP is still employed. It changed the job into something that barely resembles what the OP was hired to do. It's not quite constructive dismissal, but many people choose fields for reasons of maximizing income. It's hard to stay motivated doing something you hate, especially when a week ago your job had you doing something you love. And that says nothing about the OP's ethi…

Jobs change and hopefully peoples’ skillset changes and gets better when they do.

This job was different 5 years ago and this entire animation process would be unrecognizable 50 years ago. Tweening didn’t ruin animation it just lowered the barrier of entry. This too will lower the barrier of entry so our future will be more high quality animation. Some of it will be lasting and some of it will be appreciated for mere seconds for throw away content such as ads.

Maybe when everyone gets home from their boring prompt engineering jobs they can go back to hand rolling animation stacks or whatever other workflow is currently getting destroyed by AI for the “fun” of it.

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