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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

#251

Post by jerojero »

tlocke wrote: post #231

We've created a society where there are such things as 'jobs' and unless you're rich, you need a job to support yourself and maybe a family. I think this model of society worked reasonably well for a while, but with AI we're coming to the end of that era. In the next era we'll probably live like aristocrats, but instead of the work being done by servants, it'll be done by AI. Back to the case of the 3D artist, in thi…

I don't think so. I think in the future we will be living pretty similarly but instead of just doing the work manually we'll be using AI to be more efficient. Just like what the original post on reddit was referring to.

He was not fired or anything, his bosses just told him "now you need to do 10 times the work you were doing before because you got the AI". Although in the past it was okay for him to do 1/10th of the work, now with the AI, that has become unacceptable.

Why would the socio-economic system change? We've been automating work for a while now and people don't really get fired over it; they are just tasked with producing more. Remember that the computer itself was a huge productivity enhancer. When excel came out suddenly one accountant could do the work of 10 but most people weren't liberated from their tedious manual algebraic works, instead, we simply started to produce significantly more than before.

Of course, I would love to live in the world that you dream of, I'm pretty sure that's what post-scarcity communism looks like. I just don't really see any indicators in terms of public policy or business attitude that indicates that will be the case. Seems to me like our societies are more geared towards growth rather than improving quality of life.

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

#252

Post by anonyfox »

peyton wrote: post #224
Turskarama wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is the same one we should have had from the start: take some of the responsibility from peoples careers off individuals and place it on society. As mentioned above, this has always been a problem it's just that now it's a problem for intellectual careers and not just laborers. Education (and re-education) should be at least affordable if not completely free. Unemployment benefits should be enough to live…

You’re taking a central planner’s view of a decentralized system. You can’t say “here’s a problem; let’s just make it go away.” We are going to print so much money. I don’t see how bumping up capital gains taxes are going to change anything. People will plow extra help into speculative bubbles. Casino thesis.

How about striding for one of the core societal values that make many advanced democraties (including the European nordics) so much better/happier than the US? It’s called Equality.

Insert strong progressive taxes, especially on wealth, and use it to fund a strong public sector, so _everyone_ has as access to basic goods and services for free, like education/health/transport/… .

I think you vastly underestimate how much money is the rich have siphoned from society, what do you think that printed money goes to? The change impact would be _massive_, suddenly people would have disposable money instead of crushing debts, nd actually stimulate the economy!

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

#253

Post by jstummbillig »

nomilk wrote: post #179
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…

> This is exactly the type of conversation we need to have as a society. Jobs have been disappearing at a high rate for at least a couple of generations now, and have steadily been replaced with new ones, often high paying ones. We can't control which jobs are in high, low, and no demand, so we're best off swimming with the current, whichever way it flows. 1. Accept that professions come and go. 2. Expect jobs to dis…

While fundamentally true, this comment is astonishingly tone deaf in light of the entirely unprecedented amplitude and timescale at which the shift is happening this time.

"Just prepare" does not work when years become days.

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

#254

Post by spoiler »

fxtentacle wrote: post #248
kodah wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What jobs have been totally replaced thus far?

Didn't all major companies do mass-firings recently? What do you expect will happen if an entry-level software engineer becomes 2x as productive? You need 2x less, so you fire half the team.

A smart company will realise it's better to be 2x productive for the same money than to be at the same productivity for half the money.

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

#255

Post by jstummbillig »

nbzso wrote: post #250

I do work in tech. Almost 25 years. As a traditionally trained artist, my advantage over the years always was the knowledge of composition, color and my drawing skills when producing the visual part of the products. I focused early in my company (2005) on UX and UCD processes, and with the time realized that people don't care about craftsmanship or maximizing the quality. We are approaching a time of generative desig…

> I started to paint recently again and don't give any F* about commercial viability of the process.

That is an affordance a lot of people have to be granted now.

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

#256

Post by rcpt »

wsc981 wrote: post #68
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.

Yesterday I visited an old, but still reasonably healthy man who has been living in Thailand for 40 years now, maybe longer. Reasonably healthy as in: he doesn't need to visit hospital or use medicine, but his power is now waning a bit due to age. A man originally from Switzerland. 88 years old now. When he arrived in Thailand he bought a nice plot of land and made a quite beautiful garden there, with many fruits and…

No. God no are you kidding? Subsistence farming? We did that for thousands of years it was horrible.

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

#257

Post by xdennis »

melagonster wrote: post #121
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…

unfortunately, we have capitalism. in our society, if people and their kids starving and dying, we think this ia justice.

This is childish. People are starving more in non capitalist societies.

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

#258

Post by spoiler »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #175
whateveracct wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are wrong, I have worked for many years as an artists and level builder in video games. Bioshock is the most famous game, and Void Bastards the most recent.

Could you instead use AI to reduce drudgery in your work, or to iterate faster between ideas until you settle on a final peace? What if you have something in mind that is hard to prompt for, or the tool just refuses to generate what you had in mind? I would try to lean into it as a tool to speed up some of the tedium, instead of fear it, if possible

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

#259

Post by FranzFerdiNaN »

bruce511 wrote: post #213
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.

When electric sound amplification came along, it put most professional musicians out of business. Instead of an orchestra all you need is a band of 3 or 4. Making music expanded though. In the sense that more people played, there was more variety, and indeed more professional musicians today than 100 years ago. (the bar for entry is also lower, and most are permantly broke - take that as you will.) Some orchestras st…

It’s nice that the barrier became lower but people still need jobs to afford food and rent. I doubt that UBI will come anytime soon so less jobs that pay enough is a serious issue.

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

#260

Post by [deleted] »

Turskarama wrote: post #217
thorncorona wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Accept that professions come and go. 2. Expect jobs to disappear every decade or so and plan accordingly. 3. Look forward to an awesome new job after your current one is made obsolete. That goes for all of us. What can we do? Hope to save enough to not go into more debt for a second degree? Hope that second degree isn’t obsoleted either? As AI becomes more advanced the minimum education and likely IQ required to…

The solution is the same one we should have had from the start: take some of the responsibility from peoples careers off individuals and place it on society. As mentioned above, this has always been a problem it's just that now it's a problem for intellectual careers and not just laborers. Education (and re-education) should be at least affordable if not completely free. Unemployment benefits should be enough to live…

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