I lost everything that made me love my job through Midjourney • Hacker News Board

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

#341

Post by danjac » Sun, Mar 26, 2023, 9:14 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #308

danjac wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um...Python, C++, Linux, Erlang, mobile phones (Nokia), Spotify, HTML... Having worked for both European and US companies, I would say that a) innovation is mutual (we learn from each other) and talent/mediocrity are pretty much evenly distributed. The US has a more "dynamic" economy in some sense - for example the VC ecosystem is far better funded - but is detrimental in others (Byzantine health care system deters w…

And yet if we take a snapshot literally right now: Guido van Rossum - Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Bjarne Stroustrup - professor of Computer Science at Columbia University (City of New York) Linus Torvalds - Nationality American/US since 2010 (should I write GNU/American/US? Someone educate me). Erlang - I don't know anything about Erlang so I've got nothing to say. Nokia - brutally ejected from the market by the…

That's the point though. Van Rossum, Stroustrup and Torvalds made their name early on in their careers or even at college, while still in Europe. Sure, later on they emigrated to the US for the money, but that was on the back of their accomplishments.

Of course Nokia was eclipsed by foreign competition (mostly due to terrible management), but it was still innovative in its time. Just as US companies today face competition from Asia.

> Although useful, HTML isn't a very technical accomplishment. Anyone could invent this, including most CS undergrads.

Yes, but they didn't, did they? It's easy to look at something with 20/20 hindsight and say "anyone could have done this". Back in 1989 Berners-Lee had that insight.

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

#342

Post by onion2k » Sun, Mar 26, 2023, 9:14 AM UTC

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…

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.

In the past jobs took a while to disappear. People had time to retrain, to change career, and to come to terms with things ending. The difference now is that it seems like you could be in a high demand role today, and the whole industry you work in might not exist any more in a few years time.

The suggestion that this is just like it was in the past ignores that massive difference.

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

#343

Post by PartiallyTyped » Sun, Mar 26, 2023, 9:14 AM UTC

pdc56 wrote: post #332

iamphilrae wrote: post #312

The rise of website builders like Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify has drastically changed the web design and development industry. As a co-founder and lead developer of a small design/development team, I loved my job and was passionate about creating beautiful and functional websites. However, as more and more clients turned to these DIY platforms, I found it increasingly difficult to justify our higher prices. While o…

Curious - on a scale out of 10, how much of that was written by ChatGPT? No offense intended - if the answer is zero, my apologies

Imho 9:1 written entirely by human.

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

#344

Post by mkmk3 » Sun, Mar 26, 2023, 9:16 AM UTC

anonyfox wrote: post #303

jokethrowaway wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That’s the total opposite most people around me (many immigrants from the US!) experience for the like last 2 decades actually, where have you been to that draws such a funny picture? Europe has more % Entrepreneurs/Self-employed people than the US, lots of great companies even though not leading in the richest top5-ranking, and the work ethic is focussed during working hours instead of chitchatting/looking busy 12h+…

Could also be the advantage of a unified market helps US startups scale faster, maybe someone else can speak to that better. Its been influential where Ive worked, at least.

I also think at least US tech has significantly larger firms, but I dont think thats directly in line with societal good. Seems pretty fucking cancerous to me. Cant speak to industries outside of software though.

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

#345

Post by antirez » Sun, Mar 26, 2023, 9:17 AM UTC

deely3 wrote: post #334

antirez wrote: post #293

"I don’t want to make “art” that is the result of scraped internet content". I guess he/she was ok with creating "art" that was heavily based on other things he/she saw on other games and on the internet. Artists reasoning in this absurd way should ask themselves: I'm ok if a law passes that makes it illegal to get inspiration for other copyrighted work?

There is a difference. 1. Corporation scraped art for AI to learn without permission. 2. Corporation own resulting AI model, and don't want to share it. Only sell the results.

Both arguments are wrong, in my opinion.

1. Artists getting inspiration from all the other works (payed by others) also don't ask any permission. If you want to create a game with a monster heavily inspired to Alines move monsters, you don't need to ask, nor you will be sued. 2. Artists are also against Stable Diffusion.

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

#346

Post by throwawaylinux » Sun, Mar 26, 2023, 9:18 AM UTC

mongol wrote: post #340

throwawaylinux wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've needed "jobs" to support ourselves since we descended from the trees. Actually before that too. "Society" came about because we invented tools and techniques to make our jobs easier so people could spend more time on different things. "AI" is some more steps down that same path. > 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. Not in th…

> We've needed "jobs" to support ourselves since we descended from the trees Do you think the lion's job is to hunt? And the zebra's job is to eat grass? A job is something you do in exchange for something else as payment. If you go as far back as to when our ancestors descended from trees, you will need to explain what kind of jobs were around then, who worked them and who paid.

> Do you think the lion's job is to hunt? And the zebra's job is to eat grass?

Yes. Difficult, cruel, and brutal jobs. Few people would choose to change places with them.

> A job is something you do in exchange for something else as payment.

Broader term is something you do to get your bread. Working for yourself, cooperating and exchanging with others, are all jobs.

You can go out on your own and start a business, it's not insurmountable, everyone from a street vendor to a corner shop to a farmer to Apple has done it. It's something that many can choose to do if they wish, but many choose not to. Can't avoid that by nitpicking semantics.

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

#347

Post by broken_thesis » Sun, Mar 26, 2023, 9:18 AM UTC

bennysonething wrote: post #323

bitwize wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Socialism. The answer is socialism. AI is a philosopher's stone that transmutes labor into capital. This is as good as lead into gold for capitalists, but the rest of us are hosed.

How many times do we have to try socialism before we're convinced it doesn't work? Or maybe you mean something like Nordic countries that are capitalist but tax more heavily and redistribute wealth more?

That magical Nordic system is called "social democracy", it's of course rooted in socialism, and it's so old that one of the first dark memes amongst left-wing groups ("You killed Rose Luxemburg!) is about them.

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

#348

Post by have_faith » Sun, Mar 26, 2023, 9:18 AM UTC

pdc56 wrote: post #332

iamphilrae wrote: post #312

The rise of website builders like Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify has drastically changed the web design and development industry. As a co-founder and lead developer of a small design/development team, I loved my job and was passionate about creating beautiful and functional websites. However, as more and more clients turned to these DIY platforms, I found it increasingly difficult to justify our higher prices. While o…

Curious - on a scale out of 10, how much of that was written by ChatGPT? No offense intended - if the answer is zero, my apologies

I’ve noticed a large amount of responses from chatgpt start the second/third paragraph with “however, “ or a similar adverb. It will always strive to provide a “balanced” view, even on heavily one sided subjects.

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

#349

Post by savef » Sun, Mar 26, 2023, 9:19 AM UTC

pdc56 wrote: post #332

iamphilrae wrote: post #312

The rise of website builders like Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify has drastically changed the web design and development industry. As a co-founder and lead developer of a small design/development team, I loved my job and was passionate about creating beautiful and functional websites. However, as more and more clients turned to these DIY platforms, I found it increasingly difficult to justify our higher prices. While o…

Curious - on a scale out of 10, how much of that was written by ChatGPT? No offense intended - if the answer is zero, my apologies

https://openai-openai-detector.hf.space/

Using this tool on the comment yields a 77.6% fake score. To give (pretty limited) contrast, a response from ChatGPT gives 99.9% fake, and another comment from this thread gives 0.1% fake.

I assume that means the comment text was GPT-assisted, with some moderate editing from a human.

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

#350

Post by vermooten » Sun, Mar 26, 2023, 9:20 AM UTC

I remember the 90s when manual typesetting and page layout was replaced with Quark Xpress, and when analogue phot retouching was replaced with Photoshop. Lots of highly skilled people suddenly out of work - the ones who didn't retrain to use the new tech. Wasn't overnight but felt like a revolution. Then of course magazine publishing lost out to the internet.

I would love to spend my days making stained glass windows, or as a dry stone-wall builder in the Yorkshire Dales. TS, there's no way to make a living in either.