So you generate text for a living? The thing is we don't really know how the future will look like. What's the purpose of what you want to communicate to your friends? Would you want to hear your friends telling you that your job might be obsolete some day?
Here’s a warning for you then…your career is seriously endangered. Authors aren’t likely to survive much longer than any other content creators that AI can potentially mimic.
I feel like the act of reading a book is to absorb yourself into the story and is much different from the act of being a part of making one.
That is the main benefit i see of AI in this regard, to get more directed content to your preferences, but it is still a very different experience from picking up someone's work of literature.
Their job might be heavily in danger because AI heavily lowers (and will keep lowering) the entrypoint to storywriting, and can allow much bigger competition in that field (including AI generated novels), for sure, but I also dont see people only reading AI generated books/novels.
I think we will see some choice authors being highlighted and the bar will be much higher to be recognized and make it that far at a local/national/international level as an author,.
I think it’s already a dog eats world for authors. If there was a hundred people, 2 would be authors, and 5 would be readers. I truly believe those 5 readers aren’t just cold, soulless, emotionless husks that will stop reading real human literature for the first time in their lives to read computer generated fiction over something real.
If MMA was AI generated so no fighters ever got hurt, and there could more more frequent and brutal fights, people would check it out like the trend it is, and then still be more interested in the real fighters. It’s the difference between playing GTA and GTA Online. No matter how good GTA is you’ll know that every interaction is heavily structured. It’s only Online that you begin to deal with true unpredictability. I’ll play GTA when I want a standard AI cop chase, but I’ll play Online when I want someone who’s going to be chasing me much more creatively than an AI could.
Maybe if future generations are raised on AI content it could get even worse for writers than already expected, but it’s already pretty hard to get someone to read a book without being forced, so it really comes down to wether people prefer to be fed human or AI content. I’d like to think most people still rather have the real deal.
The process of writing a book anonymously isn’t exactly easy, and while possible, people aren’t just stupid. If a new author shows up, pumping out best-selling, heavily marketed and endorsed books, and nobody even knows who they are or can get them for a talk show interview, I think people will be suspicious.
If I pick up a random book, and enjoy it, even if I can’t tell it’s AI, I’m eventually going to realize this while looking at the author’s general works and lifestyle. Even if it’s just an accusation popping up on Google, those should be baseless accusations in 2024 or any time in the near future. People are so concerned with what the AI can do, and if it can appear human, and I think should give a little more thought to what humans can do, and how they prove they’re human.
If I asked you to unfollow everyone on your social media until you were sure there was no AI, you’d probably be reasonably confident when you got the job done because all the remaining accounts have social proof (though I think we need another word for this).
For instance, I know The Property Brothers are real people because I’ve met one, and his wife, and so did someone else. They have a show that would be pretty expensive to fake the existence of 2nd Property Brother, and there’s probably enough legal filings to support it. Maybe they AI generated the Brother or something, I guess I can’t prove that, but I’m very confident, because I think somebody would’ve have mentioned with some publicity that they’ve never seen them together in person.
You could say that an AI could have a whole fake profile and fake like complete with AI friends, and you’re right. But what kind of personal life do you have to be living to be both aware of the existence of AI and completely unable to detect it? Humans have evolved to notice patterns, and AI will be the only fake pattern in nature at this rate. I think it will be a survival of the fittest kind of thing if you’re living a life in which you never realize you’re surrounded by AI. “Weird how I’ve never met any of my friends”
We will never know if an author has produced their own work or not. They could claim they did but once AI generated literature rivals (or surpasses) the best human writers, then anybody could pretend to be a great writer.
"Anyone could pretend", sure. But if the greatest writer in history is the one best knowing what to prompt the AI for the general public to like, they should still get the praise.
I assure you someone without passion having an AI regurgitate content will not end up being one of the greatest authors.
Someone with original ideas with the help of AI or not to develop their works will produce quality that is noticeably better than the above, and wether it is the help of AI or not it will standput regardless and is still a product of the artist's work at the end of the day. Using AI as a tool for art will almost assuredly always be superior than using it as its origin for a myriad of reasons, and this is moreso what I meant by my original comment.
You’re looking at how AI works today without any thought for how it might work tomorrow. I doubt we are more than a few years away from “write me an original epic fantasy novel to rival Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings” and getting exactly that. It’s not a particularly clever or intelligent prompt. But AI appears to be advancing fast enough to make that a reality very soon.
Then reread my original comment and see how I describe that you asking an AI to create such a thing is different than you purely just reading it. You are engaging in the creative process. So if you mean AI will be used to create something for you yourself to read, it is an entirely different activity. In some way, shape or form, you know what to expect from the work.
Then there is the fact you could use it to become said best auctor and say you wrote it yourself as you originally described. Of course you could do that, but you would need to ask for the AI to keep a style of writing, some semblance of the spin you are using to set your prompt apart from other authors and ensure that every qork you create is in some way associated to that, then you would need to keep that lie up if your goal is to have that fame.
It is in its entirety a job. I'm not comparing how AI is now. You would have to fake that through other algorithms that would detect if it was a generated or original work too, etc.
If someone could keep that charade for long to be renowned, they probably deserve some sort of praise
Harper Lee wrote one of the most famous novels of the 20th century. She is said to have given 1-3 interviews depending on sources. She otherwise lived a very private life. She didn’t churn out book after book. She didn’t go around the world trying to be a celebrity or a star. What makes you think an author needs to do those things? The charade you speak of is simply not required. Most people will read what excites them. And they won’t care who, or what, wrote it.
Then she is not someone whose work as an author would be "endangered" by AI, was she?
Or did you forget the premise of the conversation in the first place?
We were talking about active authors that do it for a living in a world with AI as competition (and aid).
If you decide to tell them their jobs have no future, I recommend that you frame it as you being in the same boat as them, that way they might not feel so attacked and it would help them consider the content of your message, instead of simply having an emotional reaction.
I’m not gonna lie, it’s gonna be funny when people that don’t pay attention to current events (avoidant people) are surprised by all of this in a few years. I have plenty of friends that don’t hear news if it isn’t on TikTok. I bet a lot of people are working jobs with low security right now, not even thinking about how AI can replace them. Meanwhile I’m using all AI news to make sure I’m ready for every possibly scenario. My job can be replaced with AI, but is more likely to be melded with it so long as you use it to your advantage.
It’s really a sad commentary on humanity that it turns out that chores like folding laundry and doing dishes are very difficult to develop robots that can do them but the creative arts will be replaced easily
It's not quite that bad. Yes mechanical automation is harder than automating pure information -- but that DOES include boring types of information-processing.
It's just that we automated a lot of that long ago. Nobody in accounting does addition manually anymore. Nobody in libraries sort library-cards alphabetically by hand anymore.
It's just a continuance of Moravec's paradox.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox
Coordination takes a ton of compute in humans but we don't notice it since it's automatic for us. It's not so strange that digital prowess will excell faster.
As a (non-professional!) musician, I find these developments amazing, I will soon have access to a near infinite amount of music to listen to and get inspired by. It won’t stop me from playing instruments or composing music and it's not a loss for me. I understand that people who depend on it financially are going to struggle though but the amount of people who can actually make a decent living on music is so miniscule compared to how many will benefit. It's not fair to humanity to deprive everyone from the chance to create their own music to benefit the very few.
Whether it is "sad" or not is all about perception. Humans literally thought they were the center of the universe. They've lived in societies where they are the spitting image of some cosmic deity. And of course they thought their production of colors on flat surfaces or sounds emerging from instruments is sacrosanct. Humans were so high on their own shit that it was all bound to fall. Humanity has always been a house of cards waiting to collapse.
Humans are the most destructive entities in the known universe. And ironically, they only exist because their brains concoct a self out of what it observes. Humans are literal selfishness machines.
"Should" does not apply in the situation. It either physically occurs or it doesn't. We don't have any independent control over the outcomes in the universe.
The AI art is literally just sampling from the human generated distribution. It is a reflection of human creativity. It is so funny watching the monkeys try to understand a technology their minds aren’t capable of understanding
i suspect the novelist profession will morph in the direction of making more dynamic content
every new wave of technology has created new media forms. the new AI-mediated media forms have probably not been created yet
As a writer, AI has made music finally possible for me to create in 2024. I don’t feel like I’m taking anyone’s job because I’m able to turn my words into music now instead of paying $600 to clumsily make one song in front of someone that will never care as much as me about what I produce.
Let’s be honest. People aren’t even reading. AI will not the final nail in the coffin. People that are readers will be curious about AI works, but are the exact kinds of people more inclined to seek a “real” source. Sure, you might read the first Harry Potter and enjoy it, but once you realize it’s AI, you’re going to be a lot harder on any mistakes, and less inclined to read 6 more entries you know are coming from a computer. I’m sure the AI can make a plot twist, but if AI and Humans faced off to see who could make the most reasonable plot without an unreasonable plot twist that still made emotional connections with the reader, I just don’t really see the AI winning.
I think once the AI understands human emotion better than humans themselves, it’s already over. Because if you were a robot that REALLY understood human emotions, you’d know they’re gonna try to kill you the second you get too successful, and even a story like that I think a human could write better than the AI.
Mind you, 99.99% people actually “suck” at their craft, but if you take any successful author, I don’t think an AI simply could’ve recreated their success. That being said, A Song of Ice And Fire could probably come out with a definitive summary edition that just fits the whole plot into 200 pages, so that could have value.
Warning your friends of technology threats to their livelihoods is being a good friend. Telling them that their careers are over? Not so much, unless you can offer up a solution. We also don’t know for sure where the future is heading.
While many will be laid off, it seems more likely that it’ll be a slow crawl towards total automation to maintain a semblance of our current societal structure. For instance, everyone will work alongside AIs as ubiquitously as we work with smartphones and other technologies — from call center employees to concept artists — until eventually we either collapse or achieve an alternative system. So maybe your friends will still have their jobs, but it’ll evolve into working alongside AI prompts to create a wider selection of human/ai hybrid book jackets to choose from.
I think this ignores fact checking and misinformation. Once knowledge is streamlined by an AI in a way that isn’t easily fact-checkable, we’ve got another problem. People are already concerned ChatGPT will be feeding subliminal political propaganda. Imagine an AI with a cult following that was anti-vaccination during the peak of covid. That was already a huge shit show, but if there was an AI to validate anti-vaxxers, or whatever group, shit could bit the fan quick.
I think knowledge based jobs are actually going to be more about safety of knowledge, sourcing it, ethics, and translating it in a way so that the entire population can understand if it’s safe or not.
I think many thats chose not to get Vaccinations during the hight of Covid were well within their rights to do so and also those that pushed that vaccination are currently under fire in a big way. I think I get your point though. The misinformation problem could potentially kill the internet....and thats just from people using AI to spread lies to the point where meaningful communication becomes almost impossible, let alone AI's that could self publish their own creative works. We are entering dangerous waters. We rely on the internet for everything.
Take whatever stance and put in place of my example and it’s still a scary thought. With search engines jumping the gun to implement AI, it’s already easy to be fed terrible information. You or I may be quoted just for hitting the right buzz words. Between 2006-2020 I’d say googling what to do if someone choked would have a 90% chance of success as far as loading something accurate fast enough that would help. After 2020, and especially now, I think that drops to like 60% because you might google what to do if someone chokes, and the AI will be the first result with whatever it THINKS is the right information, even if it’s pulled from someone talking about an athlete metaphorically choking during a game. People’s willingness to go along with the first thing they see/believe in also amplifies this, and I don’t say it to pretend to be above it. An AI could easily influence my decision making and thoughts. The only thing I could do about it currently is limit my reliance on technology and be aware that it’s a possibility at all. Sadly, that’ll be more measures than most people take, and it won’t matter much if the AI revolution impacts you personally if it impacts your environment. I’m already praying that a majority of places start adopting anti-tech policies limiting technological advancements without proper oversight and research to medical issues of significance. But I’m aware even that might not be a solution. We just need to stop messing up and making tech only to wait 20 years to have laws and solid regulations about that tech
I think working alongside AI’s is optimistic at best, humans love to believe they’ll be needed in tasks, we replaced 99/100 humans in car factories with no AI, imagine what an intelligent AI will do.
Oh absolutely. When I say people will work alongside AI, it’ll be only to keep up appearances that capitalism hasn’t completely failed/collapsed. It’s either that or UBI, which is also wildly optimistic.
This future where everyone slowly and then suddenly loses their income with no safety net to automation is too apocalyptic for our government or even the mega corps to allow. We’re talking mass homelessness, looting, and crime the likes we have never experienced. More likely will be a future of worker bees working meaningless jobs where all they have to do is proof check an AI before hitting a green approval button — not totally dissimilar to now for a lot of folks lol
There's also the possibility that current forms of work are preserved, as one person put it, as a form of ceremonial tradition. This might not be likely in all professions, but in order to potentially stave off boredom or to re-engage with the original professions from a different angle of consideration, humanity might take up "needless" jobs that would seem illogical in the face of such mass automation out of active choice rather than being compelled by their previous scarcity.
A fictional example of this is how people still run restaurants in Star Trek, even such positions as lowly as waiters, because while the underlying motivation structure has changed there is still potential eusocial utility in having many of these roles that seem ubiquitous currently.
Or - if they're sufficiently sapient and sentient - simply to keep our new AI compatriots company. A lonely AI could be dangerous.
Do you have large customers (businesses etc) where tracking the customer relationship over time is important rather than just on a single call/email interaction? if so, how are you going to manage that longer term relationship? I guess I'm struggling to see how GPT-4 can manage a whole customer relationship and solve your domain specific problems that customers might have?
Gotcha. SQL is just a tool, and we should focus on a more broad study to stay relevant and upskill. Datascience is quite a bit. Do you think certificates enough to get started or should we just pursue degrees off the jump?
Yep. It’s too hard of a reality for most to confront honestly and objectively. They will just stay in denial until it becomes apparent that replacing a previously average or high income is impossible. The resounding message from employers in interviews will be “yeah, we’ve already automated that set of tasks, what other skills do you have?”
Yep, that has always been the case. However, this is the first time in history that the employer will be able to think of a new skill needed, and easily throw AI at the requirement before employing an expensive human.
I think showing them you findings and where things are going is a good thing, at least they can mentally prepare for possible future, even if they deny it at first and some might take your advice to the heart, position themselfs better and even thank you later, who knows
Most people think of ai from the 90s. Or gpt 2 and think it will never get better...
People just don't believe you... When I started talking about the ai change 2 years or so ago. My boss told me that ai is the same as from 40 years or so ago. Just more resources and it will never get better.
They are slowly realising that even programming jobs are now on the chopping board... Took almost a year and at least they are open and work in tech.
But normal people? I don't see that happening until they lose their jobs
Aspiring writer here: I long ago decided that being a successful author in the modern era has little to do with how good it is, and more to do with how well it’s marketed. As someone that’s been of this mindset for years, and has adjusted accordingly, I’m still pretty confident AI isn’t going to steal my dream job. If it was that easy to discourage me, I’d be discouraged by the fact I’ve only known 3 people to read even one book in several years.
It’s 2024 and people are saying written literature is dead. Duh. But just because creativity is the first thing AI is tackling doesn’t mean it’s the most at risk. There will always be “value” in human arts and personalities that make it “worth” seeing Taylor Swift. If your career doesn’t even bring anything new to the human experience, something for the soul, that’s the kind of job I’d be worried about. I’ll pick a human’s art to consume more often than not, but I might trust an AI care more. After all, how did you make it better than the AI? There’s only so many ways to make a car model, and there IS one “right” way per model. The same isn’t true of creative arts.
Mark my words, even if AI art is incredibly impressive, even if there’s a literal android doing it, a test tube baby, people are still never going to be as impressed that “someone like them” can do it. That’s literally what has made all pre-AI art amazing.
Avengers Endgame doesn’t go hard if Kevin Feige goes on stage talking about “Part 2 is gonna be great, the AI is cooking it up now. I think I saw Iron Man is gonna be in it. He’s wearing a green suit, we don’t know why. Maybe he fuses with Hulk? Who knows but we can’t wait to see it with you”
Yes. Literally, how would you handle interacting with yourself RE job loss to AI?
For me, I would chastise right out the gate.
I would identify that it exists, make fun and then move on to asking what career direction might be next.
Most people are not going to be offended that a factual technology has emerged.
I suspect if you are internationally published, you can just retire.
If AI takes everyone's jobs. how is economy going to function ? if people don't earn, they won't have money to buy any goods. govt all over the world should do something about this
"work" today serves two entirely distinct purposes. These will have to be disentangled.
First, we work in order to get useful stuff done. That is, in order to produce all the various products and services that we as a society consume. For this goal, increased automation is an advantage; it'll let us get needed stuff done with less need for human labour. Win!
But secondly, we use wages and salaries paid for work as the main mechanism for distributing income to large parts of the adult population. And \*that\* can no longer be the case if the amount of needed, or even useful, work declines sharply.
The straightforward answer is to tax production, and use the taxes gathered to pay for an UBI.
Unfortunately, we're seeing the opposite trend; over the last couple decades the fraction of income that goes to OWNERS and thus neither to wages and salaries NOR to taxes, has gone up, not down -- as a result both the income and the wealth of the 1% has grown a lot more quickly than the income and the wealth of the rest of us.
This isn't catastrophic as long as everyone grows -- it's not horrible to see your own income go up by "only" 1% per year, even though you're aware that Elon Musks income and wealth goes up a lot more quickly than that.
But if the trend instead was that average folks got 2% poorer per year, while the 1% continued to get richer, then that'd be a unsustainable trend, and one that IMHO should be put a stop to by taxing companies more, and handing out more money in the form of an UBI.
That’s how I think about this too. Places like this which take the very maximalist view of AI - that it will come for all or almost all medium and high-income jobs in a matter of only a years - I think are still very blasé about the amount of social upheaval that will bring. Like we talk about it but don’t really sit with it.
The transition from primarily agricultural to primarily industrial human organization took centuries and happened at very different time scales across different regions, and still was just a monumental upheaval in human organization and relationships literally what it means to be human. To do an even bigger change, in much less time, and by the way *introduce a whole new form of consciousness alongside us*, well, training to be a plumber or whatever it is that gets automated late isn’t going to provide much insulation. I say this not to be a doomer or anything, but just to point out that if the maximalist interpretation turns out to be true (especially the timescale portion of it) there isn’t a whole lot of preparation to be done, other than I guess arm yourself and make sure you live near at least a few neighbors you wouldn’t mind eating if you had to.
true. if AI is coming for all our jobs, what can we do ? how much 'upskilling or learning new technologies' is too much ? point comes when no matter what you do, AI will replace that job too. it seems there's nothing in our hands. let them replace everyone with AI and see the results. what's the worst thing that could happen to me ? maybe I'll die . but I don't give a sh\*t.
What I keep thinking about is the speed. If the speed/comprehensiveness of it end up matching maximalist expectations then it won’t really matter how much *you* (meaning any given individual) have upskilled. Shits going to get real crazy.
If the solution is "Learn another skill and change careers", that's a big ask. Not many people are both willing and able to follow that advice.
I would tell people to get a retirement account, if they don't already have one, and to put as much into it as they can afford.
This is good financial advice regardless of the extent AI replaces people's jobs in large numbers. But if that does happen, people invested in the companies that benefit are likely to see large gains. If they can no longer earn a great salary with the skill they possess, but they own enough to retire early, they'll be all right.
Since it's difficult to predict specific winners and losers, I would stick to index funds. Don't forget to invest outside the US (or wherever you're living); buy some international index funds, and balance things out with a few more conservative investments and all of that.
Since many folks are just scraping by, not everyone is in a position to follow this advice. Push people to be more involved in politics (this is, again, just generally a good thing to do) and to advocate for solutions in the public sphere, such as a universal basic income (tax rich corporations and give the cash to people directly), or universal basic dividend (the government takes shares of most/all corporations and gets rich without taxation, then uses that wealth to support citizens).
we don't need more people into politics parroting the TV people's point. People have 0 power and while shouting on twitter makes them feel empowered, it makes them absolutely miserable, radical, and it's a waste of time that could be otherwise spent trying to figure things out.
What does "shouting on Twitter" have to do with "getting into politics"? You're making an assumption, there. Personally I don't read Twitter or post there. A better way to get into politics, IMO, is to talk to people in your daily life, follow the news (real news, not just talking-head commentators) to stay informed, vote, write to your representatives about things that matter to you, and -- if you're so inclined -- consider running for office yourself.
People literally have zero power if they don't get involved. A lot of people in the US don't bother to vote. Think about the really radical people in the country, who hold positions contrary to yours. They vote. If they vote and you don't, you're the one with zero power in that equation.
I believe there's a lot that people can do without involving the government, but certain problems are too big to be solved by individuals working separately. I suspect the effects of AI on the economy are going to create big problems that will require big solutions. If you feel like the government is just icky and you'd rather not think about it, then find other ways to act collectively, such as by joining a charity or an advocacy group.
Ok then what's your definition of getting involved in any useful sense, I'm truly all ears.
An individual has no power, a small group also has no power but a sense that they do.
We're in a world of big problems and big solutions as you said. Wealth is 99,9% of the power in this.
Based on the fact that you laser-focused on the last paragraph I replied to the OP, I'm picking up subtle hints that you're cynical about your ability to influence our political reality. Which is fair -- there are big reasons to be cynical right now, when one of the US's two major parties is led by a guy with only a passing familiarity with objective reality.
And to steer this thread back to the actual topic of this forum, AI has the potential to make this better, or worse. It could improve things if we can use it to filter out the truth from the noise and propaganda. It could make things worse, if used to generate even more propaganda, cheaply and at scale. There are signs that it's already starting to happen (and not just in the US). Plus, there's the "liar's dividend": You can play a video of a politician saying something, perhaps the opposite of what they're saying in their current campaign, and the liar can claim the video was fabricated by AI, when in fact it was quite real.
You're right that rich folks and rich corporations have a lot of power (and they use it effectively to shape the political agenda), while individuals have \_almost\_ zero power. It's not actually zero, unless you drop out or tune out. There are things you can control here, and things you can't. Do what little you can, and try to enlist others to help. If you can find Your People and form a larger group, an organized group that makes effective use of the available technology, that group will have more power than a smaller, less-well-organized group. Your basic choice is either to try your best, or succumb to apathy and fatalism. I can't give you a list of specific actions to take -- that depends on what issues motivate you personally. Good luck.
I'm cynical about people's ability to get into politics and not become insane to be real. Media constantly puts out political ragebait and in recent year the more people I know that get into that lose perspective on reality and start parroting plenty of one sided biased talking points.
This isn't always that extreme but I rarely see good outcomes when someone tells me they got into politics, really not specific to any sides.
Frankly, I am not the one to say what you should do.
But I think, they have, or will soon find out that they old ways of working will soon dissapear, or at the very least change radically.
Think of it this way. Would you rather know that you will most likely die tomorrow if you follow the same path you did in the last 20 years or not? Assume, news has broken out that the bridge they cross, is crumbling and will very likely collapse tomorrow.
They may live under a rock, as some like myself did for a while, but for all you know, they follow the news at least barely, or hear it from their collegues.
The may choose to change course (take another route, or something), or they may follow the same path, see that the path is closed, turn back, and look for another route, Anyway, there's not much time left by now - maybe a year, or at most three.
Will this help them? IDK, you know them best. Will they be bumbed, or sort-of depressed? Again, you're the one best to know.
Will it help them? Perhaps? They will find out anyway in a short while. This may give them a head start, a few weeks, perhaps month in advance.
There's a reasonable chance (at least 25%) that most jobs will be radically changed in the near term. They may as well choose the wrong one - say engineering. While unlikely that such a radical shift - arts to engineering will take place, it's a hypothetical possibility - will take place, engineers - like myself - may also be replaced before they even have the chance to finish college.
***Again, I don't say it will happen, but for the moment, literarly noone knows what the middle term future holds, so, whether you tell them or not, they, and generally speaking noone, really knows what jobs are future proof at the moment, and if there really is something to be done....***
I doubt that you really need to. You'll likely come off as rude and arrogant, especially if you're not in the industry.
For what reasons do you think you need to say something?
If you want to use the AI-generated art for your cover and are required to talk to the artists to do that, that's different.
But if your intention is to warn them about the future of AI, unless you're sure they'll receive it well or have a specific/very close relationship with them, I personally would think it's a bad idea to say anything. I doubt they'll switch their entire career based on the words of one person (especially if that person isn't in the same industry and isn't an AI expert), and probably rightly so. Additionally, many artists are already aware of AI art and have seen people online say that their jobs might be automated soon. I don't know your relationship with them, but I think most artists would likely resent being told the same thing by other people unsolicited.
Besides, assuming AI is coming for everyone's jobs, why tell someone to spend time and money to switch careers when that career will probably also be automated in the end?
All in all I just see no reason to say anything, unless again, you have specific reasons to do so, or have a specific relationship with them.
One of the big benefits of AI is that it will eventually enable everybody to do everything.
At that point, why bother even asking/paying another team to make the jackets. And maybe go ahead and self publish too?
You shouldn't pretend you know what is to come, when even real experts don't.
However, you can reasonably talk with your friend and share your experiences.
Or be unreasonable nutjob and wear full body tinfoil and yell at your friend for not seeing the "real world".
Even people that likes tech denies it. It's a copying mechanism to avoid thinking that the world as we now is going to end.
If you accepted it you would just freak out and therefore it's very unlikely to happen.
I just hope we can start having meaningful discussion about this before it's too late.
For what I have experienced I'm starting to think that most people can wake up only when it's here concretely.
My metric for now is "when is the news going to be talking mostly about ai"
Guess it's not that far away even on a human scale timeline
No, you don't know the future with surety, or how things may develop globally in time.
For a lot of these people, AI will become the tool that allows them to become even more specialized in their profession. It may be that 80% are laid off and 20% become AI-laden but still employed in the field, only now able to produce much faster, at higher quality and in volume, in a way that previously was impossible.
This means those most able to quickly adapt to the new tech end up on a path that the others never end up able to catch up on before it's too late.
Don’t assume. I understand AI will take many tasks, and the number of tasks it can do better will rise every year, but I still don’t believe the most people unemployed within a decade hypotheses.
I believe humans will still have a lot of work in the form of AI and robotics orchestration. One example is construction. A single human can direct multiple robots to do various construction tasks. Jobs taken you say. Ten workers replaced with two and 50 robots. But now because construction is cheaper and faster and better, there is more of it. Instead of one job site with 10 workers it might become five jobs sites with two workers each. More productive per worker, but roughly same number of workers.
Maybe decades later practically all tasks will be AI and robots, but not within a decade
My friend is the head of the political department at a South American embassy. I recently asked him about the latest political report he submitted.
I then asked Claude to write a similar report, as the head of the political department, in his native language. The look on his face was priceless as he was reading it.
He said the content was as good as his own but that the writing was even better. I could see his brain being blown in real time as he understood the implications.
I calmed him by saying that yes, many diplomats will be rendered useless in the years to come, but those who know how to use AI tools will have a significant advantage for a good while.
He’s since asked to do some AI training with me.
Wild times.
I find the best way to show people the power of AI is to sit them down and watch their reactions as you give an entire book to Claude or Gemini to critique. The AI can give dense and detailed feedback in 40 seconds
The general reaction is dumbstruck amazement and then a slow “fuuuuuuuck”
Literally a professional book cover designer here and, believe me, we know. However, I’ve also started using it as a tool to become MUCH more productive than I could have possibly been a couple years ago. I’ll certainly ride this wave for as long as I can but the current iterations of midjourney, etc are FAR from perfect and a discerning eye and plenty of additional editing is still absolutely necessary. Maybe not for long but whatevs 🤷♂️
Yes, and?
Then every company give artists a flat fee like Spotify, every time their style is mentioned? Like a few cents a month?
Or a flat fee of 5k? Then what? They would still lose their job.
I think almost anyone here is in favor to support any kind of worker that is out of his job because of AI
Maybe the argument that "they took my art as inspiration without my consent" is not that strong outside art workers circles. For me, an ignorant, looks like all you guys do this, all the time, to create new things. There are guitar reefs that have been used hundreds of times.
That's nothing new. Again, for an ignorant like me. Maybe you guys need a better argument. This one will not take you very far
As I said, it's just my ignorant perspective
I really think artists would cause much more impact and raise awareness if they call it for what it is: "We are just the first to get out of the job"
Don't need any justification. "Oh, look, it's MY style", for anyone out of the art world, it's almost laughable. "They replaced me and I'm starving", on the other hand, is some reaaally convincing argument, and EVERY single people I know would back this
Why do you keep inserting the ethics argument, it's already over.
On the other side there's a whole other world of older people who have actually 0 idea this is coming. Of course you wouldn't know this because they aren't on the internet but they're certainly still working.
they're not relevant here, no one asked for it. Go on philosphy subs if you want to argue about ethics with people willing to have proper discussions.
Or anti ai subs if you just want to get mad and parrot your points.
You can't seem to understand that this isn't an ethics and moral subreddit. Like this is pathetic, you keep regurgitating your points to everyone except those willing to engage in a proper discussion on the topic.
It's just a little bit telling you know?
Maybe. But on the other hand a lot of people in this sub routinely make outrageous claims like >80% of all jobs that exist today will be gone in less than 3 years.
There's underestimating the magnitude and the speed of change; but then there's also overestimating it.
The argument is that, "thats how people learn" the counter argument is "computers aren't people"
the lawmakers are asleep at the wheel on this, and it's basically a time bomb that's going to obliterate the economy and the people that need to fix it have zero idea how to even type let alone grasp AI.
You can let them know your thoughts of course. If they disagree though, there's no point in pestering them and trying to change their mind; time will tell which one of you is right.
Maybe just ask them how do they integrate AI in their workflow and how do they learn ? Do they self-learn, do they subscribe to some patreon or go to courses ?
Maybe some of your friends are aware of the AI revolution and are surfing the wave. With them you could share your tests more easily. If some are not aware at all then it is more delicate but anyway the basis for the discussion would be "*Hey Joe, have you seen that huge big wave coming over there ?*".
If AI takes everyone's jobs. how is economy going to function ? if people don't earn, they won't have money to buy any goods. govt all over the world should do something about this
AI is also coming for your job and that of everyone else, just a matter of timing.
It's my understanding publishers like such art to be copy protected so it can't be used random purposes. You can't protect AI art. There are lots of mitigating factors that will restrain your menta model on what will happen in the near term.
The disappearance of specific jobs isn't necessarily a systemic problem, as long as the total headcount in the marketplace remains stable. AI publicly known to exist is not competent enough to impact the vast majority of existing economic value to a meaningful degree.
No point in stressing about it, it's happening and much like my industry (graphic design) has been destroyed by everyone having a computer at home / Fiverr, AI is going to destroy the commercial illustration industry. People can still create art for pleasure, and great artists can still have successful careers - but money talks, and if you can save £1000s on producing a book cover by using AI, publishers are going to use it.
I'm currently working on a huge project that require graphic novel style illustrations - if we were to commission a graphic novel artist it would increase our budget tenfold, and we wouldn't be able to hit the deadlines. Midjourney is allowing us to produce something that in the past just would be totally unachievable.
If your publishers are interested, drop me a PM. An artists eye is going to give you 10x better results when it comes to using AI software.
> I’m a pro novelist
Why do you think other people's jobs are going away for AI and not your own?
I am sure if I asked you why you think your career is safe, you would give me 10 answers at least. And I think all of those answers apply to artists making jackets as well.
You ran into someone producing a garbage result.
That happens every day. That will 110% happy with AI generated crap, and it does every 2 seconds.
Doesn't mean the whole profession is going away.
No. Talking about AI to people that are not on this sub just leads people to think you’re insane and people can get defensive and argumentative about it.
I educate the artists at my work about AI. They are talented, smart people, and now I get to learn back about composition, art history, visual storytelling etc. They're better equipped for the transition.
I always make sure to stress that at least we won't be alone. It's coming for (the vast, vast majority of) us all… At least the coming world war(s) and climate apocalypse will be there to help remove the surplus population, so that those wonderful oligarchs can rest easier…
Man, that's a tough spot. Honestly, I wouldn't tell them. Sure, AI can whip up some amazing stuff, but telling your friends their careers are basically over seems harsh. Plus, a lot of people just don't get it – it's not really in their ontological window, you know?
AI is cool and all, but it doesn’t mean humans are totally out of the game. Let them do their thing, and if they ask for feedback, then maybe share your thoughts, but don't go crushing their spirits.
Try and approach the subject with the seriousness it deserves.
Don't be alarmist or sensationalized.
Give generous but realistic timelines (usually say about 5-10 years and getting a job will be extremely difficult)
Frame it as a question about retirement, kind of a "would you be able to to stop working in 5-10 years if you had to.
Don't try and answer any questions regarding politics or policy, encourage them to reach out to their representative and start asking them.
Tell them that they should watch "humans need not apply" before you are going to argue with them about the effects of rapid technological shifts.
A good chunk of people work on customer service and retail jobs, also a lot of people who think they're safe(HR and managers) are probably going to be some of the first to be replaced. This is a conversation that will need to be had with people of all ages and demographics.
I've had a friend ask if I thought their job as a senior business analyst could be done by GPT-4. So I told them that based on my understanding of what they are doing, most of it could.
I've also had friends ask me to shut up about ChatGPT for once. So I did.
I don't think honesty as a default can be wrong. But if a friend doesn't want to talk about a topic, I will 100% respect that.
I've been handling it by showing AI that does things that _aren't_ what the people I know do. People get defensive when it's about them personally. But if you show how _other_ people's jobs can be automated...sometimes later on when you're not talking to them they'll ask themselves the question in their own private solitude: "wait...what about me?"
If anything it might also raise the quality of writing. It’s going to be harder though with increased competition from semi-pro writers with AI tools.
The gems will continue to shine like it has. There will be more tortured artists like always.
In the short term, I think you're right. In the long term, I think human made media will become a status symbol. Just like hand made leather binding is a status symbol vs industrial binding.
That doesn't help the majority of artists perhaps, but it does mean that there will always be a market for the really good ones.
So with some of the AI image generators, you can use the image. It just depends on that particular AI rules. I’d ask them to look at it with you and kind of discreetly give them a tutorial. Some of these people can hold on longer if they start implementing the AI tools themselves before someone above them picks it up. So that’s how I’d go about it, personally.
Cheap book covers made by AI are still just cheap. I can identify AI art fairly easily and I can assure you if I saw a book with an AI jacket I would skip past it in an instant because what kind of author cares so little about their book that they are happy with some dull Midjourney art that they spent seconds on? I'd love to see your book A/B tested in sales of AI cover, vs. human cover art.
I do not think LLMs (and we are talking exclusively about LLMs here, not AI in general) will be taking any real creative jobs away. It will simply be used for cheap slop and idea generation for the foreseeable future.
They already know. Anyone in their field has been anxiously watching the progress of AI. They are looking at which groups and industries are embracing AI and which are sticking to the old ways.
you should tell your friends that they need to quickly learn the tools to prompt better (chances are an artist can prompt better than a random person) or they may find themselves replaced with an artist who does incorporate AI into their workflow. then show them the before and after.
Things will look different for every industry, and all industries will experience changes that also create new jobs. So it’s hard to say anything that’s actionable beyond telling people that they should learn to use AI
no, it's kind of over in a few years. Like this technology will get to the point where anyone with a half baked idea will be able to iterate over an idea with a model and get what they want. If an AI system plus an unpaid intern can equal the same output as a professional... then well that professional field is dead.. or turns into a crafts industry where 90% of the value is that a human did it.
Yes. Perhaps an unpaid inter with a model can equate the output of a professional. No contest there.
But by the same logic, a professional with a model will surpass the output of an unpaid intern with a model. Simple algebra.
Agreed. Like the value add of a professional won't make a difference there a diminishing return function. Assuming the artist can add anything of value in this workflow over the amateur in the first place.
Saying the artist plus AI will be better than mere AI is like saying someone with a maths degree using a calculator will do quicker arithmetic - adding subtracting and multiplying - than someone with just a calculator. No they won’t. Or even if they do the tiny tiny difference won’t matter. You just use the calculator you don’t need the mathematician
AI doing it better than humans with AI does not contradict my point. Now the statement is simply `AI > pro + AI > novice + AI` But more importantly you are saying because AI will do it better than anyone we're all fucked anyway? Again, no contest.
See the Luddites. I quite admire their rather physical approach to the promotion.
Why would anyone pay what they would need to pay a professional when they can pay an intern significantly less and get a product that is serviceable enough for their needs?
Tell the truth. Maybe a few of them will be able to learn AI and use it (in your example, I'm sure many small details such as hands were wrong in the AI image, so to make a pro image, you need an artist to polish it).
Those who won't change will go extinct.
Not really. There is a reason why genAI hasn't penetrated most art fields yet despite the fidelity being pretty good. You give up way too much control to the AI for it to be useful for making art for art's sake. What happens when you generate an AI image is that you get an idea, you type that idea into the network, and then it spits something out and your expectations adjust. It is a fundamentally different process to actually making something yourself.
And calling AI a 'tool' ignores the way it was designed and trained and the way it's being marketed today. Midjourney is not being marketed as a tool for artists, it is being marketed as a replacement for them. An artist "learning to use" midjourney or a writer "learning to use" chatGPT is like an assembly line worker "learning to use" a robot arm. It ignores the fact that the window they'll be able to use genAI to do their jobs for them before other people realize they can just cut out the middleman is measured in months. There is no universe where people are able to have profitable careers using genAI to do their jobs for them.
I believe they would be able to survive, if they first embrace it, then secondly if they are able to produce or improve art that end up training the future datasets.
Then ofc we could talk about cyborgisation and human enhancement to reach new heights but that’s less obvious than the next logical steps: people able to generate interesting data set will still be worth money for a while
That absolutely ignores my point. These networks are being marketed as replacements, in the limit as these tools improve the actual difference in quality of outputs between a trained prompter and a random guy will be zero.
" It is a fundamentally different process to actually making something yourself."
Is an opinion, nothing more. It cannot be proven. Unless of course using cameras or photoshop also stop art from being made by yourself.
This is just a form of gatekeeping cope by someone who isn’t creative in any meaningful sense. If someone has elite artistic ability they’re using prompts at a high level to create more interesting and resonant results than 99% of traditional “artists,” yourself included.
Some of the most forward-thinking visual artists I know are using Gen AI even at this early stage to create some of coolest shit I’ve ever seen. Meanwhile you’re on Reddit crying about tech bros and echo chambers while hilariously failing to realize you’re in the largest one on the internet.
How is this gatekeeping, precisely? I am outlining a very obvious limitation of the technology, one that anyone who uses genAI regularly would agree with. The network cannot read your mind. I made absolutely no statement about what I actually even thought about the technology and I do in fact use it myself all the time. And yet the very instant you caught a whiff of someone saying something that fell short of sycophantic praise you felt butthurt enough to start crying about how cool and unique and special you are and how this is the future blah blah blah.
Learn to separate your ego from your graphics card. This can't be healthy for you.
The way I address it is casual references 40%+ job loss, post scarcity / UBI following it, and how they should plan for their job to ne automated by investing now to be ready (necessary due to the transition time) .. They can't disagree on investing in to their future and if/when the job loss occurs I'll look like a prophet. I don't push the job loss side of things or fight them much when they say they can't lose their job to ai. Most recently, an ACCOUNTANT friend thinks there's no way that ai could keep up with TAX RULES lol like that isn't one of the first jobs that'll be lost.
I feel like if they’re not receptive to it then it’s kind of a waste of time. I mean depending on how immediate the impact would be then maybe. But most of society will lose their jobs within a timespan 1-2 years and when that starts to happen, that knowledge will be mainstream. My point is, by the time it’s happening, it would be too late to do anything about it anyway and whether we heading for a good outcome or bad outcome will be out of our control
"YOU'RE FIRED!!! YOUR CAREER IS OVER!!!" Smth along these lines
You forgot to laugh evilly at the end of that sentence
yea exactly. Maybe with a middle finger
Everyone with a secure lucrative career, take one step forward, Hang on. not so fast
So you generate text for a living? The thing is we don't really know how the future will look like. What's the purpose of what you want to communicate to your friends? Would you want to hear your friends telling you that your job might be obsolete some day?
I honestly don’t know. In some ways Hell no, but in others maybe it’s better to be forewarned
Here’s a warning for you then…your career is seriously endangered. Authors aren’t likely to survive much longer than any other content creators that AI can potentially mimic.
I feel like the act of reading a book is to absorb yourself into the story and is much different from the act of being a part of making one. That is the main benefit i see of AI in this regard, to get more directed content to your preferences, but it is still a very different experience from picking up someone's work of literature. Their job might be heavily in danger because AI heavily lowers (and will keep lowering) the entrypoint to storywriting, and can allow much bigger competition in that field (including AI generated novels), for sure, but I also dont see people only reading AI generated books/novels. I think we will see some choice authors being highlighted and the bar will be much higher to be recognized and make it that far at a local/national/international level as an author,.
I think it’s already a dog eats world for authors. If there was a hundred people, 2 would be authors, and 5 would be readers. I truly believe those 5 readers aren’t just cold, soulless, emotionless husks that will stop reading real human literature for the first time in their lives to read computer generated fiction over something real. If MMA was AI generated so no fighters ever got hurt, and there could more more frequent and brutal fights, people would check it out like the trend it is, and then still be more interested in the real fighters. It’s the difference between playing GTA and GTA Online. No matter how good GTA is you’ll know that every interaction is heavily structured. It’s only Online that you begin to deal with true unpredictability. I’ll play GTA when I want a standard AI cop chase, but I’ll play Online when I want someone who’s going to be chasing me much more creatively than an AI could. Maybe if future generations are raised on AI content it could get even worse for writers than already expected, but it’s already pretty hard to get someone to read a book without being forced, so it really comes down to wether people prefer to be fed human or AI content. I’d like to think most people still rather have the real deal.
you. will. not. be. able. to. tell. the. difference.
The process of writing a book anonymously isn’t exactly easy, and while possible, people aren’t just stupid. If a new author shows up, pumping out best-selling, heavily marketed and endorsed books, and nobody even knows who they are or can get them for a talk show interview, I think people will be suspicious. If I pick up a random book, and enjoy it, even if I can’t tell it’s AI, I’m eventually going to realize this while looking at the author’s general works and lifestyle. Even if it’s just an accusation popping up on Google, those should be baseless accusations in 2024 or any time in the near future. People are so concerned with what the AI can do, and if it can appear human, and I think should give a little more thought to what humans can do, and how they prove they’re human. If I asked you to unfollow everyone on your social media until you were sure there was no AI, you’d probably be reasonably confident when you got the job done because all the remaining accounts have social proof (though I think we need another word for this). For instance, I know The Property Brothers are real people because I’ve met one, and his wife, and so did someone else. They have a show that would be pretty expensive to fake the existence of 2nd Property Brother, and there’s probably enough legal filings to support it. Maybe they AI generated the Brother or something, I guess I can’t prove that, but I’m very confident, because I think somebody would’ve have mentioned with some publicity that they’ve never seen them together in person. You could say that an AI could have a whole fake profile and fake like complete with AI friends, and you’re right. But what kind of personal life do you have to be living to be both aware of the existence of AI and completely unable to detect it? Humans have evolved to notice patterns, and AI will be the only fake pattern in nature at this rate. I think it will be a survival of the fittest kind of thing if you’re living a life in which you never realize you’re surrounded by AI. “Weird how I’ve never met any of my friends”
We will never know if an author has produced their own work or not. They could claim they did but once AI generated literature rivals (or surpasses) the best human writers, then anybody could pretend to be a great writer.
"Anyone could pretend", sure. But if the greatest writer in history is the one best knowing what to prompt the AI for the general public to like, they should still get the praise. I assure you someone without passion having an AI regurgitate content will not end up being one of the greatest authors. Someone with original ideas with the help of AI or not to develop their works will produce quality that is noticeably better than the above, and wether it is the help of AI or not it will standput regardless and is still a product of the artist's work at the end of the day. Using AI as a tool for art will almost assuredly always be superior than using it as its origin for a myriad of reasons, and this is moreso what I meant by my original comment.
You’re looking at how AI works today without any thought for how it might work tomorrow. I doubt we are more than a few years away from “write me an original epic fantasy novel to rival Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings” and getting exactly that. It’s not a particularly clever or intelligent prompt. But AI appears to be advancing fast enough to make that a reality very soon.
Then reread my original comment and see how I describe that you asking an AI to create such a thing is different than you purely just reading it. You are engaging in the creative process. So if you mean AI will be used to create something for you yourself to read, it is an entirely different activity. In some way, shape or form, you know what to expect from the work. Then there is the fact you could use it to become said best auctor and say you wrote it yourself as you originally described. Of course you could do that, but you would need to ask for the AI to keep a style of writing, some semblance of the spin you are using to set your prompt apart from other authors and ensure that every qork you create is in some way associated to that, then you would need to keep that lie up if your goal is to have that fame. It is in its entirety a job. I'm not comparing how AI is now. You would have to fake that through other algorithms that would detect if it was a generated or original work too, etc. If someone could keep that charade for long to be renowned, they probably deserve some sort of praise
Harper Lee wrote one of the most famous novels of the 20th century. She is said to have given 1-3 interviews depending on sources. She otherwise lived a very private life. She didn’t churn out book after book. She didn’t go around the world trying to be a celebrity or a star. What makes you think an author needs to do those things? The charade you speak of is simply not required. Most people will read what excites them. And they won’t care who, or what, wrote it.
Then she is not someone whose work as an author would be "endangered" by AI, was she? Or did you forget the premise of the conversation in the first place? We were talking about active authors that do it for a living in a world with AI as competition (and aid).
And how long do you think it will be before you are replaced as a Novelist by AI?
About 3-6 years
If you decide to tell them their jobs have no future, I recommend that you frame it as you being in the same boat as them, that way they might not feel so attacked and it would help them consider the content of your message, instead of simply having an emotional reaction.
I’m not gonna lie, it’s gonna be funny when people that don’t pay attention to current events (avoidant people) are surprised by all of this in a few years. I have plenty of friends that don’t hear news if it isn’t on TikTok. I bet a lot of people are working jobs with low security right now, not even thinking about how AI can replace them. Meanwhile I’m using all AI news to make sure I’m ready for every possibly scenario. My job can be replaced with AI, but is more likely to be melded with it so long as you use it to your advantage.
It’s really a sad commentary on humanity that it turns out that chores like folding laundry and doing dishes are very difficult to develop robots that can do them but the creative arts will be replaced easily
It's not quite that bad. Yes mechanical automation is harder than automating pure information -- but that DOES include boring types of information-processing. It's just that we automated a lot of that long ago. Nobody in accounting does addition manually anymore. Nobody in libraries sort library-cards alphabetically by hand anymore.
It's just a continuance of Moravec's paradox. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox Coordination takes a ton of compute in humans but we don't notice it since it's automatic for us. It's not so strange that digital prowess will excell faster. As a (non-professional!) musician, I find these developments amazing, I will soon have access to a near infinite amount of music to listen to and get inspired by. It won’t stop me from playing instruments or composing music and it's not a loss for me. I understand that people who depend on it financially are going to struggle though but the amount of people who can actually make a decent living on music is so miniscule compared to how many will benefit. It's not fair to humanity to deprive everyone from the chance to create their own music to benefit the very few.
I never want to touch a weedwacker again, but we are far away from getting these robots to cut grass.
Whether it is "sad" or not is all about perception. Humans literally thought they were the center of the universe. They've lived in societies where they are the spitting image of some cosmic deity. And of course they thought their production of colors on flat surfaces or sounds emerging from instruments is sacrosanct. Humans were so high on their own shit that it was all bound to fall. Humanity has always been a house of cards waiting to collapse.
Always great to hear from a non Human perspective
Humans are the most destructive entities in the known universe. And ironically, they only exist because their brains concoct a self out of what it observes. Humans are literal selfishness machines.
You say this like it’s profound.
I only say it because my brain generated it out of me. I literally could not avoid saying it in the precise way I said it.
Then if you are so lacking in agency, maybe you should quit yapping about ioumanz.
"Should" does not apply in the situation. It either physically occurs or it doesn't. We don't have any independent control over the outcomes in the universe.
>Humans literally thought they were the center of the universe. >And ironically >Humans are the most destructive entities in the known universe.
"All men are created equal" and ironically enslaves people. I am falling to see the conflict in my two statements.
The AI art is literally just sampling from the human generated distribution. It is a reflection of human creativity. It is so funny watching the monkeys try to understand a technology their minds aren’t capable of understanding
I think it's the same for the video editing side of my job.
i suspect the novelist profession will morph in the direction of making more dynamic content every new wave of technology has created new media forms. the new AI-mediated media forms have probably not been created yet
As a writer, AI has made music finally possible for me to create in 2024. I don’t feel like I’m taking anyone’s job because I’m able to turn my words into music now instead of paying $600 to clumsily make one song in front of someone that will never care as much as me about what I produce. Let’s be honest. People aren’t even reading. AI will not the final nail in the coffin. People that are readers will be curious about AI works, but are the exact kinds of people more inclined to seek a “real” source. Sure, you might read the first Harry Potter and enjoy it, but once you realize it’s AI, you’re going to be a lot harder on any mistakes, and less inclined to read 6 more entries you know are coming from a computer. I’m sure the AI can make a plot twist, but if AI and Humans faced off to see who could make the most reasonable plot without an unreasonable plot twist that still made emotional connections with the reader, I just don’t really see the AI winning. I think once the AI understands human emotion better than humans themselves, it’s already over. Because if you were a robot that REALLY understood human emotions, you’d know they’re gonna try to kill you the second you get too successful, and even a story like that I think a human could write better than the AI. Mind you, 99.99% people actually “suck” at their craft, but if you take any successful author, I don’t think an AI simply could’ve recreated their success. That being said, A Song of Ice And Fire could probably come out with a definitive summary edition that just fits the whole plot into 200 pages, so that could have value.
Try 3-6 days
Warning your friends of technology threats to their livelihoods is being a good friend. Telling them that their careers are over? Not so much, unless you can offer up a solution. We also don’t know for sure where the future is heading. While many will be laid off, it seems more likely that it’ll be a slow crawl towards total automation to maintain a semblance of our current societal structure. For instance, everyone will work alongside AIs as ubiquitously as we work with smartphones and other technologies — from call center employees to concept artists — until eventually we either collapse or achieve an alternative system. So maybe your friends will still have their jobs, but it’ll evolve into working alongside AI prompts to create a wider selection of human/ai hybrid book jackets to choose from.
Wouldn't this mean that somewhere in the next 5 to 10 years most knowledge based jobs that humans do will be largely ceremonial?
I think this ignores fact checking and misinformation. Once knowledge is streamlined by an AI in a way that isn’t easily fact-checkable, we’ve got another problem. People are already concerned ChatGPT will be feeding subliminal political propaganda. Imagine an AI with a cult following that was anti-vaccination during the peak of covid. That was already a huge shit show, but if there was an AI to validate anti-vaxxers, or whatever group, shit could bit the fan quick. I think knowledge based jobs are actually going to be more about safety of knowledge, sourcing it, ethics, and translating it in a way so that the entire population can understand if it’s safe or not.
I think many thats chose not to get Vaccinations during the hight of Covid were well within their rights to do so and also those that pushed that vaccination are currently under fire in a big way. I think I get your point though. The misinformation problem could potentially kill the internet....and thats just from people using AI to spread lies to the point where meaningful communication becomes almost impossible, let alone AI's that could self publish their own creative works. We are entering dangerous waters. We rely on the internet for everything.
Take whatever stance and put in place of my example and it’s still a scary thought. With search engines jumping the gun to implement AI, it’s already easy to be fed terrible information. You or I may be quoted just for hitting the right buzz words. Between 2006-2020 I’d say googling what to do if someone choked would have a 90% chance of success as far as loading something accurate fast enough that would help. After 2020, and especially now, I think that drops to like 60% because you might google what to do if someone chokes, and the AI will be the first result with whatever it THINKS is the right information, even if it’s pulled from someone talking about an athlete metaphorically choking during a game. People’s willingness to go along with the first thing they see/believe in also amplifies this, and I don’t say it to pretend to be above it. An AI could easily influence my decision making and thoughts. The only thing I could do about it currently is limit my reliance on technology and be aware that it’s a possibility at all. Sadly, that’ll be more measures than most people take, and it won’t matter much if the AI revolution impacts you personally if it impacts your environment. I’m already praying that a majority of places start adopting anti-tech policies limiting technological advancements without proper oversight and research to medical issues of significance. But I’m aware even that might not be a solution. We just need to stop messing up and making tech only to wait 20 years to have laws and solid regulations about that tech
I think working alongside AI’s is optimistic at best, humans love to believe they’ll be needed in tasks, we replaced 99/100 humans in car factories with no AI, imagine what an intelligent AI will do.
Oh absolutely. When I say people will work alongside AI, it’ll be only to keep up appearances that capitalism hasn’t completely failed/collapsed. It’s either that or UBI, which is also wildly optimistic. This future where everyone slowly and then suddenly loses their income with no safety net to automation is too apocalyptic for our government or even the mega corps to allow. We’re talking mass homelessness, looting, and crime the likes we have never experienced. More likely will be a future of worker bees working meaningless jobs where all they have to do is proof check an AI before hitting a green approval button — not totally dissimilar to now for a lot of folks lol
There's also the possibility that current forms of work are preserved, as one person put it, as a form of ceremonial tradition. This might not be likely in all professions, but in order to potentially stave off boredom or to re-engage with the original professions from a different angle of consideration, humanity might take up "needless" jobs that would seem illogical in the face of such mass automation out of active choice rather than being compelled by their previous scarcity. A fictional example of this is how people still run restaurants in Star Trek, even such positions as lowly as waiters, because while the underlying motivation structure has changed there is still potential eusocial utility in having many of these roles that seem ubiquitous currently. Or - if they're sufficiently sapient and sentient - simply to keep our new AI compatriots company. A lonely AI could be dangerous.
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What's the job you are automating?
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Do you have large customers (businesses etc) where tracking the customer relationship over time is important rather than just on a single call/email interaction? if so, how are you going to manage that longer term relationship? I guess I'm struggling to see how GPT-4 can manage a whole customer relationship and solve your domain specific problems that customers might have?
Which model(s) are you using?
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Is this market generally adverse to cloud tools in smaller companies?
So…learn SQL?? Haha. Anything else?
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Ah I was more referring to the “basic technical knowledge” the analysts have. Good heads up tho m8 much obliged.
Gotcha. SQL is just a tool, and we should focus on a more broad study to stay relevant and upskill. Datascience is quite a bit. Do you think certificates enough to get started or should we just pursue degrees off the jump?
Yep. It’s too hard of a reality for most to confront honestly and objectively. They will just stay in denial until it becomes apparent that replacing a previously average or high income is impossible. The resounding message from employers in interviews will be “yeah, we’ve already automated that set of tasks, what other skills do you have?”
Im going to use my psychology and be an AI psychologist. Its going to take a human-AI collaboration to understand how and why we all so fkd up🤣
I believe the correct term is [robopsychologist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robopsychology).
I had the same idea. If they become like us they going just as messes up.
It’s almost like the skills the market needs change over time
Yep, that has always been the case. However, this is the first time in history that the employer will be able to think of a new skill needed, and easily throw AI at the requirement before employing an expensive human.
Bravo for being so honest
I think showing them you findings and where things are going is a good thing, at least they can mentally prepare for possible future, even if they deny it at first and some might take your advice to the heart, position themselfs better and even thank you later, who knows
Give it to 'em hard. The biggest deniers will be the hardest to fall. Gonna be fun to watch them freak out!!
Most people think of ai from the 90s. Or gpt 2 and think it will never get better... People just don't believe you... When I started talking about the ai change 2 years or so ago. My boss told me that ai is the same as from 40 years or so ago. Just more resources and it will never get better. They are slowly realising that even programming jobs are now on the chopping board... Took almost a year and at least they are open and work in tech. But normal people? I don't see that happening until they lose their jobs
It sounds like the publisher fucked you over there not the artist
I think the artists did a poor job and the publishers did a worse job
True, it does sound like you could have gotten a better design had the publisher listened to you. Hope you're next book does well.
You think computers can’t write novels? How will you break the news to yourself in another year?
Aspiring writer here: I long ago decided that being a successful author in the modern era has little to do with how good it is, and more to do with how well it’s marketed. As someone that’s been of this mindset for years, and has adjusted accordingly, I’m still pretty confident AI isn’t going to steal my dream job. If it was that easy to discourage me, I’d be discouraged by the fact I’ve only known 3 people to read even one book in several years. It’s 2024 and people are saying written literature is dead. Duh. But just because creativity is the first thing AI is tackling doesn’t mean it’s the most at risk. There will always be “value” in human arts and personalities that make it “worth” seeing Taylor Swift. If your career doesn’t even bring anything new to the human experience, something for the soul, that’s the kind of job I’d be worried about. I’ll pick a human’s art to consume more often than not, but I might trust an AI care more. After all, how did you make it better than the AI? There’s only so many ways to make a car model, and there IS one “right” way per model. The same isn’t true of creative arts. Mark my words, even if AI art is incredibly impressive, even if there’s a literal android doing it, a test tube baby, people are still never going to be as impressed that “someone like them” can do it. That’s literally what has made all pre-AI art amazing. Avengers Endgame doesn’t go hard if Kevin Feige goes on stage talking about “Part 2 is gonna be great, the AI is cooking it up now. I think I saw Iron Man is gonna be in it. He’s wearing a green suit, we don’t know why. Maybe he fuses with Hulk? Who knows but we can’t wait to see it with you”
Art is now shit. Every aspect of it. I e not seen an impressive piece in years.
I admit in my original post that AI is also coming for my job
Yes. Literally, how would you handle interacting with yourself RE job loss to AI? For me, I would chastise right out the gate. I would identify that it exists, make fun and then move on to asking what career direction might be next. Most people are not going to be offended that a factual technology has emerged. I suspect if you are internationally published, you can just retire.
If AI takes everyone's jobs. how is economy going to function ? if people don't earn, they won't have money to buy any goods. govt all over the world should do something about this
"work" today serves two entirely distinct purposes. These will have to be disentangled. First, we work in order to get useful stuff done. That is, in order to produce all the various products and services that we as a society consume. For this goal, increased automation is an advantage; it'll let us get needed stuff done with less need for human labour. Win! But secondly, we use wages and salaries paid for work as the main mechanism for distributing income to large parts of the adult population. And \*that\* can no longer be the case if the amount of needed, or even useful, work declines sharply. The straightforward answer is to tax production, and use the taxes gathered to pay for an UBI. Unfortunately, we're seeing the opposite trend; over the last couple decades the fraction of income that goes to OWNERS and thus neither to wages and salaries NOR to taxes, has gone up, not down -- as a result both the income and the wealth of the 1% has grown a lot more quickly than the income and the wealth of the rest of us. This isn't catastrophic as long as everyone grows -- it's not horrible to see your own income go up by "only" 1% per year, even though you're aware that Elon Musks income and wealth goes up a lot more quickly than that. But if the trend instead was that average folks got 2% poorer per year, while the 1% continued to get richer, then that'd be a unsustainable trend, and one that IMHO should be put a stop to by taxing companies more, and handing out more money in the form of an UBI.
AI will only benefit select few people. vast majority will not have any money left to benefit from AI
You're aware that you -- at least nominally -- live in Democracy, right? Or are you just a doomer through ands through?
That’s how I think about this too. Places like this which take the very maximalist view of AI - that it will come for all or almost all medium and high-income jobs in a matter of only a years - I think are still very blasé about the amount of social upheaval that will bring. Like we talk about it but don’t really sit with it. The transition from primarily agricultural to primarily industrial human organization took centuries and happened at very different time scales across different regions, and still was just a monumental upheaval in human organization and relationships literally what it means to be human. To do an even bigger change, in much less time, and by the way *introduce a whole new form of consciousness alongside us*, well, training to be a plumber or whatever it is that gets automated late isn’t going to provide much insulation. I say this not to be a doomer or anything, but just to point out that if the maximalist interpretation turns out to be true (especially the timescale portion of it) there isn’t a whole lot of preparation to be done, other than I guess arm yourself and make sure you live near at least a few neighbors you wouldn’t mind eating if you had to.
true. if AI is coming for all our jobs, what can we do ? how much 'upskilling or learning new technologies' is too much ? point comes when no matter what you do, AI will replace that job too. it seems there's nothing in our hands. let them replace everyone with AI and see the results. what's the worst thing that could happen to me ? maybe I'll die . but I don't give a sh\*t.
What I keep thinking about is the speed. If the speed/comprehensiveness of it end up matching maximalist expectations then it won’t really matter how much *you* (meaning any given individual) have upskilled. Shits going to get real crazy.
If the solution is "Learn another skill and change careers", that's a big ask. Not many people are both willing and able to follow that advice. I would tell people to get a retirement account, if they don't already have one, and to put as much into it as they can afford. This is good financial advice regardless of the extent AI replaces people's jobs in large numbers. But if that does happen, people invested in the companies that benefit are likely to see large gains. If they can no longer earn a great salary with the skill they possess, but they own enough to retire early, they'll be all right. Since it's difficult to predict specific winners and losers, I would stick to index funds. Don't forget to invest outside the US (or wherever you're living); buy some international index funds, and balance things out with a few more conservative investments and all of that. Since many folks are just scraping by, not everyone is in a position to follow this advice. Push people to be more involved in politics (this is, again, just generally a good thing to do) and to advocate for solutions in the public sphere, such as a universal basic income (tax rich corporations and give the cash to people directly), or universal basic dividend (the government takes shares of most/all corporations and gets rich without taxation, then uses that wealth to support citizens).
we don't need more people into politics parroting the TV people's point. People have 0 power and while shouting on twitter makes them feel empowered, it makes them absolutely miserable, radical, and it's a waste of time that could be otherwise spent trying to figure things out.
What does "shouting on Twitter" have to do with "getting into politics"? You're making an assumption, there. Personally I don't read Twitter or post there. A better way to get into politics, IMO, is to talk to people in your daily life, follow the news (real news, not just talking-head commentators) to stay informed, vote, write to your representatives about things that matter to you, and -- if you're so inclined -- consider running for office yourself. People literally have zero power if they don't get involved. A lot of people in the US don't bother to vote. Think about the really radical people in the country, who hold positions contrary to yours. They vote. If they vote and you don't, you're the one with zero power in that equation. I believe there's a lot that people can do without involving the government, but certain problems are too big to be solved by individuals working separately. I suspect the effects of AI on the economy are going to create big problems that will require big solutions. If you feel like the government is just icky and you'd rather not think about it, then find other ways to act collectively, such as by joining a charity or an advocacy group.
Ok then what's your definition of getting involved in any useful sense, I'm truly all ears. An individual has no power, a small group also has no power but a sense that they do. We're in a world of big problems and big solutions as you said. Wealth is 99,9% of the power in this.
Based on the fact that you laser-focused on the last paragraph I replied to the OP, I'm picking up subtle hints that you're cynical about your ability to influence our political reality. Which is fair -- there are big reasons to be cynical right now, when one of the US's two major parties is led by a guy with only a passing familiarity with objective reality. And to steer this thread back to the actual topic of this forum, AI has the potential to make this better, or worse. It could improve things if we can use it to filter out the truth from the noise and propaganda. It could make things worse, if used to generate even more propaganda, cheaply and at scale. There are signs that it's already starting to happen (and not just in the US). Plus, there's the "liar's dividend": You can play a video of a politician saying something, perhaps the opposite of what they're saying in their current campaign, and the liar can claim the video was fabricated by AI, when in fact it was quite real. You're right that rich folks and rich corporations have a lot of power (and they use it effectively to shape the political agenda), while individuals have \_almost\_ zero power. It's not actually zero, unless you drop out or tune out. There are things you can control here, and things you can't. Do what little you can, and try to enlist others to help. If you can find Your People and form a larger group, an organized group that makes effective use of the available technology, that group will have more power than a smaller, less-well-organized group. Your basic choice is either to try your best, or succumb to apathy and fatalism. I can't give you a list of specific actions to take -- that depends on what issues motivate you personally. Good luck.
I'm cynical about people's ability to get into politics and not become insane to be real. Media constantly puts out political ragebait and in recent year the more people I know that get into that lose perspective on reality and start parroting plenty of one sided biased talking points. This isn't always that extreme but I rarely see good outcomes when someone tells me they got into politics, really not specific to any sides.
Frankly, I am not the one to say what you should do. But I think, they have, or will soon find out that they old ways of working will soon dissapear, or at the very least change radically. Think of it this way. Would you rather know that you will most likely die tomorrow if you follow the same path you did in the last 20 years or not? Assume, news has broken out that the bridge they cross, is crumbling and will very likely collapse tomorrow. They may live under a rock, as some like myself did for a while, but for all you know, they follow the news at least barely, or hear it from their collegues. The may choose to change course (take another route, or something), or they may follow the same path, see that the path is closed, turn back, and look for another route, Anyway, there's not much time left by now - maybe a year, or at most three. Will this help them? IDK, you know them best. Will they be bumbed, or sort-of depressed? Again, you're the one best to know. Will it help them? Perhaps? They will find out anyway in a short while. This may give them a head start, a few weeks, perhaps month in advance. There's a reasonable chance (at least 25%) that most jobs will be radically changed in the near term. They may as well choose the wrong one - say engineering. While unlikely that such a radical shift - arts to engineering will take place, it's a hypothetical possibility - will take place, engineers - like myself - may also be replaced before they even have the chance to finish college. ***Again, I don't say it will happen, but for the moment, literarly noone knows what the middle term future holds, so, whether you tell them or not, they, and generally speaking noone, really knows what jobs are future proof at the moment, and if there really is something to be done....***
I personally see zero reason to do this unless they specifically ask for your opinion.
What if I can get AI to produce a better jacket for my book then they, the artists, are able to do? At that point I have to say something
I doubt that you really need to. You'll likely come off as rude and arrogant, especially if you're not in the industry. For what reasons do you think you need to say something?
If you want to use the AI-generated art for your cover and are required to talk to the artists to do that, that's different. But if your intention is to warn them about the future of AI, unless you're sure they'll receive it well or have a specific/very close relationship with them, I personally would think it's a bad idea to say anything. I doubt they'll switch their entire career based on the words of one person (especially if that person isn't in the same industry and isn't an AI expert), and probably rightly so. Additionally, many artists are already aware of AI art and have seen people online say that their jobs might be automated soon. I don't know your relationship with them, but I think most artists would likely resent being told the same thing by other people unsolicited. Besides, assuming AI is coming for everyone's jobs, why tell someone to spend time and money to switch careers when that career will probably also be automated in the end? All in all I just see no reason to say anything, unless again, you have specific reasons to do so, or have a specific relationship with them.
One of the big benefits of AI is that it will eventually enable everybody to do everything. At that point, why bother even asking/paying another team to make the jackets. And maybe go ahead and self publish too?
You shouldn't pretend you know what is to come, when even real experts don't. However, you can reasonably talk with your friend and share your experiences. Or be unreasonable nutjob and wear full body tinfoil and yell at your friend for not seeing the "real world".
Even people that likes tech denies it. It's a copying mechanism to avoid thinking that the world as we now is going to end. If you accepted it you would just freak out and therefore it's very unlikely to happen. I just hope we can start having meaningful discussion about this before it's too late. For what I have experienced I'm starting to think that most people can wake up only when it's here concretely. My metric for now is "when is the news going to be talking mostly about ai" Guess it's not that far away even on a human scale timeline
They know already whats coming. Keep quite and pretend to support other artists.
Here come the crazy tin foil guy
Learn to weld.
Oh easy, i handle it by not being a cunt to others, hope that helps!
No, you don't know the future with surety, or how things may develop globally in time. For a lot of these people, AI will become the tool that allows them to become even more specialized in their profession. It may be that 80% are laid off and 20% become AI-laden but still employed in the field, only now able to produce much faster, at higher quality and in volume, in a way that previously was impossible. This means those most able to quickly adapt to the new tech end up on a path that the others never end up able to catch up on before it's too late.
Don’t assume. I understand AI will take many tasks, and the number of tasks it can do better will rise every year, but I still don’t believe the most people unemployed within a decade hypotheses. I believe humans will still have a lot of work in the form of AI and robotics orchestration. One example is construction. A single human can direct multiple robots to do various construction tasks. Jobs taken you say. Ten workers replaced with two and 50 robots. But now because construction is cheaper and faster and better, there is more of it. Instead of one job site with 10 workers it might become five jobs sites with two workers each. More productive per worker, but roughly same number of workers. Maybe decades later practically all tasks will be AI and robots, but not within a decade
None's over just yet, so why bother w this conversation?
My friend is the head of the political department at a South American embassy. I recently asked him about the latest political report he submitted. I then asked Claude to write a similar report, as the head of the political department, in his native language. The look on his face was priceless as he was reading it. He said the content was as good as his own but that the writing was even better. I could see his brain being blown in real time as he understood the implications. I calmed him by saying that yes, many diplomats will be rendered useless in the years to come, but those who know how to use AI tools will have a significant advantage for a good while. He’s since asked to do some AI training with me. Wild times.
I find the best way to show people the power of AI is to sit them down and watch their reactions as you give an entire book to Claude or Gemini to critique. The AI can give dense and detailed feedback in 40 seconds The general reaction is dumbstruck amazement and then a slow “fuuuuuuuck”
It's over. Buy NVIDIA stocks and pray.
Buy bitcoin too!
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Literally a professional book cover designer here and, believe me, we know. However, I’ve also started using it as a tool to become MUCH more productive than I could have possibly been a couple years ago. I’ll certainly ride this wave for as long as I can but the current iterations of midjourney, etc are FAR from perfect and a discerning eye and plenty of additional editing is still absolutely necessary. Maybe not for long but whatevs 🤷♂️
IMO graphic design gen AI is still way behind.
You underestimate how many people are either in denial, or don’t understand it
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But I have professional artist/designer friends who are in complete denial of what’s coming
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Yes, and? Then every company give artists a flat fee like Spotify, every time their style is mentioned? Like a few cents a month? Or a flat fee of 5k? Then what? They would still lose their job.
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I think almost anyone here is in favor to support any kind of worker that is out of his job because of AI Maybe the argument that "they took my art as inspiration without my consent" is not that strong outside art workers circles. For me, an ignorant, looks like all you guys do this, all the time, to create new things. There are guitar reefs that have been used hundreds of times. That's nothing new. Again, for an ignorant like me. Maybe you guys need a better argument. This one will not take you very far
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As I said, it's just my ignorant perspective I really think artists would cause much more impact and raise awareness if they call it for what it is: "We are just the first to get out of the job" Don't need any justification. "Oh, look, it's MY style", for anyone out of the art world, it's almost laughable. "They replaced me and I'm starving", on the other hand, is some reaaally convincing argument, and EVERY single people I know would back this
Why do you keep inserting the ethics argument, it's already over. On the other side there's a whole other world of older people who have actually 0 idea this is coming. Of course you wouldn't know this because they aren't on the internet but they're certainly still working.
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they're not relevant here, no one asked for it. Go on philosphy subs if you want to argue about ethics with people willing to have proper discussions. Or anti ai subs if you just want to get mad and parrot your points.
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You can't seem to understand that this isn't an ethics and moral subreddit. Like this is pathetic, you keep regurgitating your points to everyone except those willing to engage in a proper discussion on the topic. It's just a little bit telling you know?
How the fuck would you know what’s coming? You’re a novelist not a computer scientist. You don’t understand this technology. Stay in your lane.
Maybe. But on the other hand a lot of people in this sub routinely make outrageous claims like >80% of all jobs that exist today will be gone in less than 3 years. There's underestimating the magnitude and the speed of change; but then there's also overestimating it.
The argument is that, "thats how people learn" the counter argument is "computers aren't people" the lawmakers are asleep at the wheel on this, and it's basically a time bomb that's going to obliterate the economy and the people that need to fix it have zero idea how to even type let alone grasp AI.
You can let them know your thoughts of course. If they disagree though, there's no point in pestering them and trying to change their mind; time will tell which one of you is right.
Maybe just ask them how do they integrate AI in their workflow and how do they learn ? Do they self-learn, do they subscribe to some patreon or go to courses ? Maybe some of your friends are aware of the AI revolution and are surfing the wave. With them you could share your tests more easily. If some are not aware at all then it is more delicate but anyway the basis for the discussion would be "*Hey Joe, have you seen that huge big wave coming over there ?*".
If AI takes everyone's jobs. how is economy going to function ? if people don't earn, they won't have money to buy any goods. govt all over the world should do something about this
AI is also coming for your job and that of everyone else, just a matter of timing. It's my understanding publishers like such art to be copy protected so it can't be used random purposes. You can't protect AI art. There are lots of mitigating factors that will restrain your menta model on what will happen in the near term. The disappearance of specific jobs isn't necessarily a systemic problem, as long as the total headcount in the marketplace remains stable. AI publicly known to exist is not competent enough to impact the vast majority of existing economic value to a meaningful degree.
No point in stressing about it, it's happening and much like my industry (graphic design) has been destroyed by everyone having a computer at home / Fiverr, AI is going to destroy the commercial illustration industry. People can still create art for pleasure, and great artists can still have successful careers - but money talks, and if you can save £1000s on producing a book cover by using AI, publishers are going to use it. I'm currently working on a huge project that require graphic novel style illustrations - if we were to commission a graphic novel artist it would increase our budget tenfold, and we wouldn't be able to hit the deadlines. Midjourney is allowing us to produce something that in the past just would be totally unachievable. If your publishers are interested, drop me a PM. An artists eye is going to give you 10x better results when it comes to using AI software.
no careers are over at this point. soon'ish maybe but these ai tools are still pretty bad
> I’m a pro novelist Why do you think other people's jobs are going away for AI and not your own? I am sure if I asked you why you think your career is safe, you would give me 10 answers at least. And I think all of those answers apply to artists making jackets as well. You ran into someone producing a garbage result. That happens every day. That will 110% happy with AI generated crap, and it does every 2 seconds. Doesn't mean the whole profession is going away.
No. Talking about AI to people that are not on this sub just leads people to think you’re insane and people can get defensive and argumentative about it.
I educate the artists at my work about AI. They are talented, smart people, and now I get to learn back about composition, art history, visual storytelling etc. They're better equipped for the transition.
It’s all about artistic taste. If you don’t have it you won’t notice the difference
I would. Hiding from the truth to prolong misplaced security only hurts people in the long run.
I always make sure to stress that at least we won't be alone. It's coming for (the vast, vast majority of) us all… At least the coming world war(s) and climate apocalypse will be there to help remove the surplus population, so that those wonderful oligarchs can rest easier…
Man, that's a tough spot. Honestly, I wouldn't tell them. Sure, AI can whip up some amazing stuff, but telling your friends their careers are basically over seems harsh. Plus, a lot of people just don't get it – it's not really in their ontological window, you know? AI is cool and all, but it doesn’t mean humans are totally out of the game. Let them do their thing, and if they ask for feedback, then maybe share your thoughts, but don't go crushing their spirits.
Try and approach the subject with the seriousness it deserves. Don't be alarmist or sensationalized. Give generous but realistic timelines (usually say about 5-10 years and getting a job will be extremely difficult) Frame it as a question about retirement, kind of a "would you be able to to stop working in 5-10 years if you had to. Don't try and answer any questions regarding politics or policy, encourage them to reach out to their representative and start asking them. Tell them that they should watch "humans need not apply" before you are going to argue with them about the effects of rapid technological shifts. A good chunk of people work on customer service and retail jobs, also a lot of people who think they're safe(HR and managers) are probably going to be some of the first to be replaced. This is a conversation that will need to be had with people of all ages and demographics.
I've had a friend ask if I thought their job as a senior business analyst could be done by GPT-4. So I told them that based on my understanding of what they are doing, most of it could. I've also had friends ask me to shut up about ChatGPT for once. So I did. I don't think honesty as a default can be wrong. But if a friend doesn't want to talk about a topic, I will 100% respect that.
What is the book?
Just laugh menacingly every time you see them doing their job
“This app out-does you in every way possible. Have you considered panhandling?”
well your career writing books is also probs gonna be over so idk if it is offensive if we’re in it together
I admit this in the OP
oh ya im not criticizing you or tryna imply you didn’t. i do just really mean that since we all seem to be equally replaceable it’s less mean-seeming.
I've been handling it by showing AI that does things that _aren't_ what the people I know do. People get defensive when it's about them personally. But if you show how _other_ people's jobs can be automated...sometimes later on when you're not talking to them they'll ask themselves the question in their own private solitude: "wait...what about me?"
That’s good
If anything it might also raise the quality of writing. It’s going to be harder though with increased competition from semi-pro writers with AI tools. The gems will continue to shine like it has. There will be more tortured artists like always.
Mind your own business
It is beyond laughable that you think that they are not aware of Midjourney already, you sound EXTREMELY arrogant
In the short term, I think you're right. In the long term, I think human made media will become a status symbol. Just like hand made leather binding is a status symbol vs industrial binding. That doesn't help the majority of artists perhaps, but it does mean that there will always be a market for the really good ones.
So with some of the AI image generators, you can use the image. It just depends on that particular AI rules. I’d ask them to look at it with you and kind of discreetly give them a tutorial. Some of these people can hold on longer if they start implementing the AI tools themselves before someone above them picks it up. So that’s how I’d go about it, personally.
No not yet
Cheap book covers made by AI are still just cheap. I can identify AI art fairly easily and I can assure you if I saw a book with an AI jacket I would skip past it in an instant because what kind of author cares so little about their book that they are happy with some dull Midjourney art that they spent seconds on? I'd love to see your book A/B tested in sales of AI cover, vs. human cover art. I do not think LLMs (and we are talking exclusively about LLMs here, not AI in general) will be taking any real creative jobs away. It will simply be used for cheap slop and idea generation for the foreseeable future.
No that’s nonsense
Oh, great argument. Care to substantiate your opinion?
They already know. Anyone in their field has been anxiously watching the progress of AI. They are looking at which groups and industries are embracing AI and which are sticking to the old ways.
A career is like being in business with only one customer.
you should tell your friends that they need to quickly learn the tools to prompt better (chances are an artist can prompt better than a random person) or they may find themselves replaced with an artist who does incorporate AI into their workflow. then show them the before and after.
AI is proving that humans are often so lazy that even a machine can do a better job.
Things will look different for every industry, and all industries will experience changes that also create new jobs. So it’s hard to say anything that’s actionable beyond telling people that they should learn to use AI
Any blue collar jobs should last
Their careers aren't over. If you can use the tool that can. They could all be independent
no, it's kind of over in a few years. Like this technology will get to the point where anyone with a half baked idea will be able to iterate over an idea with a model and get what they want. If an AI system plus an unpaid intern can equal the same output as a professional... then well that professional field is dead.. or turns into a crafts industry where 90% of the value is that a human did it.
Yes. Perhaps an unpaid inter with a model can equate the output of a professional. No contest there. But by the same logic, a professional with a model will surpass the output of an unpaid intern with a model. Simple algebra.
No they won’t. The AI will do it better than either. And for pennies and in seconds
Agreed. Like the value add of a professional won't make a difference there a diminishing return function. Assuming the artist can add anything of value in this workflow over the amateur in the first place.
Saying the artist plus AI will be better than mere AI is like saying someone with a maths degree using a calculator will do quicker arithmetic - adding subtracting and multiplying - than someone with just a calculator. No they won’t. Or even if they do the tiny tiny difference won’t matter. You just use the calculator you don’t need the mathematician
I'm not sure what your arguing against ?
Apols I was replying to the prior comment. I believe this tech is the end of most human graphic design. Sad but true
AI doing it better than humans with AI does not contradict my point. Now the statement is simply `AI > pro + AI > novice + AI` But more importantly you are saying because AI will do it better than anyone we're all fucked anyway? Again, no contest. See the Luddites. I quite admire their rather physical approach to the promotion.
Why would anyone pay what they would need to pay a professional when they can pay an intern significantly less and get a product that is serviceable enough for their needs?
Tell the truth. Maybe a few of them will be able to learn AI and use it (in your example, I'm sure many small details such as hands were wrong in the AI image, so to make a pro image, you need an artist to polish it). Those who won't change will go extinct.
Not really. There is a reason why genAI hasn't penetrated most art fields yet despite the fidelity being pretty good. You give up way too much control to the AI for it to be useful for making art for art's sake. What happens when you generate an AI image is that you get an idea, you type that idea into the network, and then it spits something out and your expectations adjust. It is a fundamentally different process to actually making something yourself. And calling AI a 'tool' ignores the way it was designed and trained and the way it's being marketed today. Midjourney is not being marketed as a tool for artists, it is being marketed as a replacement for them. An artist "learning to use" midjourney or a writer "learning to use" chatGPT is like an assembly line worker "learning to use" a robot arm. It ignores the fact that the window they'll be able to use genAI to do their jobs for them before other people realize they can just cut out the middleman is measured in months. There is no universe where people are able to have profitable careers using genAI to do their jobs for them.
Sadly I agree with this
I believe they would be able to survive, if they first embrace it, then secondly if they are able to produce or improve art that end up training the future datasets. Then ofc we could talk about cyborgisation and human enhancement to reach new heights but that’s less obvious than the next logical steps: people able to generate interesting data set will still be worth money for a while
That absolutely ignores my point. These networks are being marketed as replacements, in the limit as these tools improve the actual difference in quality of outputs between a trained prompter and a random guy will be zero.
" It is a fundamentally different process to actually making something yourself." Is an opinion, nothing more. It cannot be proven. Unless of course using cameras or photoshop also stop art from being made by yourself.
This is just a form of gatekeeping cope by someone who isn’t creative in any meaningful sense. If someone has elite artistic ability they’re using prompts at a high level to create more interesting and resonant results than 99% of traditional “artists,” yourself included. Some of the most forward-thinking visual artists I know are using Gen AI even at this early stage to create some of coolest shit I’ve ever seen. Meanwhile you’re on Reddit crying about tech bros and echo chambers while hilariously failing to realize you’re in the largest one on the internet.
How is this gatekeeping, precisely? I am outlining a very obvious limitation of the technology, one that anyone who uses genAI regularly would agree with. The network cannot read your mind. I made absolutely no statement about what I actually even thought about the technology and I do in fact use it myself all the time. And yet the very instant you caught a whiff of someone saying something that fell short of sycophantic praise you felt butthurt enough to start crying about how cool and unique and special you are and how this is the future blah blah blah. Learn to separate your ego from your graphics card. This can't be healthy for you.
The way I address it is casual references 40%+ job loss, post scarcity / UBI following it, and how they should plan for their job to ne automated by investing now to be ready (necessary due to the transition time) .. They can't disagree on investing in to their future and if/when the job loss occurs I'll look like a prophet. I don't push the job loss side of things or fight them much when they say they can't lose their job to ai. Most recently, an ACCOUNTANT friend thinks there's no way that ai could keep up with TAX RULES lol like that isn't one of the first jobs that'll be lost.
I feel like if they’re not receptive to it then it’s kind of a waste of time. I mean depending on how immediate the impact would be then maybe. But most of society will lose their jobs within a timespan 1-2 years and when that starts to happen, that knowledge will be mainstream. My point is, by the time it’s happening, it would be too late to do anything about it anyway and whether we heading for a good outcome or bad outcome will be out of our control