AI: The Death of an Artist
The following is a list of the top 3 most impactful inventions in all of human history in the order of how impactful they were/are/will be very soon. Ready?
1. Artificial intelligence.
Coming in at a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very distant second...
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...
...
...
...
...
2. The wheel.
3. The Guttenberg press.
AI is here. As an artist, I have a lot of friends who haven't yet been able to process the fact that they're done. You have the distinct honor of being among the last human commercial artists ever. Human commercial artists are about to be in the same category as wheelwrights. Period. You are about to become as valuable as someone who is very talented at hand-crafting wagon wheels. Paying a human being to create commercial art is a topic of interest only to historians. That's not my opinion. You're welcome for me telling you so you can process it faster and get over it so you stop wasting time and can formulate a new plan for your future.
People used to have to carry water from the river to their village. At one point, that was someone's job. I have little doubt they lamented the fact they had to find a new vocation once canals were invented.
"But, but... all we have to do is get our government to regulate it or maybe even just outlaw it and problem solved." That might work... for a minute... and while our government is outlawing the AI that took your job, your government will still be using it for their purposes, and also, a black market will open which will still take your job. While that's going on, all the governments of the world which don't have governments who can be influenced by their pearl-clutching populace, like, oh, I don't know, CHINA, will be embracing AI because any nation who doesn't will cease to be a nation in very short order. Those nations who embrace AI will also take your job and probably something even more dear to you than a paycheck.
Don't worry. It isn't just artists. Coders have ALSO just gone extinct and ALSO don't know it yet. In fact, name a job where you clock in and sit in a chair for 8 hours -- you'll also be unemployed within a year or two and there's nothing you can do about it.
I'm sorry that you're now mad at me for saying that true thing to you. Many of you reading this are much smarter than me and could pivot to using AI to help yourself get ahead of all of your colleagues who are still holding out hope that AI isn't going to end your employability. You won't do that though, because even though you're smarter than me, and a harder worker than me, you're much more emotional than me and that'll be the end of you. Those emotions are messing with you, and they're going to eventually unmake you.
I hope you don't read this and I REALLY hope you don't listen to this podcast:
Keep laughing about the extra fingers in AI generated images and find comfort in the fact that AI is always going to add extra fingers to the images it generates and that it'll never be fixed by the thousands of geniuses who are currently working 18 hours a day to improve their technology.
AI is never going to get better. What AI can do right now is all it's ever going to be able to do so you don't have to worry about something that can't even draw hands correctly. Nevermind the fact that most of you can't draw hands correctly either and that, at its worst, Midjourney still makes better art than you ever dreamed you could, RIGHT NOW, let alone in the future.
Rest easy in the notion that companies will continue to gladly pay YOU tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars to ever-so-slowly create art for them when they can pay someone else $30 a month to produce better results at the speed of light. Yeah, you're job is gonna be around forever. Keep thinking that and while you're at it, go fetch me a bucket of water from the river.
-Mike McLaughlin
*All three images in this post were created using AI. The VAST majority of the 5 minutes I spent on these images was in sifting through the dozens of iterations I generated in order to pick the ones I liked the best. I didn't even bring them into Photoshop. I ain't got time for that.
1. Artificial intelligence.
Coming in at a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very distant second...
...
...
...
...
...
...
2. The wheel.
3. The Guttenberg press.
AI is here. As an artist, I have a lot of friends who haven't yet been able to process the fact that they're done. You have the distinct honor of being among the last human commercial artists ever. Human commercial artists are about to be in the same category as wheelwrights. Period. You are about to become as valuable as someone who is very talented at hand-crafting wagon wheels. Paying a human being to create commercial art is a topic of interest only to historians. That's not my opinion. You're welcome for me telling you so you can process it faster and get over it so you stop wasting time and can formulate a new plan for your future.
People used to have to carry water from the river to their village. At one point, that was someone's job. I have little doubt they lamented the fact they had to find a new vocation once canals were invented.
Don't worry. It isn't just artists. Coders have ALSO just gone extinct and ALSO don't know it yet. In fact, name a job where you clock in and sit in a chair for 8 hours -- you'll also be unemployed within a year or two and there's nothing you can do about it.
I'm sorry that you're now mad at me for saying that true thing to you. Many of you reading this are much smarter than me and could pivot to using AI to help yourself get ahead of all of your colleagues who are still holding out hope that AI isn't going to end your employability. You won't do that though, because even though you're smarter than me, and a harder worker than me, you're much more emotional than me and that'll be the end of you. Those emotions are messing with you, and they're going to eventually unmake you.
I hope you don't read this and I REALLY hope you don't listen to this podcast:
Keep laughing about the extra fingers in AI generated images and find comfort in the fact that AI is always going to add extra fingers to the images it generates and that it'll never be fixed by the thousands of geniuses who are currently working 18 hours a day to improve their technology.
-Mike McLaughlin
*All three images in this post were created using AI. The VAST majority of the 5 minutes I spent on these images was in sifting through the dozens of iterations I generated in order to pick the ones I liked the best. I didn't even bring them into Photoshop. I ain't got time for that.