Drawing furry porn commissions is meaningful to me. It's fun to sit around getting paid for drawing horny cartoons. It's a fucking blast, it feels like I am cheating at life to have this be part of my job. It's also easy and pays a nice hourly rate. And it's a human communication - I am helping someone express their feelings, desires, and fantasies. I am giving them permission to indulge in crazy fantasies and to feel beautiful, powerful, and desirable. Thank fuck that communication between myself and my clients can be automated away by a program! Thank fuck I'm freed from being a part of what binds a community of weirdos together!
Drawing Corporate Memphis bullshit for startups is a great way to transfer a big chunk of VC money from some Bay Area jerkoffs to an artist living somewhere much cheaper, where it can pay multiple months of their rent for not much work, and maybe even let them have some luxuries and/or financial cushions. Thank fuck that all that money can extend the startup's runway a tiny bit further now instead! Thank fuck those artists won't have to wrestle with the feelings that comes from getting paid better for a few hours of corporate work than for anything they've poured their passion into!
If you're regularly taking on client work, then you have places to play and experiment while still getting what you need to pay your bills, and even if you're just turning the crank to make another piece that fits in with everything else you've made, you're getting a tiny bit better at making art with every drawing you do, and you can bring that back to the time you spend on your crazy personal work. If you take some other job to make ends meet, your rate of progress slows way the hell down. I've seen it happen. Friends who used to draw a lot better than I did twenty years ago now just draw as a hobby, and draw just like they did back then; me and my friends who made it my job have spent the last twenty years drawing, and it shows in our work. Thank fuck that's endangered! Thank fuck we, too, might have a bunch of recurring gigs collapse out from under us! Thank fuck those of us who embrace becoming an AI wrangler for a corporation will be asked to do tons more stuff for the same pay, or less!
How do you propose the artists who are now blissfully freed from the work that pays their bills should pay the rent on their homes and studios, and to pay for their tools and materials, while still spending all their time making art that "breaks the mold, hasn't been made before, and is meaningful to the artist"? How do you propose they should find the time to hone the skills needed to do this? Because doing that is a lot of work.
> “And it's a human communication - I am helping someone express their feelings, desires, and fantasies. I am giving them permission to indulge in crazy fantasies and to feel beautiful, powerful, and desirable. Thank fuck that communication between myself and my clients can be automated away by a program!”
Serious question: are you sure that it can be? What you just described as the value proposition of your work is not the delivery of some pretty pixels. You’re selling a service, an experience, a human connection. You’re selling your artistic judgment and your ability to translate back and forth between client’s imperfectly expressed wishes and the visual design space. You’re selling work that is valuable to the buyer _because_ it was made by you.
I completely understand the fear that is gripping a lot of artists. But I’m as of yet unpersuaded by the predictions of doom and gloom. Art is human connection. Once the hype has worn off and we all get inured to generative art, I think we’ll find that people still value and pay for the real thing.
A final thought: algorithms can’t lay graphite on paper or put brushstrokes on canvas. You may consider offering your clients tangible artifacts that only a human can make.
The "thank fuck!" part is me sarcastically quoting the person I was replying to, who used those words to express delight that two major pillars of my income are at risk of being destroyed by AI, thus "freeing" me from all this work to do real art.
> How do you propose the artists who are now blissfully freed from the work that pays their bills should pay the rent on their homes and studios, and to pay for their tools and materials, while still spending all their time making art that “breaks the mold, hasn’t been made before, and is meaningful to the artist”?
They should connect with the people that aren’t artists and have a similar preference for non-AI art.
Or, they should learn the new tooling of the field, and use it as part of their mix of tooling.
The vast majority of would-be artists have never been able to afford to do it full-time and have needed “real” jobs; it would be astonishing for the narrow fortunate elite that have to think that they are somehow the one group of people in all of human history entitled to have that privilege without being concerned to adapting to change, even though that’s never even been the case in that same elite, which has had to deal with change (whether driven by technology or changing aesthetic preference for media, techniques, subjects, etc.) rather continuously, historically.
Artists are the ones now experiencing what the Luddites did. Smashing the looms didn't stop more looms from being built. Also, now the average person can afford fabric because of the technology.
Simply put as we move into a world where most needs can be provided by technology keeping up the 'winner take all' method of capitalism so many subscribe to isn't going to work.
Giving away (economic) power and "trusting" some benevolent actor without having some other kind of enforcing power is rarely a good idea. I hope military uses of new technologies will not used on ever growing powerless citizens. For example, the gains of the commonfolks the last two centuries were "strong" bcs their labour (strikes) or brute force were valuable arguments. Things are different now, and power has visibly shifted out the hand of common people
Automatic looms probably wouldn't have been possible without the lessons learned by skilled weavers (not to mention the mechanics building them) either.
Capital formation is always and everywhere painful for labor (see: medieval enclosure, the American frontier/genocide, the Great Leap Forward, the triangle trade, and many others). This is obviously really really bad but so far we haven't devised a workable, lasting way to systemically stop the ownership class from doing it to us.
I think I understand the distinction you're making, but don't see why it matters. In both cases, skill and artistry are replicated by capital machinery using the same skill and artistry, but without paying for it (or paying for much less of it).
Automatic looms took jobs away so there was less work to be had. AI takes work that has been worked from the workers. They still do the job but AI takes it.
How will we support ourselves until the extremely unlikely event that becomes a reality?
What are you doing to support artists through this shitty transition? Hint: Calling us "luddites" and vaguely waffling about the hoped-for death of capitalism is pretty much the opposite of supporting us.
Thank you for completely dismissing the existence of myself and the many freelance artists who do make enough money to pay their bills off their work, and our concerns. Well done.
All I’m saying that it is already a problem that should be better solved, so all the talented artists that as of now can’t sustain themselves from their work can also feed their families.
Drawing Corporate Memphis bullshit for startups is a great way to transfer a big chunk of VC money from some Bay Area jerkoffs to an artist living somewhere much cheaper, where it can pay multiple months of their rent for not much work, and maybe even let them have some luxuries and/or financial cushions. Thank fuck that all that money can extend the startup's runway a tiny bit further now instead! Thank fuck those artists won't have to wrestle with the feelings that comes from getting paid better for a few hours of corporate work than for anything they've poured their passion into!
If you're regularly taking on client work, then you have places to play and experiment while still getting what you need to pay your bills, and even if you're just turning the crank to make another piece that fits in with everything else you've made, you're getting a tiny bit better at making art with every drawing you do, and you can bring that back to the time you spend on your crazy personal work. If you take some other job to make ends meet, your rate of progress slows way the hell down. I've seen it happen. Friends who used to draw a lot better than I did twenty years ago now just draw as a hobby, and draw just like they did back then; me and my friends who made it my job have spent the last twenty years drawing, and it shows in our work. Thank fuck that's endangered! Thank fuck we, too, might have a bunch of recurring gigs collapse out from under us! Thank fuck those of us who embrace becoming an AI wrangler for a corporation will be asked to do tons more stuff for the same pay, or less!
How do you propose the artists who are now blissfully freed from the work that pays their bills should pay the rent on their homes and studios, and to pay for their tools and materials, while still spending all their time making art that "breaks the mold, hasn't been made before, and is meaningful to the artist"? How do you propose they should find the time to hone the skills needed to do this? Because doing that is a lot of work.