The Flat Earth Society
Other Discussion Boards => Technology & Information => Topic started by: garygreen on August 17, 2022, 03:43:07 PM
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for those who don't already know, machine-generated art is experiencing its first renaissance. two years ago, i'd have said that i wouldn't see this level of sophistication in text-to-image generators in my lifetime. if you want to see some examples, check out a few of these:
https://openai.com/dall-e-2/
https://imagen.research.google/
https://www.midjourney.com/showcase/
some interesting questions come to mind.
- given that these models are trained on art from living artists, is it fucked up for people to use them to generate art for commercial purposes?
- hell, is it even okay to use them to make some art for my home? normally you'd have to commission an artist for custom work. this is basically free. and, again, trained on living artists' works.
- how far will this tech develop? how long before i can use them to produce music and motion pictures?
- how long before they can produce images of real people that are indistinguishable from genuine images?
anyway, i'm just curious to see what people think.
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As far as the ethics around training go, I personally don't have a problem with it. Living carbon-based artists are also trained on the work of other living artists, while also having more creative agency to flavor their art with their own individual style. I kind of view training the AI as a similar in a lot of ways, and so using AI to generate art like this doesn't really bother me. I have a kid who thinks in the next 10 years there won't be any human beings making art because the AI will be doing it all, and I have a hard time believing that given the creative drive people tend to have. In the near term, I see it used for people to have a quick-and-easy way to come up with something like cover art for a book or album they want to self-publish and maybe aren't gifted with drawing or painting.
Producing images of people that are indistinguishable from genuine images is an interesting thought, but I also think DeepFake tech is already taking the more desirable path for nefarious parties that want to come up with compromising images of real people doing questionable things.
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given that these models are trained on art from living artists, is it fucked up for people to use them to generate art for commercial purposes?
Human art has always been influenced and taken form based on art made by someone else (or nature itself). I think it's fine for an AI to be influenced by human art since we're fine with humans being influenced by human art.
hell, is it even okay to use them to make some art for my home? normally you'd have to commission an artist for custom work. this is basically free. and, again, trained on living artists' works.
No different from an art student drawing some art for my home pro bono, in my opinion. Humans aren't going around making perfectly original art, free or otherwise. I'm sure there will eventually be fantastic art AIs that cost money to use, anyway.
how far will this tech develop? how long before i can use them to produce music and motion pictures?
How long for music? I think that answer is negative years: https://openai.com/blog/jukebox/
Motion pictures that are believable is probably quite a bit away, but not as far away as we might think. Wouldn't be surprised if we have an AI Toy Story moment within two decades.
how long before they can produce images of real people that are indistinguishable from genuine images?
In my hot opinion, they already can (depending on how we want to debate what a "genuine image" is). How long before an AI is making pictures that look like they were taken with your phone at a theme park yesterday? Probably sooner than we'd like (and the private, more powerful versions of these systems can probably already do just that).
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I don't have a problem with it. It would be nice if the full provenance of an object (art, currency, artifacts, or even mass produced commercial products) could be known, but that has never been true even without computers. Its a constant battle with the counterfeiters. Video evidence of some act will soon, if not already, not be sufficient entirely on its own to convince people that said act occurred as shown. But direct eye witnesses to such claimed acts are always good in any case.
A possible counter example might be security camera footage of something where there is in fact no one else present and one party is just claiming that an event occurred due to having it recorded. If faking such things becomes essentially free, one might imagine bad uses of it, but we'll just have to deal with that if it becomes an issue.
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given that these models are trained on art from living artists, is it fucked up for people to use them to generate art for commercial purposes?
Human art has always been influenced and taken form based on art made by someone else (or nature itself). I think it's fine for an AI to be influenced by human art since we're fine with humans being influenced by human art.
According to copyright law, inspiration is acceptable, but blatant copying is unacceptable. The distinction between inspiration and copying is a human one with no strict definition, which raises the question of whether it is possible for a computer to understand the difference, let alone apply it in practice.
So, should an AI that is capable of copying existing art itself be considered a copyright violation? Is only some of its output a copyright violation, while other output isn't? Who is civilly and criminally liable in case of a violation, the creator of the AI or the user who provided the input?
You can't pretend that established precedent can answer these questions because they are questions nobody has ever had to answer before. Copyright law as it exists today is not some moral absolute, it is a solution to problems that existed in the past, and it does not adequately cover the technology of today.
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I follow a few artists on twitter and I recently saw one who retweeted a comment like "the last one looks like an AI painting" and the artist essentially said it was the most insulting comment he's gotten and he wouldn't be surprised if that kind of comment becomes more prevalent. And it wasn't even a harsh criticism because this particular artist is very very good.
Anyway, I think it sucks. People already undervalue artists' work and this makes it worse obviously. We stray further from God's light everyday.
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I do feel a little uneasy about it, but more from the point of view of consequences than fairness.
Is it fair to the human artists? I have no idea. Do I worry that it could severely reduce the output of human artists (and, consequently, providing no new art for the AIs to learn from)? Yeah.
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Devaluing the work of artists would indeed be bad. But I'm not so sure that will be the result. In music (which is very different from painting due to the performance aspect, but still is an interesting data point) I read some pieces prior to the pandemic that a number of artists were focusing more on concerts, that can not be faked, instead of producing recordings that are becoming ever easier to counterfeit.
Maybe originals will in fact become more valued and copies less so. To be an original there has to be some sort of verification that such is the case. e.g. I have a water color that I really like that I know is an original as I know the artist. If I were to sell it there needs to be something that can provide that same verification. I'm not sure NFTs are the answer here but something along those lines might serve such a purpose.
As for where this is going, I have no more idea than anyone else. However its interesting to note that self driving cars was thought to be pretty doable, we'll have this working in just a few years. But it turns out its a lot harder than originally thought. It would not surprise me if we find that creating art (as something that inspires that touches people etc) is in a similar class.
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Most artists of any kind produce their art because they are compelled to. They don't produce art because they feel the world does not have enough art in it already. In fact, if you ask most hardcore artists, " Would you still produce art if you knew there was no one to see it?" Most of the time, they say yes.
Writing and digital publishing has been a side hustle of mine for many years. I've written novels and nonfiction but now there is software that can artificially create stories. It's easy to imagine a website where an AI could create a novel for you based on your input. I don't see that as a threat, just another competitor.
I think I'm okay with an AI novel writer ingesting some of my work along with Hemingway and whoever to produce a story. However, if the AI created a story starring someone else's intellectual property like Spider-Man and sold it for money, then there could be some serious shit.
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As for where this is going, I have no more idea than anyone else. However its interesting to note that self driving cars was thought to be pretty doable, we'll have this working in just a few years. But it turns out its a lot harder than originally thought. It would not surprise me if we find that creating art (as something that inspires that touches people etc) is in a similar class.
This is an interesting point, and of course part of the issue here is that "art" is a very broad spectrum of things, ranging from works meant to inspire to more mundane things like, I dunno, the cover image for an opinion piece on a news site.
That latter half of the spectrum is important, because it's a somewhat reliable source of income. It's a safety net for someone who wants to get into (visual) arts - maybe they'll make it big, or maybe they'll live a comfortable enough life creating something that might not make them the next Michaelangelo, but which provides clear value to society. In my opinion, it's that safety net that's currently at risk.
To try and illustrate that point, here are a couple of AI-generated oil paintings of Trump, currently on fire*:
(https://i.imgur.com/Bgxc5qT.png) (https://i.imgur.com/v2Ito98.png)
Now, is this revolutionary art that's going to inspire generations? Of course not. But could it be used as the cover of the next WaPo article about how Trump is a criminal? Yeah, probably. So, if an idiot like me can spit that out of a generator without having to pay for a stock photo or a comissioned art piece, what's stopping large companies from never commissioning artwork again?
* - I should note that while DALL-E 2 is supposed to be restricted from generating images relating to real people, those restrictions are terrible.
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As for where this is going, I have no more idea than anyone else. However its interesting to note that self driving cars was thought to be pretty doable, we'll have this working in just a few years. But it turns out its a lot harder than originally thought. It would not surprise me if we find that creating art (as something that inspires that touches people etc) is in a similar class.
This is an interesting point, and of course part of the issue here is that "art" is a very broad spectrum of things, ranging from works meant to inspire to more mundane things like, I dunno, the cover image for an opinion piece on a news site.
That latter half of the spectrum is important, because it's a somewhat reliable source of income. It's a safety net for someone who wants to get into (visual) arts - maybe they'll make it big, or maybe they'll live a comfortable enough life creating something that might not make them the next Michaelangelo, but which provides clear value to society. In my opinion, it's that safety net that's currently at risk.
To try and illustrate that point, here are a couple of AI-generated oil paintings of Trump, currently on fire*:
(https://i.imgur.com/Bgxc5qT.png) (https://i.imgur.com/v2Ito98.png)
Now, is this revolutionary art that's going to inspire generations? Of course not. But could it be used as the cover of the next WaPo article about how Trump is a criminal? Yeah, probably. So, if an idiot like me can spit that out of a generator without having to pay for a stock photo or a comissioned art piece, what's stopping large companies from never commissioning artwork again?
* - I should note that while DALL-E 2 is supposed to be restricted from generating images relating to real people, those restrictions are terrible.
Yes, this.
I also write for funsies, but that's not the issue. AI generated art doesn't take anything away from me wanting to create something for my own enjoyment. But it does cause potential issue with artists who rely on creating as either a full time or part time job. Artists already struggle to get compensated fairly for their time and effort.
And with automation already taking away non-artistic jobs, then what will be left in the future?
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And with automation already taking away non-artistic jobs, then what will be left in the future?
Maybe automation taking away all our jobs is the sign we need to stop having a job being the basis of our entire civilisation.
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And with automation already taking away non-artistic jobs, then what will be left in the future?
Maybe automation taking away all our jobs is the sign we need to stop having a job being the basis of our entire civilisation.
You'd need a civilization that cares about people first.
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And with automation already taking away non-artistic jobs, then what will be left in the future?
What makes you think that the job of media painter/artist should even exist? If you want to paint then paint. It is ridiculous to demand that you are paid for the things you enjoy doing.
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And with automation already taking away non-artistic jobs, then what will be left in the future?
What makes you think that the job of media painter/artist should even exist? If you want to paint then paint. It is ridiculous to demand that you are paid for the things you enjoy doing.
There is a big difference between painting/art as a hobby and painting/art as a business. Just look around your house at just about any product and you will see the work of any number of artists.
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And with automation already taking away non-artistic jobs, then what will be left in the future?
It is ridiculous to demand that you are paid for the things you enjoy doing.
So you should only get a job you don't like?
I'm so glad I'm not like you Tom. So very glad.
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It is ridiculous to demand that you are paid for the things you enjoy doing.
no one is suggesting otherwise, and you already know that.
dude can you please just take your bad-faith arguments to another thread? i started this one for genuine discussion, not for more "tim says silly thing and everyone takes the bait." we've got like a dozen of those threads already.
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I think it’s very cool that AI can make such aesthetically pleasing works and can see that they will likely take over a huge segment of creative business, like graphic design. Like Xasop said, this doesn’t need to be a tragedy, but instead it’s a signal that we should reconsider the paradigm we organize ourselves under socially. Production has been the end goal for so many centuries that it’s become a given, but if we can take up other ends AIs can help us in many new ways.
There is also something that an artist offers that AIs can not yet compete with, and that is a context from which their work emerges. As a manifestation of an artists experiences, their work becomes something deeply personal that evokes audiences’ emotions because of empathy. So AI art and human art will be able to coexist in parallel but there will be a new equilibrium.
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It's quite amazing that AI has reached this level of sophistication, and from a strictly technical perspective it is extremely attractive. However, I feel the impact on human culture will be minimal for now. Commercial artists may see a downturn in low paying work and it may even extend into commercial photography. However, the real patrons of visual art will not be interested in hanging some AI produced soulless image on their walls.
I had a discussion about this a few months ago with my sister who illustrates children's books for a living. She says it has not yet had an impact on her work. The writers want to be able to communicate with the artists, work out the look and feel of the images and ensure that carries though the entire work.
Thing is though, AI produced art is only the beginning. It will eventually make headway into all intellectual endeavors, and at some point it will get better at them than us. I guess humanity has a choice. Embrace it and find a new role for ourselves, or fight it. I think we will choose the former as we always have when machines were given the jobs we used to do.
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However, the real patrons of visual art will not be interested in hanging some AI produced soulless image on their walls.
I mean, you're obviously correct there. However, I still worry that this changes the threat model for potential artists. Currently, you'll either make it big or you'll live an OK life producing art for commercial use - the kind that doesn't appeal to "the real patrons", but which clearly has its place in the world.
If AI were to take that segment over, your threat model becomes "you'll either make it big, or, uh, enjoy wasting half of your life becoming an expert at something nobody wants". How many people are going to take that risk?
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i think i'm kind of rooting for these tools to become sophisticated enough to be funny, but not sophisticated enough to replace journeyman artists. it would be rad if the end result was simply a tool to help augment an artist's brainstorming and rough-drafting.
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I really like GauGAN2 (and its descendant, Nvidia Canvas) for that kind of purpose.
http://gaugan.org/gaugan2/
Like, that's pretty damn cool. If you need a random backdrop for a larger art piece, you can now specify the rough shape of the scenery.
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However, I still worry that this changes the threat model for potential artists. Currently, you'll either make it big or you'll live an OK life producing art for commercial use - the kind that doesn't appeal to "the real patrons", but which clearly has its place in the world.
If AI were to take that segment over, your threat model becomes "you'll either make it big, or, uh, enjoy wasting half of your life becoming an expert at something nobody wants". How many people are going to take that risk?
Certainly there will be that aspect, but I am not convinced it will happen quickly enough to have much of an impact. The first to be impacted will be the kind of folks that draw roosters on Kellogg's boxes and camels on cigarette packages. But even that will not happen overnight. Companies, especially those of long standing, are reluctant to change what works. There will be resistance from the public too. All in all, I think the change will happen, but it will happen gradually enough for most people to adjust their career choices.
History has shown us this many times over. Take the printing press as an example. It eventually put a lot of potential transcribers out of work, and since monasteries were where most of this work occurred, took away a huge amount of their income. However there was resistance. Printed material was initially very expensive too albeit not as expensive as hand scribed material. and there were quality issues. Add to that the very limited supply of and huge cost of printing presses and society had ample time to adjust.
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If AI were to take that segment over, your threat model becomes "you'll either make it big, or, uh, enjoy wasting half of your life becoming an expert at something nobody wants". How many people are going to take that risk?
100%
It seems like a lot of people who are making the argument that AI art is not that big of a threat don't understand how most artists make a living. It is incredibly difficult to "make it big" as an artist. A lot of artists have a side job on top of creating. Most artists are not living comfortably on rich patrons or have the masses scrambling for their work. It's usually contract work for businesses or middle/lower class buyers and if AI art can match what some people are already making for much cheaper that's going to wipe out a lot of artists.
Companies, especially those of long standing, are reluctant to change what works.
Companies already don't want to pay artists and they're constantly looking to save a buck, so I believe it could change a lot faster than you think.
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rooster, I'm in tune with your sentiment, but I do think you might be a bit of an idealist.
Do what you can to help out but progress will march on.
I watched a video a little while ago where the visuals, music and text were all created by AI. It was, well, a little underwhelming.
I've been trying to find it again without success, but if I do I'll post it here.
Nonetheless, I'll take history's lesson and say we'll adapt. Sure some will get offered a short stick (it has happened to me n my career) , but as a global society I'm confident we'll come out OK.
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What I've learned from observing the latest in machine-generated music is that a machine can only (fail to) reproduce what already exists, it can't truly create anything new in the way that a human being can. What I've seen of DALL-E and other visual arts AIs is much the same, it can be prompted to create an amalgamation of known things, but it can't produce something unknown. Granted we live in an era in the arts where we are "out in the ocean", and there is no identifiable progress* as such other than technological. Perhaps progress in art is now, rather than new material, new efficiency in reproduction of old material, but nonetheless personal style remains unquantifiable.
*of course, progress can only be identified in retrospect
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What I've learned from observing the latest in machine-generated music is that a machine can only (fail to) reproduce what already exists, it can't truly create anything new in the way that a human being can. What I've seen of DALL-E and other visual arts AIs is much the same, it can be prompted to create an amalgamation of known things, but it can't produce something unknown. Granted we live in an era in the arts where we are "out in the ocean", and there is no identifiable progress* as such other than technological. Perhaps progress in art is now, rather than new material, new efficiency in reproduction of old material, but nonetheless personal style remains unquantifiable.
The very concept of art being "new" is a human abstraction, and has to do with the expression of ideas rather than any concrete definition. All art is, after all, a combination of existing colours and shapes in some way. I don't think it makes any sense to say that an algorithm can't create new things because a computer simply isn't aware of that distinction.
What is probably going on is that, given that the vast majority of art in general is highly derivative, you are experiencing sampling bias due to the relatively small quantity of AI-generated art, and the fact that most people using it are just noodling around and not really trying to create anything groundbreaking.
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I made a mistake in my first post by saying that a machine can't create anything new. What I meant to say is that a machine can't generate anything new, because creation is entirely beyond its capabilities. Sorry for muddling up the terminology.
What I've learned from observing the latest in machine-generated music is that a machine can only (fail to) reproduce what already exists, it can't truly create anything new in the way that a human being can. What I've seen of DALL-E and other visual arts AIs is much the same, it can be prompted to create an amalgamation of known things, but it can't produce something unknown. Granted we live in an era in the arts where we are "out in the ocean", and there is no identifiable progress* as such other than technological. Perhaps progress in art is now, rather than new material, new efficiency in reproduction of old material, but nonetheless personal style remains unquantifiable.
The very concept of art being "new" is a human abstraction, and has to do with the expression of ideas rather than any concrete definition. All art is, after all, a combination of existing colours and shapes in some way. I don't think it makes any sense to say that an algorithm can't create new things because a computer simply isn't aware of that distinction.
What is probably going on is that, given that the vast majority of art in general is highly derivative, you are experiencing sampling bias due to the relatively small quantity of AI-generated art, and the fact that most people using it are just noodling around and not really trying to create anything groundbreaking.
Of course all art is a combination of existing colours and shapes, but a machine can only reproduce existing combinations, while a human has the potential, not the innate ability, but the potential to combine existing things in new ways. A human being has experiences through which they form perspective, and from the application of that perspective comes style, that is a way of seeing and combining things which cannot be completely but is at least partially unique and potentially significantly so. A machine has no experiences, no perspective, and cannot develop style; it cannot think and it cannot create; it may be programmed in a unique way, but that is an act of human creation. The creative element of machine-generated art comes, as you pointed out (see my emphasis above), from the user who devises the prompt.
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Couldn't find the other one I mentioned but came across this one while I was looking. Skip ahead to 7:50
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKfnjxMS2RM
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https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvmvqm/an-ai-generated-artwork-won-first-place-at-a-state-fair-fine-arts-competition-and-artists-are-pissed
oh deer
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https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvmvqm/an-ai-generated-artwork-won-first-place-at-a-state-fair-fine-arts-competition-and-artists-are-pissed
oh deer
I almost posted that but I'm an "idealist" or whatever.
I can get where some people are coming from in saying it's a new tool to use and we just have to deal with it. Which ultimately I know will be the case as we're always moving forward. But it still seems not gr8 that someone who has no ability to paint or do line-art for themselves can feed prompts into something, curate it, spruce it up, and then call it their own.
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Yeah, its bound to happen.
However ..
.. he won in the digital art category ..
I'm still not convinced we all need to run for the hills screaming tough.
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.. he won in the digital art category ..
I'm still not convinced we all need to run for the hills screaming tough.
Ah yes, good thing it wasn't a medium that a lot of artists work in.
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First they came for the artists, and I did nothing, because artists deserve it, lmao, owned.
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BillO, out of curiosity, what do you think "digital art" entails?
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BillO, out of curiosity, what do you think "digital art" entails?
Art created digitally, e.g. with the aid of a computing device.
You really think I'm an idiot, eh Pete?
I was just noting they did not try to get it by as something else.
Also, the article was not clear on whether or not it was disclosed as being an AI creation before it was evaluated. That would be interesting to know.
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You really think I'm an idiot, eh Pete?
Not an idiot per se, but I have a sneaking suspicion you've never produced a digital painting, and that you don't understand the work that ordinarily goes into it. It's the only way you could make this comment:
However ..
.. he won in the digital art category ..
I'm still not convinced we all need to run for the hills screaming tough.
and think that it somehow diminished the issue. You're clearly dismissive of the form, and it is my opinion that it's rooted in inexperience.
Also, the article was not clear on whether or not it was disclosed as being an AI creation before it was evaluated. That would be interesting to know.
He did not: https://boingboing.net/2022/08/31/jason-allen-takes-1st-place-in-digital-category-at-colorado-state-fair-with-ai-generated-content.html
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Meh. If they can teach a pig to make award winning art, then why not an AI?
https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/pot-bellied-pigcasso/
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Not an idiot per se,
Ahhh .. thanks .. maybe?
but I have a sneaking suspicion you've never produced a digital painting,
True.
and that you don't understand the work that ordinarily goes into it.
Not quite. While not very involved in visual art I have decent experience in producing digital music. I do have an appreciation of the amount of work required to produce artistic works from that perspective. Please keep in mind there are two main aspects to digitally produce music. Live performance is not what I'm talking about, but rather music composed using a computer.
It's the only way you could make this comment:
However ..
.. he won in the digital art category ..
I'm still not convinced we all need to run for the hills screaming tough.
I'll have to disagree here. I assume you've read my previous comments on this.
and think that it somehow diminished the issue. You're clearly dismissive of the form, and it is my opinion that it's rooted in inexperience.
No, I'm not dismissive of the form at all (I guess you did not read my previous comments). I am also not diminishing the issue either. I'm facing facts.
Actually I'm quite amazed at all the younger people's reactions. I'm the old guy here and have, on this very site, been accused of being stodgy and set in my ways. Apparently though it seems I'm the only one looking down the road. Change is nigh. It's gong to happen. Saying that is not diminishing the issue, it's facing it. I have personally been put out of work due to technological progress. Instead of crying about it I made changes and got on with life. Just like people have been doing for millennia.
He did not: https://boingboing.net/2022/08/31/jason-allen-takes-1st-place-in-digital-category-at-colorado-state-fair-with-ai-generated-content.html
Thanks for posting that. Having an AI category would be appropriate going forward.
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Literally no one is saying this change is not going to happen.
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Yeah, with all due respect, BillO, you're the one who's misinterpreting others' intentions here.
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"Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen with AI generated images set to the lyrics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6Myv8yF9zw
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Literally no one is saying this change is not going to happen.
Literally no one said that anyone said that either.
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Literally no one is saying this change is not going to happen.
Literally no one said that anyone said that either.
Apparently though it seems I'm the only one looking down the road. Change is nigh. It's gong to happen. Saying that is not diminishing the issue, it's facing it.
holy shit, why does it feel like you're gaslighting me? WHERE IS THE READING COMPREHENSION
1. we know the change is going to happen. that was never the point anyone was making.
2. it sucks for people who will lose work over this; whether that's today, tomorrow, or five years from now
You keep disagreeing with me and saying I'm an idealist or that we're running and screaming for the hills. But it doesn't really seem like we're disagreeing about anything other than you having a sunny disposition about it likely because you don't understand the scope of what digital artists do. Literally all it takes is a little bit of empathy and seeing that artists are already upset about it.
Will people find new jobs? Yes, fucking obviously because like you mentioned this is happening to all of us. Hopefully one day we will be in a position to not have to rely on employment to survive like xasop said earlier. But can we still acknowledge it might suck for artists until that time? YES
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The important takeaway from all of this is that the artists will be sent to the mines and actually become productive members of society. Our overlord AI will produce neat 1st-place-winning artwork for all of our creative needs.
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Literally no one is saying this change is not going to happen.
Literally no one said that anyone said that either.
Apparently though it seems I'm the only one looking down the road. Change is nigh. It's gong to happen. Saying that is not diminishing the issue, it's facing it.
holy shit, why does it feel like you're gaslighting me? WHERE IS THE READING COMPREHENSION
1. we know the change is going to happen. that was never the point anyone was making.
2. it sucks for people who will lose work over this; whether that's today, tomorrow, or five years from now
You keep disagreeing with me and saying I'm an idealist or that we're running and screaming for the hills. But it doesn't really seem like we're disagreeing about anything other than you having a sunny disposition about it likely because you don't understand the scope of what digital artists do. Literally all it takes is a little bit of empathy and seeing that artists are already upset about it.
Will people find new jobs? Yes, fucking obviously because like you mentioned this is happening to all of us. Hopefully one day we will be in a position to not have to rely on employment to survive like xasop said earlier. But can we still acknowledge it might suck for artists until that time? YES
You just have to be in disagreement with me, don't you.
I'm not gaslighting anyone. When I said I'm the only one looking down the road I meant I don't see this as the immediate problem everyone else seems to see. The only difference between what I'm saying and what you are saying is the the time scale. I don't think this means graphic artists (digital or otherwise) are going to be marched out onto the street en masse. As I already said, I think some will loose their jobs and of course it will suck for them (I never said otherwise), but it's not going to be everyone and certainly not the droves some seem to think it will be. Others will continue in their jobs because they are valued by good employers, others will move on to something else (like I did) before being put out of work. I also think there will be plenty of time for those that were considering going into graphic arts as a career to make the change to something else.
You are all so fond of reminding me of how old I am. Well, again, like I already said I've real life experience with this. Plus I have seen it happen many times in the past. Yes, it sucks. It will suck every time it happens and it will happen again, and again..
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Yeah, with all due respect, BillO, you're the one who's misinterpreting others' intentions here.
That's clearly not the case Pete. I would say it is actually opposite to that.
Like I said. This happened to me. I lost my career due to a change in technology. I know what this feels like personally.