We've seen this a few times already, and we know how it'll play out. A little actual change, and a lot of failed initiatives, and resulting clean up work.
AI is just the latest version of "no code", that promises results with little skill. The details required to have a good and accessible web site that works reliably on all the popular viewing platforms, can't be delivered with oversimplified requirements, especially when you through hallucination into the mix.
However, the old saying "Garbage In, Garbage Out" still applies.
Both TFA and the article it links to go too far in either direction.
The author of this is a web developer so has a lot more to lose. Yes there will always be people who pay for a human made creative website, but that market has decreased for the foreseeable future. I can't blame them for being hostile and tired, I would be too.
Simply acknowledging criticism of AI then saying "anyway" isn't really an argument either. "So do knives" is bullshit, nobody with knives wants to eliminate interns and create 20% unemployment like Amodei claims.
One thing this makes me realise is that an AI generated web largely stops growing. We've all joked about webdevs perpetually porting to JavaScript framework-of-the-week. If most websites are generated from a set of historical training data and we force web devs to diversify away, then there will be few people left to make a "web 4.0" or whatever version you consider is after the modern web.
Hopefully you like hamburger menus, looks like they're here to stay.
> I’m extremely privileged to have a job that I enjoy. My work is creative. The challenges are rewarding. I don’t take that for granted. When I imagine “AI” in the mix it does not spark joy. I tried the tab-completion slot machines; not my cup of tea. I tried image generation and was overcome with literal depression. I don’t want a future as a “prompt artist”. I’d rather pack up my privilege and find something else.
I’m incredibly fortunate to have a craft that I cherish. My work is visceral; the smell of the oils, the feel of the canvas beneath my brush. The challenges of translating vision to a tangible form are deeply fulfilling. I don’t take that for granted. When I imagine computers further encroaching on design, it does not spark inspiration. I’ve seen these digital drawing tablets and "design" software; they feel cold and disconnected, like painting by numbers with a sterile stylus. I’ve witnessed the rise of computer-generated graphics and felt a profound sense of loss for the handcrafted. I don’t want a future as a “graphic operator” or a “filter adjuster.” I’d rather pack up my easel and find something else entirely.
Are you sure? I dont remember the last time I "drew" an arrow mark. I hit a drop down, selected the one that I wanted and hit OK. Even if I wanted to tweak it, I double click and tweak the control points. Same for bezier curves. And dont even get me started on typography & icon packs.
How about easy undo? What would a master like Da Vinci say if he saw modern designers iterating over colors using colorpickers? He'd shake his head saying "designers these days cant visualize things in their heads"
And detractors say AI doesn’t draw the thing for you either. “Soulless”, “without human touch”, “tab-completion slot machine”, “slop”, “hallucinations” etc. Seems like they’re more comparable to a Wacom or 3d render/modeling program than first glance might suggest. They make some things easier and faster, but apparently still require a human being to wield to tool with skill to produce art product people are interested in.
I've noticed most of the fear mongering is coming from folks who are just enough skilled to be worried their life's worth is going to be replaced. A competant web-dev knows that they are going to be OK, and so are competent screenwriter/designer.
Imagine the world when blogging and self-publishing was starting out, if all the NYT journalists started saying "OMG, this internet thing is going to allow anyone to start a news site. Are you saying you write opinion pieces without studying and going to journalism schools?" It is the same energy here.
> just enough skilled to be worried their life's worth is going to be replaced
Everyone starts out that way. When you start work as a coder, or an artist, or writer, you are just enough skilled to make money. You can bypass some of this step by university or other forms of education, or you can be lucky enough to have spent your teenage years developing a skill that makes you money as an adult. But nobody starts out highly skilled.
It's a genuine source of worry that AI will subvert the process of people going from "just skilled enough to make money" to "highly skilled". I'm not fully convinced that it will - I think it's likely that in the long term society will adapt, just as it did to other tools.
But nonetheless it's a valid concern that shouldn't be dismissed. As with other new tools, it's going to disrupt a lot of people's livelihoods and we should approach that with empathy rather than telling people they simply weren't skilled enough to deserve to continue their career in this new reality.
It's certainly possible that the author believes their blog post is going to spark a movement or contribute in some way, as a sort of political act, to society's rejection of AI and therefore the ultimate salvation of their career as an AI-illiterate "creative". But giving them the benefit of the doubt for a moment, it might be more likely that they simply are aware that many such people exist already and are apt to click on a post such as this in order to have their opinions repeated back to them cathartically. The idea that a growing mass of social media posts can go critical and blast a hole in reality is, on the other hand, extremely popular these days.
I'm not saying I like all of this, or I dont worry about the future. But then again, WHO AM I to think that others are gonna "make things worse" or "not be given this power".
Democratizing tools, knowledge, access has always been messy. Think of the days when books were restricted to only elites. Explosion of ideas happened once it was opened up, but it was also messy.
We progress when everybody is empowered, and I see AI giving super powers to all of them. Will it be messy? 100% but we'll come out it better than what we have today.
IMHO actual worry has to be tempered by action. Blog posting is a short term relief from the pent up emotions. There are doomers that doompost and doomscroll, and doomers that prep and give themselves a buffer. The world’s wealthiest people build bunkers and buy real estate and agriculturally healthy land across the globe because they’re doomers at heart and can’t shake the feeling of needing to prep for any disaster at any moment. So it’s not just the tinfoilers that have this mentality.
Unfortunately HN predominantly caters to the doomposters and doomscrollers, and then somewhere the shitposters that thrive on performative acting of outrage, fright, drama, and so on to perpetuate the cycle and milk it to its full extent.
I’m not saying go out get some 25-year shelf life MREs and move to a very LCOL area and start growing vegetables in case you need to get through a particularly peckish winter, but humanity as a whole has lived through worse situations and no idea is off the table if its time has come.
I imagine a lot of people are very averse to losing what they have, being set back in their life in some way and seeing others unfairly benefit and perhaps unfairly benefit from their hard work. I don’t have an answer for this that actually solves the issue at heart. We won’t be holding hands and singing Kumbaya any time soon and weather events certainly don’t mind razing entire states. Starting resistance movements and communities is great but hard, unrewarding work with no guarantee of success.
I wouldn’t go that far but I do like the analogy. I just think if someone is this hung up on a tool or technology or a process taking over their job, or the jobs of the world, probably doom-ranting through a blog is a short term relief to the anxiety or denial or grief, but ideally I’d say they should see a psychiatrist so we don’t have to all collectively suffer the enmemefication.
AI is just the latest version of "no code", that promises results with little skill. The details required to have a good and accessible web site that works reliably on all the popular viewing platforms, can't be delivered with oversimplified requirements, especially when you through hallucination into the mix.
However, the old saying "Garbage In, Garbage Out" still applies.
The author of this is a web developer so has a lot more to lose. Yes there will always be people who pay for a human made creative website, but that market has decreased for the foreseeable future. I can't blame them for being hostile and tired, I would be too.
Simply acknowledging criticism of AI then saying "anyway" isn't really an argument either. "So do knives" is bullshit, nobody with knives wants to eliminate interns and create 20% unemployment like Amodei claims.
One thing this makes me realise is that an AI generated web largely stops growing. We've all joked about webdevs perpetually porting to JavaScript framework-of-the-week. If most websites are generated from a set of historical training data and we force web devs to diversify away, then there will be few people left to make a "web 4.0" or whatever version you consider is after the modern web.
Hopefully you like hamburger menus, looks like they're here to stay.
I’m incredibly fortunate to have a craft that I cherish. My work is visceral; the smell of the oils, the feel of the canvas beneath my brush. The challenges of translating vision to a tangible form are deeply fulfilling. I don’t take that for granted. When I imagine computers further encroaching on design, it does not spark inspiration. I’ve seen these digital drawing tablets and "design" software; they feel cold and disconnected, like painting by numbers with a sterile stylus. I’ve witnessed the rise of computer-generated graphics and felt a profound sense of loss for the handcrafted. I don’t want a future as a “graphic operator” or a “filter adjuster.” I’d rather pack up my easel and find something else entirely.
They, and AI bullshit, are not comparable.
Attempting to equate them just demonstrates the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the techbros behind the ai hype train.
How about easy undo? What would a master like Da Vinci say if he saw modern designers iterating over colors using colorpickers? He'd shake his head saying "designers these days cant visualize things in their heads"
Thinking they know what a long-dead person would say or think is YET ANOTHER sign of the AIbro’s intellectual and moral bankruptcy.
Good creators are set.
Bad creators are screwed.
We are only beginning to see what a talented artist can do with AI tools. Bad ones can't do much more than laymen and are scared and disappointed.
What do they teach kids at college these days?
Imagine the world when blogging and self-publishing was starting out, if all the NYT journalists started saying "OMG, this internet thing is going to allow anyone to start a news site. Are you saying you write opinion pieces without studying and going to journalism schools?" It is the same energy here.
Gatekeepers. All of them.
Everyone starts out that way. When you start work as a coder, or an artist, or writer, you are just enough skilled to make money. You can bypass some of this step by university or other forms of education, or you can be lucky enough to have spent your teenage years developing a skill that makes you money as an adult. But nobody starts out highly skilled.
It's a genuine source of worry that AI will subvert the process of people going from "just skilled enough to make money" to "highly skilled". I'm not fully convinced that it will - I think it's likely that in the long term society will adapt, just as it did to other tools.
But nonetheless it's a valid concern that shouldn't be dismissed. As with other new tools, it's going to disrupt a lot of people's livelihoods and we should approach that with empathy rather than telling people they simply weren't skilled enough to deserve to continue their career in this new reality.
Democratizing tools, knowledge, access has always been messy. Think of the days when books were restricted to only elites. Explosion of ideas happened once it was opened up, but it was also messy.
We progress when everybody is empowered, and I see AI giving super powers to all of them. Will it be messy? 100% but we'll come out it better than what we have today.
Unfortunately HN predominantly caters to the doomposters and doomscrollers, and then somewhere the shitposters that thrive on performative acting of outrage, fright, drama, and so on to perpetuate the cycle and milk it to its full extent.
I’m not saying go out get some 25-year shelf life MREs and move to a very LCOL area and start growing vegetables in case you need to get through a particularly peckish winter, but humanity as a whole has lived through worse situations and no idea is off the table if its time has come.
I imagine a lot of people are very averse to losing what they have, being set back in their life in some way and seeing others unfairly benefit and perhaps unfairly benefit from their hard work. I don’t have an answer for this that actually solves the issue at heart. We won’t be holding hands and singing Kumbaya any time soon and weather events certainly don’t mind razing entire states. Starting resistance movements and communities is great but hard, unrewarding work with no guarantee of success.