My thought is that anything created by AI shouldn't be copyrightable. If a big brand creates their new mascot by AI, then anyone can use it the next day however they want. They can't be sued or blocked. AI creates stuff from bits and pieces of a everybody else, so no one can own it. If someone puts up an AI created music album, anyone else can put it up the same day in their music store. Also, if you think that Amazon has filled its book store and music store and movie store with crap, wait til millions more people create 10 AI books, 19 AI movies and 10 AI albums a day and flood Amazon, Spotify, etc with billions of these things. The market is already white noise, now it will be a white tsunami. The only way is to make everything AI touches worthless other than a starting point for real creativity. Eh, but what do I know.
I think it will be a rocky few years like when people were downloading free movies and music when everything went digital but we will own our likeness (editing styles, voice, look, artwork style, etc.) Like how we sell LUT packs and templates. Again, about 2-3 years of chaos, figuring out AI's place and how/when we use it and after the dust clears, we will have our modified roles.
AI and Short-form videos are how humanity devolves towards the "Wall-e Universe" Easy Anything + Dopamine OD Keep creating, Thomas. Your team's work is appreciated. This is a great community conversation piece.
With you on this. Completely. I'm a graphic designer and cinematographer. I've loved creating visuals since a very early age and spent most of my childhood learning about colour, composition, lighting, and even to this day, nothing excites me more than learning more about the things that bring me so much joy! Sitting down with friends, writing scripts, saving up, and then actually shooting films that you spent months ideating and planning, carefully crafting each frame where every single element is intentional, is highly rewarding. Then coming back and adding sound and colour, getting feedback from a bunch of people, and making a million changes is a process that pretty much gives me purpose. It's not just about the money; there really isn't much else I would do with my time. This obsession is what got me through my worst moments and further intensified the joy of every cheerful situation. Will future generations ever understand the excitement of sacrificing sleep to hike up a hill and catch the perfect sunrise on camera? Or will they see this as a meaningless endeavour? Why would anyone want to appreciate beauty of any kind when everything can be generated so easily? A huge part of what makes something exceptional is the painstaking work and enormous amount of thought that goes into creating it. The effort is what makes great work rare and hence, great. If everyone can generate everything with absolutely no effort, the emotions that are induced by what is rare today, will lose all of its intensity. I started feeling this way long ago, but the AI rage has simply heightened my fear. A few years ago, when AI wasn't a household term, people started talking about a future where every car will be self-driven, and all I could think of were the plethora of beautiful moments I hold on to from taking road trips with my friends, taking turns driving, and exploring places that seemed unexplored. The nights when I roll the windows down and drive around aimlessly, feeling on top of the world. Machines were supposed to make our lives easier, not take away our sense of purpose. What will bring people joy in the future? What will induce a sense of passion? What will humans do with their time? And of course, how will we sustain ourselves in society if machines start to possess our skills?
I feel exactly the same way. I'm a fashion photographer and my work is what kept me going, what gave me purpose in life. Now I see the threat of all of that going away, because nobody will need real photography anymore. I tried midjourney as well and I have to say that I feel completely empty after using it. It creates nice images, but it's not like I can say "I created them". Everyone who believes that has some serious ego problems. Prompting in those generative AI models is intentionally so simple, that a 5 year old can do it. What I think is needed is a taxation system, that makes it soo expensive globally for companies to use it and at the same time can pay everyone a basic income. I also agree with what @dougfranckwolf said that none of AIs creations should be copyrightable, which would be a joke anyway since all of those models have been trained illegally without consent of the human creators.
I'm OK if these companies use it to replace humans as long as the government provides a living income, not a basic income. They will be making trillions from this tech.
I have thought about this a lot the past few years. I am a Visual Effects artist and I dedicated years of my life to learning how to replicate every aspect of a moving image using 3D animation and compositing. Sora basically does it by default. Here is my take after reading a bunch of articles on the subject. The primary issue with AI is that you get what you get. After the initial product it is very difficult to change a specific part without the AI making sweeping changes to the whole image. This issue has been attempted to be fixed by controlnet AIs, but as it stands right now it is a major drawback to the technology. Anyone who has ever worked for a client will know that they will want to make changes. Sometimes a lot of very specific changes. This aspect of the job will always have to go through a human and in that way creative professionals are safe. However, your pride as an artist will no longer come from making something visually or audibly "impressive". AI will have us beat when it comes to first impressions of an image it seems. That being said humans tend to get bored of seeing the same thing over and over. AI like Midjourney definitely have a 'look' to them that I am starting to get accustomed to seeing. AI is dependent on images it is trained on and so truly unique artwork will never be under threat. Humans at the end of the day still have to come up with the ideas and a really specific idea takes expertise and artistic vision.
Great take. I agree with this whole heartedly If you have any artistic vision you know what you want and there‘s a big price to pay in time and skill. I‘ve tried some Ai workflows also with controlnets but it‘s not good enough. Plus the whole thing just takes out any of the fun of being creative. I feel zero sense of accomplishment doing any of the ai stuff. I switched from illustration to motion design (2d/3d) as it seemed too unappreciated of a career. Motion design thankfully can be abstract enough where I can be somewhat save for a bit. Besides the empty, vapid feeling of using it all, the worst thing is the look you mentioned. I think it comes from midjourney using a smaller but probably legally cleaner data-set but even stability ai‘s legally fraudulent stuff tends to get a look or artifacts and goddamn faces popping up everywhere, especially if you uprez.
@@KarimNiazi Yeah I feel you on the vapid feeling of using the tools. However, I also think the hyper focus on AI tools that generate the entire image could be part of the problem. There are AI tools like Beeple's switchlight that can change the lighting of an input image. Also Photoshop's range of AI stuff. These actually feel like tools instead of just asking the machine to do it all for you. I think the conversation needs to move in that direction. Away from AI becoming the artist and towards practical tools that use neural nets.
One thing you touched on - but maybe didn't consider further. People are going to stop learning how to do any of this stuff. They'll never learn instruments. They'll never learn to paint. They wont't take up writing works of fiction or poetry, etc. BUT -- what happens if (hypothetically) all of this A.I. stuff stops functioning due to some kind of network outage or natural disaster. Or cyber attack. You'll have an entire swatch of humans who never bothered to learn these things. And potentially run the risk of artworks or skillsets never making it to future generations.
@@WhySteve When's the last time you saw people making furniture by hand, embroidery or pottery? they're still done, sure. but en-masse, machines have taken over
One thing that kept me optimistic about the whole Generative Imagery is that clients still need to know what they want. Not knowing what type is not going to help. I recently assisted on a photoshoot where the client had their "Creative" make backgrounds in several programs (which all are subscription-based) and we matched portraits of people in that environment. I can tell you there was a real struggle when the perspective of the background did not translate well into real life. When asked if their Creative could change up the angle of the background slightly or charpen certain details, the only answer is "No". We even spent our time days later to photograph missing elements (grass, fences etc) that the AI can not create clear image off. So now we are working more, for even less.
Well...I think, as always, there will be a peak of this...and then it will stay somewhere in the middle. Like photography. For decades digital photography was perhaps the only option. Nowadays people started to love physical film again. Even today, when "anyone" can do extraordinary things with a phone, brands are having to hire photographers and videographers again in order to differentiate themselves from content creators with a phone....And you have the case of DJs, that can make available to you what you want to listen to and dance to at your party...but you always prefer to have a live band playing...so...I think this is a special moment...we, as creators , we must understand it and use it...and be prepared so that when this stabilizes, we can continue standing and being masters of the old and the new.
I feel seen. You perfectly encapsulated my inner fears while also being amazed and amused at this powerful tool. I'm a High School Film/TV teacher, and I'm feeling more and more foolish as the days go on and AI gets smarter. Will there be any jobs for my future students? It seems our future artistic endeavors will be completely motivated by self-expression. AI will be able to create some incredibly unique works of art/media, but only I can make what I'm feeling... I think.
Great to see you again! Very very thoughtful. When I saw some Sora footage a few months ago I thought to myself - what am I doing trying to learn about cinematography and (low level) production!?
All very valid points, and it's certainly sum up very well the whole artist's anxiety about generative AI ever since MidJourney and Dall-E came out and wrecked many people's minds. I've been giving the whole situation a lot of thoughts this past year (I work in animation and photography, so both my careers are directly under the line of fire), and one thing that has consistently been in the back of my head is : AI is not the end of the line. Case in point : since I work in animation, I've got a pretty good parallel to draw : CG animation. Animation is a pretty recent form of art, all things considered, it came out at the beginning of the 20th century, so it's roughly one century old. And for a good chunk of it, all the animations were hand drawn. The Fleischer brothers, Warner Brothers, and most famously, Disney, all of them became famous by hiring super talented artists who basically had to create the art and all its principles from scratch, based solely on visual observations of real life and mixing it with comics cartoons visuals and goofiness. And the hand drawn 2D animation craft perdured for at least 80 years as is, until something hapened in 1995 : Pixar's Toy Story ! For the first time, an animation movie was done fully in CG (the art already existed from before, but was mostly used for VFX in real live action movies, most famously in Jurassic Park). And it rocked ! Everybody loved it ! The possibility of not having to redraw the whole inbetweens, and be able to move the camera around, with "realistic" lighting... That was all novel at the time, and it caught on like wildfire, both for the audience than the studios. Quickly, Disney proclaimed "This is the future of animation" and quickly got rid of all its worldwide 2D studios and artists, only to focus on Pixar. It was THE most massive layoff of the entire history of animation. Thousands of animators have lost their jobs at the time and, coming right after the decade of the Disney Renaissance, where hand drawn animations were booming, it felt like a gigantic slap in the face as the drop was astronomical, and it was rightfully touted as the darkest time of the animation industry. Everybody thought 2D was dead, and CG was the bright future of animation. Well, fast forward 30 years later, and spoiler alert : 2D is not dead. Sure, CG is now having the lion's share, but 2D is alive and almost well, thanks to our friends in Japan who are too stubbornly stuck in the past to massively adopt new technology (paradoxically), and a lot of fantastic studios in Europe, mainly in France and Ireland, but also Spain, and now there's even a great looking 10-years-in-the-making Pakistanese movie called the Glassworker that's coming out soon. Also, as a photographer, we could hike up in time even further and see how when cameras and photography came out, all the artists painters were throwing their hands in the air, saying peopel with cameras are going to take out our painstakingly learned through years of dedication jobs with a click on a button ! Fast forward 100 years later, and spoiler alert : painting is still alive and well. It just had to evolve into something else, and some critics and artists actually said t freed paintings from the confines of realism, to go explore whole new grounds and whole new worlds (whether it's better or worse, I'll let others be the judge of that). Also, another thing that most people are not thinking about but to me, it kinda rolls off the tongue : since everybody can all of a sudden be an artist-musician-filmmaker-animator, EVERYBODY will try to make something out of it. As a result, the audience, already overwhelmed in front of their Netflix or UA-cam homepage, will drown out (and possibly shut off) under the onslaught of choice of what to watch. And most of it, frankly not good looking (with dead fish eyes and 8 fingers hands) Spoiler alert : there's only 24h in a day, and we're working 8 and sleeping 8, and most people have families that keep them busy with family chores for 4 to 6 more hours, so people are already pretty picky with what they're gonna spend their time with for leisure. So between a movie or a game that's been done by actual teams of artists who have artistic experience and who care, and nobodies who just started styling themselves as directoes coz they got a brand new toy that help them do whatever they got in mind (mostly unrefined noobies stories without any actual real life experience, not in the art of visual storytelling) ? Yeah, I think the choice is gonna be pretty quick. So yeah, I see AI as the new CG or the new camera : the shiny new tech that's coming to sweep all the artists, but in the end, once the storm has passed, arts will still be there, people will still do it for pleasure because it makes them feel alive, and like cratsmanship vs industrial items, there's most definitely still gonna be a market for human handmade arts. It's just that it's not gonna have the hegemony it once had, and sure enough, AI art might have the lion's share of the pie, but art is not going anywhere. We just have to fin ways to survive while weathering the storm, and once on the other side, when people will get tired of the onslaught of soulessness of AI art, things will go back to a more stable new normal. It's just that it's gonna get worse before it gets better, so we have to be creative in how to survive till then. But hey ! What a coincidence : that's exactly what we are : creative !
I have exactly the same feelings. I'm 43 years old, and i put my whole life in a art. I was at art school, then art academy, and i'm doing different kind of things like drawing, painting, illustrating, graphic design, photography, videography, music... For the whole my life art was some magic, some sense of life. For the last year or two I've been trying to understand my attitude towards all this AI thing...
Well, since you asked: I know that as a camera operator and DP, I'm supposed to be wary of the AI-driven future, but in reality, I stopped caring. It's not like I can stop any of this, so why should I worry? Just wait what happens and adapt. It's what humanity has been doing for thousands of years.
I saw someone (I forget who) say that they thought it would get to a point where you would eventually choose between "AI" or "human" like we choose between "organic" or not at a grocery store. So, I don't think it'll completely go away, but yes the competition became a lot greater because we'll be continually going up against AI who's constantly learning from us. I also think it may bring upon a huge shift in society where we do things and learn things simply for ourselves rather than doing it for the external validation. Or who knows, maybe it'll get to a point where things suck so much humanity just decides to burn it all down and start again lol.
Mate this is all I think about too. So freakin’ scary that it’s impossible to foresee us being little more than AI curators at best for a short while until it overtakes every role. And then what? Are we really going to be happy reading a book written by AI or watching a commercial or film made by a computer? To me it seems void of soul and yet will most care? Probably not … until we’re left rudderless without meaning thinking how did this happen?
I totally understand how you're feeling. I've been an artist since I was a child. Drawing and painting, I put out several albums in the 90s, radio voice overs, I currently have a book out about creativity and videos on UA-cam. Like you talked about the kids in the coding class thinking the computer will do it for them in the future, for me as a teenager, spelling and handwriting were my weak points and I remember thinking when I grow up machines will correct my spelling and I won't have to write anything. Here we are decades later and I use spell check and voice to text countless times a day including every word of this paragraph. I also dive deep into AI as much as I can because I love learning the process but editing a photograph I took with AI feels totally different than painting a picture from an image in my mind. I'm not sure I have any answers or comforting words for you aside from I’m trying to be creative with the new tools. I am editing with AI, I am creating with the aid of computers. But I am also able to do things that I couldn’t in the past like self publish, share my albums on spotify with the world and digitally fix paintings and photos I took 30 years ago to look like what I see in my mind. It’s not going away so try your best to make AI and digital tools work for you, not you for them. God Bless.
You say you enjoy "making" images with midjourney or music with Udio, I believe that's the first mistake people are committing, YOU aren't doing anything...the computer is, you or whoever uses AI are only asking the computer to make it, and you don't own it, the company who owns the computer who created the AI does...and that's debatable. Who knows where this "AI" thing will end up, but one thing is for sure, creative people are going to continue creating, and also some spectators and people who consume art and media are gonna get tired of the "AI art". It's happening right now. If you enjoy making something, keep doing it. A machine may or may not make it better than you, but it will never be you. It’s nice to hear your thoughts on this whole thing, keep those videos coming, I really enjoy them.
Yeah. But theres also flaws in that logic. You aren't really in full control when you're creating any digital art. Are you programming the tools to make the thing? Like painting in photoshop. Youre jusy pressing buttons and the computer does the rest.
@@neuvatn hahahaha sure, just pressing buttons, right, go make a digital painting and let me know how much photosop did. A tool is something YOU use to help YOU create something, telling a computer to create something FOR YOU is not using a tool, that's like going to Mc Donald's asking for a burger combo, did YOU made the burger and the soda and the fries? Nop someone made it for you, it's the same thing.
There’s a reason why doctors and lawyers have relatively high incomes. It’s because to practice requires a license and to get the license you have to jump through a ton of hoops. Making art “accessible” is definitely not good for making a living from it.
Well put thoughts on the impact of AI (also: you have quite the artistic skill set my friend). I guess we will all adapt, and I suspect true, human-originated art will be continue to be valued. It’s like buying a factory-made glass bowl versus a handcrafted and glazed ceramic one at an outdoor market… the factory one is functional, but the handcrafted one is appreciated.
I think comparing GenAI to drawing/painting isn't very useful and it should be seen as a separate thing. I'm also an artist and see it as a tool, and I'm keeping the perspective that we're in the early days of the technology and it will only get better and easier to control.
As someone who is also in AZ trying to start making films it's definitely rough thinking about how the future looks like with AI, while at the same time trying to figure out how to leverage it. It's going to make it so people with less resources will be able to create things that were once out of their grasp. Just like the prosumer camera made filmmaking more accessible. It's both a blessing and a curse. Because that means lazy media that wastes peoples time will get even worse than it already is. But at the same time, there will likely be people with real visions who will use AI for what it is, a tool, and use it too make new things, instead of letting the algorithm dictate. The camera didn't kill the painting, and I pray that AI will not kill human creativity. Just like movies like to say they were made with no CGI, soon there will be films sold as being made without AI. The scary part is what it will do to people and what they believe about their own value. But when it comes to creativity in Hollywood, the writing has been bad for long enough that I wouldn't be surprised if they've been using AI for a decade already.
I relate to everything you have said. You pointed to the best software as well (but was definitely missing Magnific). I've been very contemplative lately as I see more and more tech evolve so fast, it constantly puts me in this mode of, ok, what should I do LMFAO, like how am I going to push this business forward with all of these changes, which niches do I pursue, should I be more versatile, but then who hires the master of none. I constantly am thinking, how am I going to adapt and evolve with all kinds of people losing their jobs or supplementing their high paying jobs with video/photo gigs. When you have this massive saturation of people wanting to create content for whatever reasons, its hard to see it as an advantage to being in the video field when content is so absurdly consumed in the most unhealthy (and cheapest) packaging possible AND it's getting easier for anyone to make passable professional looking content. The ability to tell stories doesn't exist as much anymore and that is essentially what we are being paid to do, the deliverables aren't long enough for us to deliver enough of our true value. So now, I'm contemplating learning a lot of VFX stuff, because I can creatively concept very short eye catching shit with real people and professional equipment that I've already bought (clients), but now I've changed my entire approach to content, dumbing it down, and making it hook as fast as possible, all to better assimilate into the idiocracy we are becoming. I tend to always be a little skeptical or negative, something I always work on, but I do sense some disturbing trends forming and AI is in its infancy, that's the scariest part. Really so true about the ego involved with thinking that we are special and machines can't do what we do, the human condition at it's finest. Makes me want to become a licensed counselor LMAO.
I found peace by shifting my focus a bit towards documentary filmmaking because I figured ai can’t replace that. Then you come along and make the grand point that anyone can take a video on an iPhone and say make it beautiful and it’ll probably be 10x better than what we can do (because it can create amazing backgrounds/no limitations to budget).
Definitely feeling similar, really questioning the longevity of my business. It's all well and good saying just embrace AI, and to a point I agree with that, but if there comes a point where all my smaller business clients don't need a videographer anymore (using Sora for example) then you have to be concerned. E.g. talking heads videos, already no videographer needed if you don't mind a random AI person appearing, and I can easily imagine that becoming "upload your face and a background you like and voila". Perhaps this already exists, I'm not sure. Basically just feel you on this one and it can be summarised I think by fear of the unknown.
As a professional composer/producer, hearing that AI cinematic music made me think, “oh s#*t, this is a HUGE threat to my career prospects.” I didn’t realise AI music was already that far along. Faaaaark.
He didn't even get into the new Eleven Labs music generator, which is due for public release this week or next week and absolutely leapfrogs Udio and Suno in terms of capability and quality. I think Eleven Labs will be a major player as they have the industry standard text to speech and speech to speech AI (which he talked about and demonstrated) and now seemingly the best x to music generator as well.
@@joshmcdzz6925my music isn’t soulless, but I’m still concerned. 1. AI will continue to improve and will end up creating AMAZING music. It’s wilful ignorance to think otherwise. And 2. Many (but not all) production companies just want music cheap and fast and won’t hire composers if they can generate decent music at the touch of a button. It doesn’t matter to them how much soul your music might have .
So we are working on a big national commercial. We got some temp music from a stock website. The company comes back and says, awesome work, but with the music… we have got a contract for this ai tool from the audio company. Please use this to create some music. We go onto the website and you can basically now create music in the style of the company logo. Sounds good? Nooooo we don’t want to do this, it’s a massive amount of work and it’s definitely work that I want to find someone to do. It’s absolutely insane to think that a client or film director will have to time to fiddle around for days to come up with something soso instead of just paying an composer money. Mind you that I am somewhat knowledgeable with music production, but i absolutely have no time nor desire to start creating millions of tracks to pick the best one out of it. I am very sure this will be happening with sora too
I very much relate to your perspective. I grew up in a musical household (I play several instruments myself) with other types of artists in the family and also have a love for photography and cinematography and am quite discouraged by what Ai seems to be signaling for our creative futures. I’ve dabbled with Ai a bit just to see what the fuss is about and have tried MidJourney. But, I will admit that prompting it in a way that renders a useful image is almost an art form (if not a science) itself! I feel I need a masterclass on how to get the damn thing to make a sensible and simple image! Anyways, thanks for sharing this. Much needed.
Thank you for making this, I agree with you. It is cool for work and some situations, but it is terrifying for us creatives, and art has to come from within you. That is why Iwill not use AI for writing my shorts, as it has to be me. It will not be perfect and maybe worse than AI, but it is true to me. I have stuff I need to tell, personal stories, and if you replace it by AI, it has no meaning. It will probably become a lot worst for us creatives in the coming years. We can either embrace it, or fight against it, I am a bit of both,but I am sure eventually, AI will catch up so well that there are no point in doing it myself. We are in the time where everyone thinks it is cool, but in the future, I think we have to make a sort of way to verify that art is autenticly made from and by humans. That it is heading in that direction, is scary, but I think we have to proove that we made it and not AI, it used to be the other way around.
Probably the best articulation of how artists feel. It's crazy to see human creativity really took off in the 1900s and about 100 years or so in and it's already being replaced. Millions of years of evolution and we see this era flash by in the blink of an eye. I didn't expect this level of Ai to exist until I was old. I feel for the youth right now, what's the point.
I am equally concerned. I love the fun of AI, but as a professional Graphic Designer, i have recently found that im likely to lose business because what i have to charge to do my highly specialized work is now considered "outrageous" when you can pay for a subscription to any number of AI Generators that can develop fairly incredible vector art for logos and other uses with the push of a button. I have been doing this for 20 years....and now i don't know what i am supposed to do with my life since im "overpriced" and "outdated". Bearing in mind that im NOT even that old, and im feeling the mortality of my career already. Oh for the days of RETIREMENT being the point that we had to look forward to when someone younger, and better, would take our place. Now its just happening by some computer algorithm. It has me very concerned.
Late to the party. Glad to see you uploading to UA-cam again. Yes, or how I stopped worrying and learned to love AI. I have a lot of thoughts, maybe I make a video? Ultimately, the TLDR; you still have to be creative to make creative AI imagery. Sure, the bar gets lowered in “making” things, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking you are not the one inspiring the creation of these things. That’s our job ultimately. Speaking of, I even see some creatives struggling to “make” ai art. It’s a new skill. I don’t think our jobs go away. However, I do think we need to be better to compete with the convenience of it. Which, who knows if we can win that fight. I definitely don’t think we go down without swinging. Time will tell. Anyway, like I said I have a lot of thoughts but I don’t think you need to worry. But definitely don’t ignore it or dismiss it like some are doing.
Your work is not creative if you're threatened by AI.. Nothing new under the Sun.. A version of what you see today happened in the 70s and 80s, yet individualism prevailed..
@@joshmcdzz6925Yep. AI really can’t emulate the originality of the human spirit, so it could push creatives out of this stagnant rut we find ourselves in as a whole. Humans will adapt and strive harder to create more original and human work. There will always be a market for that.
I feel you, man! Been creating videos for the last 20 years. This world today is changing way too fast for humans. Change brings anxiety and rapid change brings paralysis and depression. I spent several semesters around 2010 learning to shoot 16mm and 35mm film in college, and the moment I graduated RED One took over the market. Lot's of learned skill was tossed, but I feel like I kept that etiquette of shooting film. Yes, we will have to find a way to stay relevant and never forget that WE are the MASTER and AI is a TOOL - literally, lol.
Vesperance: nostalgia for the present knowing that tomorrow will bring something dramatically new Lifelong creative also. I’m fearful but embracing it as much as I know how
People have been making bad art forever. Look at how hard it is to even start making a movie, and yet there are still TONS of bad movies. AI is just going to make it cheaper and easier to make bad art, and the market will be flooded with it. One hopes that will make the good art stand out more. There's a theory that AI is doomed to eat itself because of this - since it needs to continually train on new media, and the world is just going to keep being flooded with more souless derivative media that is increasingly being produced by AI, you will increasingly have AI being trained on AI art. I have no idea what that will look like, but though I suspect it will look very clean and "realistic", I doubt it will be very inspiring.
When I read your comment I thought of DAWs for creating music getting more and more accessible to people over the years. Especially with cracked software and UA-cam tutorials to learn from. Doesn’t mean that musicians/producers will go out of business, just that the access to making music is becoming more ‚accessible‘. I think it’s kinda the same for AI stuff. It makes everything more accessible but you still have to give it context/story/emotion/thought.
Thank you so much for the video! Been grappling with this for a few months, I’ve slowly been levelling up my video skills over the past few years, taking photography classes, buying online courses but like you said it feels like the rug has been pulled out from underneath us. My only comfort is the fact that culturally we seem to be heading back towards rich unique storytelling. Some of my recent favourites have been Noah Kahan (Stick Season album is so beautiful), Baby Reindeer (I can’t imagine an ai writing something this messed up), and Alex Garland’s Civil War (just surpassed 100 million worldwide and is A24’s 2nd highest grossing movie). Keep supporting the art that you want to see more of ✌️
Man, I feel you so much. I come from a family of artists, I am a filmmaker, my mother is a painter etc. The thing I'm most afraid of is not that AI will replace us or that we won't have jobs anymore (although it might happen to some extent). The fear is rather that art will lose its relevance. If everyone can create art, people will get tired of it because there is so much of it. I uploaded pictures of my mom to Midjourney and tried to create paintings in a similar style and the results were super close. Of course, her paintings are still worth more, but that shocked me. How easy it was. And the thought that someone could create paintings, upload them to Instagram and maybe sell prints of them just feels wrong. When you used to see art, the first thought was always “that person has so much talent” or “how did they do that” and now it's often just “is that AI?”. I'm still trying to fight it. In my company, I have to book a lot of voice overs and I tell the ad agencies we work with that I don't book AI voice overs. I want to work with real people. At the moment they still understand, but more and more questions are coming in as to why we can't solve this with AI. And I think it will only be a few months before I can no longer resist it because it's not cost-effective. And then you have to ride the wave. I fucking hate this. I hope that there will be regulations. But I don't think it can be stopped. Its fucking depressing and I really don't care if AI can make my life easier.
The word I'll use is: confusing! Being a (young) person in this world was never easy. Being a creative was never easy. But with this new tech it might have gotten a little more. I really resonate with your thoughts. Its fun to dabble with AI... but also worrying as a creative. I've watched a video essay a while back. Can't remember the name. But one of the main points was the curious fact that we chose creativity to give to AI to do first... Instead of more boring tasks. Like your taxes and what not. Have a good day anways🤞🏻
Hell yeah! A good old Tom rant! Man, I totally agree. All these tools, I am sure I'd utilize the tools, but I'd probably not enjoy it anymore, it'll just be for money. Money that I'm not sure what I'll do with because all my hobbies have been hijacked lol. When I studied music and went into that industry, my dream was to write music, record in studio with bands, perform live shows and distribute CD's. But by the time I got to that point, studios were outdated and everything got recorded at home with an Avid M-Box. Drums were programmed, CD's released and made no sales because a month later CD's were off the market. Everything got distributed electronically and live shows were empty. At that point, I realized, my dream of being on stage, recording in studios and the whole "journey" that I enjoyed, was no longer a part of the process. It was just the music that remained. And I was there for the whole ride, so then, I switched to film because it was the only thing left where I can still "go to set, work with actors, use a clapper board, set up big lights, etc". And now I fear, I'll never have that authentic "on set" experience because by the time I get noticed by a producer with a budget, things wont be the same anymore. I wish I had some advice but truth be told, I honestly barely make enough money to survive, nevermind with AI as a competitor. I've already lost work to "tiktok" style cellphone videos, at this point, they don't even need people anymore lol. So honestly, I feel the same way you do as a writer, musician and cinematographer. Because AI can write the script, generate the content and put it all together. 🤷♂ Finally, It all reminds me of the time a guy pressed the print button on a 3D printer and said "wow, what an amazing feeling. I MADE that, with my bare hands, all by myself" and I was just thinking to myself "No.... you downloaded a template and hit print. You didn't create anything". But he was so damn chuffed with himself believing he was an artist. I don't know 😅 let's just go with the flow, use the tools and hope that we can continue to express ourselves and tell our stories one way or another!
Agree with everything you hit on to the T. It's totally useful and helpful and yes, will replace us. Next BIG skill for the Corporate market: Professional Prompt Writer
There will still be room for people in the loop in creative fields, but despite challenges in the cinematography field, almost every industry is or will be going through the same thing eventually. We have a long way to go and grow as a society as this tech gets better, and AI will challenge our "live to work" mentality as certain jobs become a thing of the past, and once complex actions become button clicks. I think regardless, there will (or should) always be room for humans to explore their passions, and experience what it takes to learn a skill from scratch and gain that knowledge, mastery, etc. Hopefully this technology allows us to do more of that, and explore more of what makes us human.
It’s got me down a lot too. Really hard to feel hopeful about the future of this business because of AI, I mean I know most people working in film/tv are already feeling its effects. There’s part of me that believes even if AI completely takes over every profitable sector of filmmaking there will still be a group of creative purists making films and images that are shown in indecent theatres and film festivals. Stuff made analogy, shot of film, projected on film etc. You can see that film photography has truly made a massive comeback, perhaps the same will happen and we will go back to more analog filmmaking. But I still fear that AI is going to take such a massive chunk out of this industry. Whatever happens AI has changed creative work forever, I think only time will tell what the cost of that will be.
I'm feeling the same. Afraid for my livelihood. Hoping we are being over dramatic and that AI will become another tool in our creative arsenal instead of a replacement for DPs, producers, editors, musicians, etc etc. In the short term, I know my business is already looking at ways AI can help them cut costs. But in the long term, and more in general, 'art' is never cheap or easy, and I think there will always be an appreciation for gifted artists in society. "Not made with AI" may become a new flex in the years to come.
You make some great points. It's too early to tell all these effects of course....but one has to believe that live events will now be valued at a premium, Theatre, Sports Concerts...bec they can't be AI'd...but also like you said many will still pursue the 'Arts' just for the joy of acquiring those skills. AI also needs and feeds off of original content...if there is no original content AI will quickly all look and feel the same (I think ..! Help!)
AI,will not stop me from making music or anything else because I enjoy, I enjoy film making even though I struggle to make a living at it, and I won't stop collaborating with people on either of these endeavors because I enjoy it and these things are fulfilling and enrich my life and the lives of those around me. I opt and for the human touch and that is a new cultural shift as AI moves forewarned.
I agree with you 100%! That's my "Human-ness" detecting a threat in the midst. I believe that behind the scenes there's something big going on but it's not what we think. I think humanity is being gently lulled into mental, emotional, physical and financial prison. At the end of it all we'll see with our own eyes who was behind it all the entire time. I believe we'll see clearly what the goal for humanity was by this dark force. Human Slavery. Fasten your seat belts...
i had the same thoughts, but a healthy middle ground i reached was, fusing Ai with what we know as film makers to expand our creativity even more, because creativity soars, when its growing
As a photographer, filmmaker, voice-artist and soon psychologist I agree with what you said. But I think there comes a point when people realize that AI can't or shouldn't replace everything: Humans need meaningful occupation. Humans need recognition for their work. Humans need challenges. Artistic creation includes all of this and will therefore always be an important part for human happiness.
I agree with everything in your video. It’s why I pivoted and decided to focus on character driven verite style documentaries. True human stories can’t be replaced by AI but these tools can be used to tell these stories in innovative new ways.
Make a podcast. You bring me back to my childhood. I feel like I’m watching Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and you are teaching me how to make crayons or why I shouldn’t be afraid of the wicked witch of the west. Just don’t stop.
I've become less and less worried about AI as a threat to graphic design, videography, art, and illustration. Work with a human touch simply has a certain "it" factor, a certain authenticity, that always distinguishes it from the robot. It's so personal and authentic, and it has this indescribable resonance.
I’m a classically trained, multiple degrees, yadda yadda , musician. Your version of the song was more inspired than the AI. But yeah, give it a couple years (or one) and it will out rank you. It’s only a matter of time.
I once dropped one of my compositions into AIVA to hear what it would do with my arrangement and then I felt like crap when it came out better than mine 😅
I’m a 1st AC in Houston and while I believe AI cannot replace my job (except maybe pulling focus) it absolutely could replace the people and projects that necessitate my help. It’s conflicting for sure.
I'm with you on everything. It's actually making me want to do things in an analog way, just for the sake of it. My next project I'm going to transcribe a whole book onto one big canvas. Just to "waste" my time, and then be able to hang my spent hours on the wall.
I might be late to this one, but I'm a corporate/commercial director. Making videos, probably similar to the ones you make, is my lively hood. I found myself agreeing with everything you're saying. What's been more popular lately are organic style videos. I've never seen more demand for iPhone style videos than I am right now. With that said, those types of video tend to be simple and pay less. So it's still not great. Everything is easier, but worse now.
been having the same crisis over the last few weeks - I have all the same skills besides painting and I fear that my childhood and adolecense that I used to build those skills was for nothing - there is no scalable human art anymore - unless we can seriously market the human aspect of each thing that was made - my whole theory for building anything going forward is painstakingly marking every nuance of creativity in order to convey just how much effort went into these things - we watch Christopher Nolan because of how real we know his movies are - and we watch people do their own stunts because we know the risk they took - art used to embody the effort that was put into it - but it can't anymore, effort to output was a 1-1, then a 1-10, now it's 1 to ∞ - barely anything will be made with effort going forward - but proof of effort and heart will make things stand out infinitely more and therefore audiences will be drawn to it
I like to think that people will actively seek out genuine art. Perhaps live performances will see a resurgence. Or maybe nobody cares and just want something they can nod their head to, regardless of who or what created it. I'm in the Vanlife UA-cam niche, so I've seen and met a lot of real life humans who turned out to be fake way before the AI boom.
I’m not sure how I feel about it, but I do know that we as creatives have to find a way to work with it. It is here to stay and nothing we can do about it! Humans love change as long as everything stays the same!!!
I feel that the only appropriate response is to move into a cabin in the woods and face the essential facts of life, and not find, when we come to die, that we had not lived. Back to nature, back to carving wood and stone, back to fishing, back to singing with a guitar by a campfire. There will be a response. It’s coming. We still matter…
I've never posted a comment on your channel before. First things first, though. Thank you. Thank you for this channel. It is the first one I always check when I log into UA-cam to see if you've posted anything new. It will continue to be my first stop. Now, to the business at hand: AI. There is something to keep in mind here... Technology always replaces, over time, manual methods of doing things. Period, end of story. I'm not talking just digital technology here, I'm talking ANY technology. I'm old enough to remember when calculators replaced slide rules. That replacement was a revolution, and nobody worried about the creative people who made the slide rules. Nobody worried about the writers who created texts based on those slide rules or professional instructors who passed on the knowledge of how to use them. Nobody worried about their jobs, about their skill sets. Today, virtually nobody (and I mean NOBODY) knows how to use slide rules. Or, another case in point: Printing and bookmaking. This is a dying art, being unquestionably replaced by digital texts. I have no doubt that most of an entire generation being raised right now has no understanding of the joy of printed books. They are content looking at text on a screen, if they bother to read at all. In this tidal shift of how information is disseminated, nobody worried about the jobs and, more importantly, the knowledge that was lost--knowledge about how to actually put together a book. Case studies could go on and on. The bottom line is simply that technology always replaces whatever came before it, and the knowledge about how to do what came before is lost. "Creative people"-as if creating a painting or a song or a video is any different, endorphically, than creating a new way to teach people how to do math using a slide rule, creating a design for a book, or actually binding the book-will be displaced by the technological changes that are disrupting their hard-earned skills. There is no way around it. It has happened before, and it will continue to happen. It's always sad when it happens to you or to those you love.
When I was at a shopping Centre in Perth, Western Australia; there was an old boomer lady using a midjourney discord bot with a reface type program to put peoples faces onto images, and then print them out on canvas. I was disgusted that these digital art styles were being sold when we all know midjourney is dodgy with using other artists work. Although I did think that these people are happy that they are getting a product they wouldn't have been able to get otherwise, it's still stealing though imo.
"creativity" is getting redefined. Photography changed forever once digital cameras hit the scene, art changed when computers and photoshop hit the scene. We just have to learn to embrace the new art of prompt engineering if we want to make things fast and cheap. At least we get to be part of "the beginning" of whatever this is. And it's still kinda fun for the DIY creators... at least for now.😕
Prompt engineering is a very easy to learn skill, much easier then in real life directing and photography. There will be no viable business in being good at something millions of others can do just as well, including people in economies where rent costs $200 a month.
Well, right now I’m taking a deep breath while the ia in my phone is already guessing the words I’m going to write… at the beginning I was so happy thinking in the time I was going to save, but right now I’m not so sure what to say. Maybe I’ll come back in a month or so and write something different 🤯
I'm feeling very much the same way. I work in communications for a non-profit and am not sure what this is going to do to my field over the next few years.
What i'm telling myself is that although I never made a camera, I never coded an editing software, I use other peoples music, and I have never created a light, I still somehow get a lot of satisfaction when I put all of those things together in the right way and create a video. We may still have the chance to be the orchestrators, but we'll be standing on the shoulders of a new set of manufacturers and creators.
In my opinion, your worries are directed to who do art as a job, but no A.I. will block you to learn something or do something just for the enjoying of the process. I call it "the Knockers-Up effect": in the past, people were paid to knock up at your house early in the morning; then alarm clocks were sold at a cheap price for everyone... It's the life, it's evolution.
My thoughts exactly. It's terrifying. It's going to to destroy digital artists careers. As an editor and filmmaker, I'm trying to learn how to use AI to its advantages for now, and I guess I'll continue to work as long as I can because I don't have any other marketable skill. After it's stolen all my editing work, I'm not sure what I'll do. My only hope is that for now it can't replicate real life. So documentaries, live music, live theater, paintings, sculptures, etc will continue to be safe for a while longer. And will AI ever truly learn what it is to be human? Sure it can replicate it pretty closely, but I can't imagine an AI actor ever being a Jack Nicholson or Meryl Streep, so there will need to be people there to capture those performances. But AI will likely take over all post-production work. So yes, it's a scary future. My other hope, is that there have always been advancements in society that were scary, and this is our electricity, our horseless carriage, our next computer revolution. Humans aren't going anywhere for a while, so we'll find a way to live with it.
I hear you. Just used Adobe's AI sound website to clean up TRASH location audio. Stunning. Used to work freelance in the print textbook industry -- watched it all go to India starting in the early 2000s. (Same vibe now.) Bought rental property -- figured they couldn't send that to India. FML One pithy quote: "The future is not the extension of existing trends, nor resistance to them. The future must be *created*."
My hope is AI art/music/video creation is a fad that people get bored with before too long so we can keep cranking out new original content for the AI robot overlords to continue scraping.
The prespective you shared, has been the prespective of machiniest 60-70 years ago when CNC machins were getting famous. This is infact a common discussion in my classes with my studetns. Back then, machine operators were well know for their skills in turning and milling parts precise and accurate. then came the CNC that could have done more complex jobs, better, faster and cheaper. Machinists were struggling with this technology and were afraid of lossing their jobs because of it. They were worried about the next generation and the lack of requirement to learn the skills they've mastered in their whole life. Meanwhile, some tried to adopt to the new technology and learned cnc machining while implementing what they've learned in years of manual machining on the new technology. Those were the ones who won this battle and became the leaders of this industry. We didn't lose those skills after 70 years. We still have incridibly skilled people running CNC machines making parts that is around us for cheap. We can explore space cheaper, expand human vision and capability. We can well prepare for unexpected disasters. We expanded our bubble of communication thanks to technologies such as social media, and so many more benefits that weren't accounted for back then. Interestingly, none of the things that those manual machinists were worried about came true! Humanity always finds its way to progress and these are just tools to help. You can either fight a losing battle with technology or try to adopt and learn how to use it.
Thomas feels empty or frustrated because he has personal, intellectual or creative needs developed and based on a world that is about to disappear. As long as you have tools (and the need to use them) crafted to be useful in an environment that is no longer there, the emptiness and frustration feeling is unavoidable. So the only way to overcome this (I think) is starting by changing the mindset: either accepting that those skills and their associated needs will become just a "useless hobby" and take them just as that expecting nothing beyond that, or looking for new activities, skills or areas still not colonized by machines as long as they remain so. Taking care of stray cats, plant trees, spending more time with the family, whatever that can be. We come from a past where we needed to be useful and we needed to take care of ourselves, and we are heading a future where all that will not be a thing anymore. The new people will have a mindset adapted from the beginning to the new reality, so they will be used to that without needing any adaptation. I guess there will be two kinds of people: the "passive" just sitting and watching memes and social media, and the "active" like Thomas who will still need a purpose doing meaninful things. Maybe those will have learnt to not care if there's a machine doing what they do better than them and will just enjoy, or maybe they will indeed find "machines-free" areas still not colonized. By the way, with this new reality there will be new questions to answer, so maybe there will still be open positions in the philosophy sector.
The new Eleven Labs music generator seems to be amazing. Better than Udio by far. Not available to consumers yet, so there's a bit of skepticism, but the improvements are coming faster than you can keep up. I think we're headed toward what I will view as a dystopia, but what will just be normal life for people being born now. I think the time of humans being creative may well be coming to an end. BUT it will take a generation or two to get there. And, there will be backlash -- people choosing art made by humans for humans over any "superior" work pumped out by the AI.
I think we're all going to turn into Rick Rubin. (A world-class music producer with almost no musical ability.) When asked what he actually does the conversation went like this: Cooper: "Do you play any instruments?" Rick: "Barely ... I have no technical ability, and I know nothing about music." Cooper: "Well you must know something." Rick: "Well I know what I like and what I don't like..." Cooper: "So what are you being paid for?" Rick: "The confidence that I have in my taste, and my ability to express what I feel - has proven helpful for artists." Its sad to me ... but I think thats kind of where things will go. The need for humans to provide the technical skill will diminish, while the need for humans to provide the 'taste' will increase.
I am a creative director who has been working in the field for over 12 years. Somehow, I manage to maintain optimism. If I try to understand why, I think a big part of the reason is that I know there are "more people in the boat with me." Moreover, the changes will not happen in a vacuum just for the creator community; the changes will affect every aspect of human society, so suddenly there will be "more people on the ship" with us. Additionally, I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume we can predict which technology will exist and how it will affect things. I guess things will ultimately be so different from what we can imagine, and when we finally get there, we will find a way to satisfy our drives. True, it will be different from anything we know, and our tendency will be to say, "But this is what worked for me, this is what's right to succeed, to evolve and enjoy..." From here, I think what we need to emphasize is the mental flexibility we must maintain, which will be expressed in every new tool that emerges and how we respond to it
I work with Youth ministry students at our local University and so many of them are using AI to generate content for sermons and lessons for kids, but unfortunately its answers arent always accurate, and the students arent checking... my fear is that its going to diminish critical thinking even more, stop people from putting in the labor to enjoy the final product, whether its study, videography, art, music etc. It'll be interesting to see where the world goes with all this
I understand the concern (I'm a video editor, with over 15 years experience doing corporate video), and it is a legitimate concern. However, it's how you look at it. AI can take away your job, or you can use it to make your job easier. I prefer the latter. As you said, there's no use fighting it. So why stress out about it? Use that energy to find new ways to use it to your own advantage. Instead of recreating a picture created by AI, use it as an idea generator. If I'm stuck on something I put in a prompt and BOOM I'm not stuck any more. Also, look at the limits of AI. Yes, it is advancing, but even Soro (or whatever it's called, I just had a brain fart) can only generate 1 minute clips at a lower resolution. Also, according to several articles I've read, AI will literally run out of Internet to scrape in 2 years. Another thing is that AI can't create from nothing. It needs things to take from. What happens when it starts taking from itself? Then there are the puppy dogs with 3 heads we've all seen. Portrait painters all thought they would be out of work when the camera was invented, and some of them were, but their fears were not fully realized for all of them. I see AI the same way. There's a site that allows people to make corporate videos using AI. I see it as a fancy PowerPoint generator when I really look at it. I'd be losing those clients anyway. It's also an excuse to pivot to more documentary and narrative. On the other hand, I can use AI for all kinds of things to make my job easier. Noise reduction in both video and audio, motion tracking, panning in relation to object position, text based editing. I could go on forever. Don't be completely discouraged. That's what the AI companies want.
I know it's hard to quantify right now, but you will have an advantage in a future where ai does the heavy lifting precisely because you put all those years of work into your mastery. Your tastes become refined through those rigorous years navigating your own Dunning-Kruger shortcomings, and your art will always be better for that. There was a similar scare about computers replacing actors when CG was getting more realistic in the early 2000's, but there was a CG fatigue that set in during that time and there was plenty of counterculture movements that operated in complete opposition to that. What ai can do is indeed mind-blowing but the current best ai art is still made by people who are skilled artists and leveraging ai as a tool, and employing that as an extension of existing technique. The way that this could be really good for media is that the writing and the story you want to tell will be far more important than the flair and spectacle, and it will democratize filmmaking in a new way that requires us to be more direct with our voice rather than hiding it under beautiful cinematography, music and visual effects. The one constant about tech making our lives easier, is that the DEMAND for what tech can do in service of entertainment will always increase - so you have an opportunity to tell stories in new ways you never dreamed possible. People will get bored with uninspired and low-effort ai films and will look to filmmakers to codify it in more human ways.
"am I supposed to fight this?" Am I supposed to hire a company like yours ever again and pay for something I can type? Then the answer is yes , you are supposed to.
Why do we, as creatives, create? Is it for the profit of our status or our soul? We live in a world that requests the former, but in a body that yearns for the later. Create, bring to existence what you envision, regardless of how the tools of time change. Even if your career shifts, keep on creating, if even just for yourself.
I'm hoping some regulation comes along that makes it illegal for companies to be selling generative ai products that have scrapped copywritten works. It's theft on an unprecedented level, and ironically I think the verdict in the Andy Warhol case could be a precedent to use moving forward.
My prediction is the world will change and live performances will become huge. Livestream is where video may be going and there may be a huge live theatre resurgence. Look at film. It's been coming back for years. Human culture will evolve in a world where nobody can believe their eyes unless they are actually there.
Interesting, but scary insights. I thought for sure at the end you were going to tell us this entire video was generated by AI. That would’ve scared me.
What you said 1,000%. I'm holding out hope that at some point, we as a society will value AI human generated art over AI with some form of authentication.
Comforting response: AI is at its peak and may not get better. People are finding clever ways to use it (generating music, art, girlfriend, etc), but it may never become perfect. AI has issues and those may not improve simply because AI companies are out of data to feed the AI; and the only way AI improves is with more data. *Lots of oversimplifications in my response, but i dont want to write an essay Source: -The Daily: A.I.'s original sin (From NYT)
Something to keep in mind is that we will get better and better at discerning AI and rejecting it is cheap and empty. Go look at early 90s 3D - it looks like a PS2 game. But people at the time thought it looked "almost like a photograph". We get fooled in the beginning, but then we learn to adapt our senses. probably what kept our ancestors from eating too many berries that were poisonous but looked almost like healthy ones.
I follow you because I enjoy creating in my spare time. I have blackmagic cameras and other such things that I bought simply to play around with. It is as you say - what will humanity do when there is no need for such playing around? What does one do to fill their time? What will be the point really? My work is in the sciences - I'm an engineer. When GPT came along, my colleagues and I put it to the test and started asking it tough engineering questions - things from our area of expertise. It was flat out wrong at times, but when it was right, we were astounded at its accuracy, and its ability to get to the meat of problems and solve them. We concluded that even at 'our level', our jobs were absolutely not safe in ten years. Maybe even less. Why pay us when you can run A.I. that is vastly more capable and can work forever, all day, all night. Elon and those like him are correct - A.I is a highly dangerous thing, that can, and will, destroy humanity as we know it. What comes after is anyone's guess.
agree with everything in this
Oh wow!!!! Thanks for the validation!!! This ai stuff is hard emotionally.
My thought is that anything created by AI shouldn't be copyrightable. If a big brand creates their new mascot by AI, then anyone can use it the next day however they want. They can't be sued or blocked. AI creates stuff from bits and pieces of a everybody else, so no one can own it. If someone puts up an AI created music album, anyone else can put it up the same day in their music store. Also, if you think that Amazon has filled its book store and music store and movie store with crap, wait til millions more people create 10 AI books, 19 AI movies and 10 AI albums a day and flood Amazon, Spotify, etc with billions of these things. The market is already white noise, now it will be a white tsunami. The only way is to make everything AI touches worthless other than a starting point for real creativity. Eh, but what do I know.
I wish!
i actually agree - but same what do i know
Watch them train on our work for free, make us pay to use it and on top they will keep the copyright.
Very much this, if you didn't spend any time making it, don't expect anyone to pay for it.
I think it will be a rocky few years like when people were downloading free movies and music when everything went digital but we will own our likeness (editing styles, voice, look, artwork style, etc.) Like how we sell LUT packs and templates. Again, about 2-3 years of chaos, figuring out AI's place and how/when we use it and after the dust clears, we will have our modified roles.
AI and Short-form videos are how humanity devolves towards the "Wall-e Universe"
Easy Anything + Dopamine OD
Keep creating, Thomas. Your team's work is appreciated. This is a great community conversation piece.
With you on this. Completely.
I'm a graphic designer and cinematographer. I've loved creating visuals since a very early age and spent most of my childhood learning about colour, composition, lighting, and even to this day, nothing excites me more than learning more about the things that bring me so much joy!
Sitting down with friends, writing scripts, saving up, and then actually shooting films that you spent months ideating and planning, carefully crafting each frame where every single element is intentional, is highly rewarding. Then coming back and adding sound and colour, getting feedback from a bunch of people, and making a million changes is a process that pretty much gives me purpose. It's not just about the money; there really isn't much else I would do with my time.
This obsession is what got me through my worst moments and further intensified the joy of every cheerful situation. Will future generations ever understand the excitement of sacrificing sleep to hike up a hill and catch the perfect sunrise on camera? Or will they see this as a meaningless endeavour? Why would anyone want to appreciate beauty of any kind when everything can be generated so easily?
A huge part of what makes something exceptional is the painstaking work and enormous amount of thought that goes into creating it. The effort is what makes great work rare and hence, great. If everyone can generate everything with absolutely no effort, the emotions that are induced by what is rare today, will lose all of its intensity.
I started feeling this way long ago, but the AI rage has simply heightened my fear. A few years ago, when AI wasn't a household term, people started talking about a future where every car will be self-driven, and all I could think of were the plethora of beautiful moments I hold on to from taking road trips with my friends, taking turns driving, and exploring places that seemed unexplored. The nights when I roll the windows down and drive around aimlessly, feeling on top of the world.
Machines were supposed to make our lives easier, not take away our sense of purpose. What will bring people joy in the future? What will induce a sense of passion? What will humans do with their time? And of course, how will we sustain ourselves in society if machines start to possess our skills?
I feel exactly the same way. I'm a fashion photographer and my work is what kept me going, what gave me purpose in life. Now I see the threat of all of that going away, because nobody will need real photography anymore. I tried midjourney as well and I have to say that I feel completely empty after using it. It creates nice images, but it's not like I can say "I created them". Everyone who believes that has some serious ego problems. Prompting in those generative AI models is intentionally so simple, that a 5 year old can do it.
What I think is needed is a taxation system, that makes it soo expensive globally for companies to use it and at the same time can pay everyone a basic income.
I also agree with what @dougfranckwolf said that none of AIs creations should be copyrightable, which would be a joke anyway since all of those models have been trained illegally without consent of the human creators.
I like this. Ai should be very costly
I'm OK if these companies use it to replace humans as long as the government provides a living income, not a basic income. They will be making trillions from this tech.
@@maccagrabme that's actually what I meant! The language barrier made it difficult for me to express this.
I have thought about this a lot the past few years. I am a Visual Effects artist and I dedicated years of my life to learning how to replicate every aspect of a moving image using 3D animation and compositing. Sora basically does it by default. Here is my take after reading a bunch of articles on the subject. The primary issue with AI is that you get what you get. After the initial product it is very difficult to change a specific part without the AI making sweeping changes to the whole image. This issue has been attempted to be fixed by controlnet AIs, but as it stands right now it is a major drawback to the technology.
Anyone who has ever worked for a client will know that they will want to make changes. Sometimes a lot of very specific changes. This aspect of the job will always have to go through a human and in that way creative professionals are safe. However, your pride as an artist will no longer come from making something visually or audibly "impressive". AI will have us beat when it comes to first impressions of an image it seems.
That being said humans tend to get bored of seeing the same thing over and over. AI like Midjourney definitely have a 'look' to them that I am starting to get accustomed to seeing. AI is dependent on images it is trained on and so truly unique artwork will never be under threat. Humans at the end of the day still have to come up with the ideas and a really specific idea takes expertise and artistic vision.
Well said; thanks for your real life input.
Great take. I agree with this whole heartedly
If you have any artistic vision you know what you want and there‘s a big price to pay in time and skill.
I‘ve tried some Ai workflows also with controlnets but it‘s not good enough. Plus the whole thing just takes out any of the fun of being creative. I feel zero sense of accomplishment doing any of the ai stuff.
I switched from illustration to motion design (2d/3d) as it seemed too unappreciated of a career. Motion design thankfully can be abstract enough where I can be somewhat save for a bit.
Besides the empty, vapid feeling of using it all, the worst thing is the look you mentioned.
I think it comes from midjourney using a smaller but probably legally cleaner data-set but even stability ai‘s legally fraudulent stuff tends to get a look or artifacts and goddamn faces popping up everywhere, especially if you uprez.
@@KarimNiazi Yeah I feel you on the vapid feeling of using the tools. However, I also think the hyper focus on AI tools that generate the entire image could be part of the problem.
There are AI tools like Beeple's switchlight that can change the lighting of an input image. Also Photoshop's range of AI stuff. These actually feel like tools instead of just asking the machine to do it all for you.
I think the conversation needs to move in that direction. Away from AI becoming the artist and towards practical tools that use neural nets.
One thing you touched on - but maybe didn't consider further. People are going to stop learning how to do any of this stuff. They'll never learn instruments. They'll never learn to paint. They wont't take up writing works of fiction or poetry, etc. BUT -- what happens if (hypothetically) all of this A.I. stuff stops functioning due to some kind of network outage or natural disaster. Or cyber attack. You'll have an entire swatch of humans who never bothered to learn these things. And potentially run the risk of artworks or skillsets never making it to future generations.
It kind of makes me wonder what lost arts or activities did people do in the past that got lost to time due to technical advancements.
@@WhySteve When's the last time you saw people making furniture by hand, embroidery or pottery?
they're still done, sure.
but en-masse, machines have taken over
Exactly like the Eloi in the Time Machine. Libraries and museums rotting away and only useful as food.
@@maccagrabmeabsolutely not. Go to any museum and have a look.
Photography was invented more than a century ago and portrait painting and drawing is still here just as strong. Some people are just so dramatic 😂😂
One thing that kept me optimistic about the whole Generative Imagery is that clients still need to know what they want. Not knowing what type is not going to help.
I recently assisted on a photoshoot where the client had their "Creative" make backgrounds in several programs (which all are subscription-based) and we matched portraits of people in that environment. I can tell you there was a real struggle when the perspective of the background did not translate well into real life. When asked if their Creative could change up the angle of the background slightly or charpen certain details, the only answer is "No".
We even spent our time days later to photograph missing elements (grass, fences etc) that the AI can not create clear image off. So now we are working more, for even less.
I share your sentiments about artificial intelligence and am equal parts: Excited, curious, inspired, concerned, horrified, and skeptical.
This sums it up
Well...I think, as always, there will be a peak of this...and then it will stay somewhere in the middle. Like photography. For decades digital photography was perhaps the only option. Nowadays people started to love physical film again. Even today, when "anyone" can do extraordinary things with a phone, brands are having to hire photographers and videographers again in order to differentiate themselves from content creators with a phone....And you have the case of DJs, that can make available to you what you want to listen to and dance to at your party...but you always prefer to have a live band playing...so...I think this is a special moment...we, as creators , we must understand it and use it...and be prepared so that when this stabilizes, we can continue standing and being masters of the old and the new.
I feel seen. You perfectly encapsulated my inner fears while also being amazed and amused at this powerful tool.
I'm a High School Film/TV teacher, and I'm feeling more and more foolish as the days go on and AI gets smarter. Will there be any jobs for my future students?
It seems our future artistic endeavors will be completely motivated by self-expression. AI will be able to create some incredibly unique works of art/media, but only I can make what I'm feeling... I think.
Great to see you again! Very very thoughtful. When I saw some Sora footage a few months ago I thought to myself - what am I doing trying to learn about cinematography and (low level) production!?
All very valid points, and it's certainly sum up very well the whole artist's anxiety about generative AI ever since MidJourney and Dall-E came out and wrecked many people's minds.
I've been giving the whole situation a lot of thoughts this past year (I work in animation and photography, so both my careers are directly under the line of fire), and one thing that has consistently been in the back of my head is : AI is not the end of the line.
Case in point : since I work in animation, I've got a pretty good parallel to draw : CG animation.
Animation is a pretty recent form of art, all things considered, it came out at the beginning of the 20th century, so it's roughly one century old. And for a good chunk of it, all the animations were hand drawn. The Fleischer brothers, Warner Brothers, and most famously, Disney, all of them became famous by hiring super talented artists who basically had to create the art and all its principles from scratch, based solely on visual observations of real life and mixing it with comics cartoons visuals and goofiness.
And the hand drawn 2D animation craft perdured for at least 80 years as is, until something hapened in 1995 : Pixar's Toy Story !
For the first time, an animation movie was done fully in CG (the art already existed from before, but was mostly used for VFX in real live action movies, most famously in Jurassic Park). And it rocked ! Everybody loved it ! The possibility of not having to redraw the whole inbetweens, and be able to move the camera around, with "realistic" lighting... That was all novel at the time, and it caught on like wildfire, both for the audience than the studios. Quickly, Disney proclaimed "This is the future of animation" and quickly got rid of all its worldwide 2D studios and artists, only to focus on Pixar. It was THE most massive layoff of the entire history of animation. Thousands of animators have lost their jobs at the time and, coming right after the decade of the Disney Renaissance, where hand drawn animations were booming, it felt like a gigantic slap in the face as the drop was astronomical, and it was rightfully touted as the darkest time of the animation industry. Everybody thought 2D was dead, and CG was the bright future of animation.
Well, fast forward 30 years later, and spoiler alert : 2D is not dead. Sure, CG is now having the lion's share, but 2D is alive and almost well, thanks to our friends in Japan who are too stubbornly stuck in the past to massively adopt new technology (paradoxically), and a lot of fantastic studios in Europe, mainly in France and Ireland, but also Spain, and now there's even a great looking 10-years-in-the-making Pakistanese movie called the Glassworker that's coming out soon.
Also, as a photographer, we could hike up in time even further and see how when cameras and photography came out, all the artists painters were throwing their hands in the air, saying peopel with cameras are going to take out our painstakingly learned through years of dedication jobs with a click on a button !
Fast forward 100 years later, and spoiler alert : painting is still alive and well. It just had to evolve into something else, and some critics and artists actually said t freed paintings from the confines of realism, to go explore whole new grounds and whole new worlds (whether it's better or worse, I'll let others be the judge of that).
Also, another thing that most people are not thinking about but to me, it kinda rolls off the tongue : since everybody can all of a sudden be an artist-musician-filmmaker-animator, EVERYBODY will try to make something out of it. As a result, the audience, already overwhelmed in front of their Netflix or UA-cam homepage, will drown out (and possibly shut off) under the onslaught of choice of what to watch. And most of it, frankly not good looking (with dead fish eyes and 8 fingers hands) Spoiler alert : there's only 24h in a day, and we're working 8 and sleeping 8, and most people have families that keep them busy with family chores for 4 to 6 more hours, so people are already pretty picky with what they're gonna spend their time with for leisure. So between a movie or a game that's been done by actual teams of artists who have artistic experience and who care, and nobodies who just started styling themselves as directoes coz they got a brand new toy that help them do whatever they got in mind (mostly unrefined noobies stories without any actual real life experience, not in the art of visual storytelling) ? Yeah, I think the choice is gonna be pretty quick.
So yeah, I see AI as the new CG or the new camera : the shiny new tech that's coming to sweep all the artists, but in the end, once the storm has passed, arts will still be there, people will still do it for pleasure because it makes them feel alive, and like cratsmanship vs industrial items, there's most definitely still gonna be a market for human handmade arts. It's just that it's not gonna have the hegemony it once had, and sure enough, AI art might have the lion's share of the pie, but art is not going anywhere. We just have to fin ways to survive while weathering the storm, and once on the other side, when people will get tired of the onslaught of soulessness of AI art, things will go back to a more stable new normal.
It's just that it's gonna get worse before it gets better, so we have to be creative in how to survive till then. But hey ! What a coincidence : that's exactly what we are : creative !
I have exactly the same feelings. I'm 43 years old, and i put my whole life in a art. I was at art school, then art academy, and i'm doing different kind of things like drawing, painting, illustrating, graphic design, photography, videography, music... For the whole my life art was some magic, some sense of life. For the last year or two I've been trying to understand my attitude towards all this AI thing...
Well, since you asked: I know that as a camera operator and DP, I'm supposed to be wary of the AI-driven future, but in reality, I stopped caring. It's not like I can stop any of this, so why should I worry? Just wait what happens and adapt. It's what humanity has been doing for thousands of years.
You can't adapt to decimation though. You can only quit.
I saw someone (I forget who) say that they thought it would get to a point where you would eventually choose between "AI" or "human" like we choose between "organic" or not at a grocery store. So, I don't think it'll completely go away, but yes the competition became a lot greater because we'll be continually going up against AI who's constantly learning from us. I also think it may bring upon a huge shift in society where we do things and learn things simply for ourselves rather than doing it for the external validation. Or who knows, maybe it'll get to a point where things suck so much humanity just decides to burn it all down and start again lol.
Love this
Mate this is all I think about too. So freakin’ scary that it’s impossible to foresee us being little more than AI curators at best for a short while until it overtakes every role. And then what? Are we really going to be happy reading a book written by AI or watching a commercial or film made by a computer? To me it seems void of soul and yet will most care? Probably not … until we’re left rudderless without meaning thinking how did this happen?
I totally understand how you're feeling. I've been an artist since I was a child. Drawing and painting, I put out several albums in the 90s, radio voice overs, I currently have a book out about creativity and videos on UA-cam. Like you talked about the kids in the coding class thinking the computer will do it for them in the future, for me as a teenager, spelling and handwriting were my weak points and I remember thinking when I grow up machines will correct my spelling and I won't have to write anything. Here we are decades later and I use spell check and voice to text countless times a day including every word of this paragraph. I also dive deep into AI as much as I can because I love learning the process but editing a photograph I took with AI feels totally different than painting a picture from an image in my mind. I'm not sure I have any answers or comforting words for you aside from I’m trying to be creative with the new tools. I am editing with AI, I am creating with the aid of computers. But I am also able to do things that I couldn’t in the past like self publish, share my albums on spotify with the world and digitally fix paintings and photos I took 30 years ago to look like what I see in my mind. It’s not going away so try your best to make AI and digital tools work for you, not you for them. God Bless.
Oh man, this hit you hard... Sending you a big hug!
Good to see you back
You say you enjoy "making" images with midjourney or music with Udio, I believe that's the first mistake people are committing, YOU aren't doing anything...the computer is, you or whoever uses AI are only asking the computer to make it, and you don't own it, the company who owns the computer who created the AI does...and that's debatable.
Who knows where this "AI" thing will end up, but one thing is for sure, creative people are going to continue creating, and also some spectators and people who consume art and media are gonna get tired of the "AI art". It's happening right now.
If you enjoy making something, keep doing it. A machine may or may not make it better than you, but it will never be you.
It’s nice to hear your thoughts on this whole thing, keep those videos coming, I really enjoy them.
Yeah. But theres also flaws in that logic. You aren't really in full control when you're creating any digital art. Are you programming the tools to make the thing? Like painting in photoshop. Youre jusy pressing buttons and the computer does the rest.
@@neuvatn hahahaha sure, just pressing buttons, right, go make a digital painting and let me know how much photosop did. A tool is something YOU use to help YOU create something, telling a computer to create something FOR YOU is not using a tool, that's like going to Mc Donald's asking for a burger combo, did YOU made the burger and the soda and the fries? Nop someone made it for you, it's the same thing.
There’s a reason why doctors and lawyers have relatively high incomes. It’s because to practice requires a license and to get the license you have to jump through a ton of hoops. Making art “accessible” is definitely not good for making a living from it.
Wow!! Good point
Well put thoughts on the impact of AI (also: you have quite the artistic skill set my friend). I guess we will all adapt, and I suspect true, human-originated art will be continue to be valued. It’s like buying a factory-made glass bowl versus a handcrafted and glazed ceramic one at an outdoor market… the factory one is functional, but the handcrafted one is appreciated.
I think comparing GenAI to drawing/painting isn't very useful and it should be seen as a separate thing. I'm also an artist and see it as a tool, and I'm keeping the perspective that we're in the early days of the technology and it will only get better and easier to control.
I want to be optimistic. We didn’t stop playing chess when grandmasters lost to computers. We might just start to value real experiences more.
As someone who is also in AZ trying to start making films it's definitely rough thinking about how the future looks like with AI, while at the same time trying to figure out how to leverage it. It's going to make it so people with less resources will be able to create things that were once out of their grasp. Just like the prosumer camera made filmmaking more accessible. It's both a blessing and a curse. Because that means lazy media that wastes peoples time will get even worse than it already is. But at the same time, there will likely be people with real visions who will use AI for what it is, a tool, and use it too make new things, instead of letting the algorithm dictate. The camera didn't kill the painting, and I pray that AI will not kill human creativity.
Just like movies like to say they were made with no CGI, soon there will be films sold as being made without AI. The scary part is what it will do to people and what they believe about their own value. But when it comes to creativity in Hollywood, the writing has been bad for long enough that I wouldn't be surprised if they've been using AI for a decade already.
I relate to everything you have said. You pointed to the best software as well (but was definitely missing Magnific). I've been very contemplative lately as I see more and more tech evolve so fast, it constantly puts me in this mode of, ok, what should I do LMFAO, like how am I going to push this business forward with all of these changes, which niches do I pursue, should I be more versatile, but then who hires the master of none. I constantly am thinking, how am I going to adapt and evolve with all kinds of people losing their jobs or supplementing their high paying jobs with video/photo gigs. When you have this massive saturation of people wanting to create content for whatever reasons, its hard to see it as an advantage to being in the video field when content is so absurdly consumed in the most unhealthy (and cheapest) packaging possible AND it's getting easier for anyone to make passable professional looking content. The ability to tell stories doesn't exist as much anymore and that is essentially what we are being paid to do, the deliverables aren't long enough for us to deliver enough of our true value. So now, I'm contemplating learning a lot of VFX stuff, because I can creatively concept very short eye catching shit with real people and professional equipment that I've already bought (clients), but now I've changed my entire approach to content, dumbing it down, and making it hook as fast as possible, all to better assimilate into the idiocracy we are becoming. I tend to always be a little skeptical or negative, something I always work on, but I do sense some disturbing trends forming and AI is in its infancy, that's the scariest part. Really so true about the ego involved with thinking that we are special and machines can't do what we do, the human condition at it's finest. Makes me want to become a licensed counselor LMAO.
I found peace by shifting my focus a bit towards documentary filmmaking because I figured ai can’t replace that.
Then you come along and make the grand point that anyone can take a video on an iPhone and say make it beautiful and it’ll probably be 10x better than what we can do (because it can create amazing backgrounds/no limitations to budget).
Definitely feeling similar, really questioning the longevity of my business. It's all well and good saying just embrace AI, and to a point I agree with that, but if there comes a point where all my smaller business clients don't need a videographer anymore (using Sora for example) then you have to be concerned. E.g. talking heads videos, already no videographer needed if you don't mind a random AI person appearing, and I can easily imagine that becoming "upload your face and a background you like and voila". Perhaps this already exists, I'm not sure. Basically just feel you on this one and it can be summarised I think by fear of the unknown.
As a professional composer/producer, hearing that AI cinematic music made me think, “oh s#*t, this is a HUGE threat to my career prospects.” I didn’t realise AI music was already that far along. Faaaaark.
He didn't even get into the new Eleven Labs music generator, which is due for public release this week or next week and absolutely leapfrogs Udio and Suno in terms of capability and quality. I think Eleven Labs will be a major player as they have the industry standard text to speech and speech to speech AI (which he talked about and demonstrated) and now seemingly the best x to music generator as well.
there will be a huge threat if your music has been soul less
@@joshmcdzz6925my music isn’t soulless, but I’m still concerned. 1. AI will continue to improve and will end up creating AMAZING music. It’s wilful ignorance to think otherwise. And 2. Many (but not all) production companies just want music cheap and fast and won’t hire composers if they can generate decent music at the touch of a button. It doesn’t matter to them how much soul your music might have .
So we are working on a big national commercial. We got some temp music from a stock website. The company comes back and says, awesome work, but with the music… we have got a contract for this ai tool from the audio company. Please use this to create some music. We go onto the website and you can basically now create music in the style of the company logo. Sounds good? Nooooo we don’t want to do this, it’s a massive amount of work and it’s definitely work that I want to find someone to do. It’s absolutely insane to think that a client or film director will have to time to fiddle around for days to come up with something soso instead of just paying an composer money.
Mind you that I am somewhat knowledgeable with music production, but i absolutely have no time nor desire to start creating millions of tracks to pick the best one out of it.
I am very sure this will be happening with sora too
I very much relate to your perspective. I grew up in a musical household (I play several instruments myself) with other types of artists in the family and also have a love for photography and cinematography and am quite discouraged by what Ai seems to be signaling for our creative futures. I’ve dabbled with Ai a bit just to see what the fuss is about and have tried MidJourney. But, I will admit that prompting it in a way that renders a useful image is almost an art form (if not a science) itself! I feel I need a masterclass on how to get the damn thing to make a sensible and simple image! Anyways, thanks for sharing this. Much needed.
Thank you for making this, I agree with you. It is cool for work and some situations, but it is terrifying for us creatives, and art has to come from within you. That is why Iwill not use AI for writing my shorts, as it has to be me. It will not be perfect and maybe worse than AI, but it is true to me. I have stuff I need to tell, personal stories, and if you replace it by AI, it has no meaning. It will probably become a lot worst for us creatives in the coming years.
We can either embrace it, or fight against it, I am a bit of both,but I am sure eventually, AI will catch up so well that there are no point in doing it myself. We are in the time where everyone thinks it is cool, but in the future, I think we have to make a sort of way to verify that art is autenticly made from and by humans. That it is heading in that direction, is scary, but I think we have to proove that we made it and not AI, it used to be the other way around.
Probably the best articulation of how artists feel. It's crazy to see human creativity really took off in the 1900s and about 100 years or so in and it's already being replaced. Millions of years of evolution and we see this era flash by in the blink of an eye. I didn't expect this level of Ai to exist until I was old. I feel for the youth right now, what's the point.
I we stop today then tomorrow Ai won't have any content to take inspiration from and we might end up being in a world where there is no new artforms.
I’m trying to embrace the weirdness of living through a scifi novel.
I am equally concerned. I love the fun of AI, but as a professional Graphic Designer, i have recently found that im likely to lose business because what i have to charge to do my highly specialized work is now considered "outrageous" when you can pay for a subscription to any number of AI Generators that can develop fairly incredible vector art for logos and other uses with the push of a button. I have been doing this for 20 years....and now i don't know what i am supposed to do with my life since im "overpriced" and "outdated". Bearing in mind that im NOT even that old, and im feeling the mortality of my career already. Oh for the days of RETIREMENT being the point that we had to look forward to when someone younger, and better, would take our place. Now its just happening by some computer algorithm. It has me very concerned.
Late to the party. Glad to see you uploading to UA-cam again.
Yes, or how I stopped worrying and learned to love AI.
I have a lot of thoughts, maybe I make a video? Ultimately, the TLDR; you still have to be creative to make creative AI imagery. Sure, the bar gets lowered in “making” things, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking you are not the one inspiring the creation of these things. That’s our job ultimately. Speaking of, I even see some creatives struggling to “make” ai art. It’s a new skill.
I don’t think our jobs go away. However, I do think we need to be better to compete with the convenience of it. Which, who knows if we can win that fight. I definitely don’t think we go down without swinging. Time will tell.
Anyway, like I said I have a lot of thoughts but I don’t think you need to worry. But definitely don’t ignore it or dismiss it like some are doing.
These are my thoughts exactly! People who don't do creative work don't realize what an existential crisis this is for us.
Your work is not creative if you're threatened by AI.. Nothing new under the Sun.. A version of what you see today happened in the 70s and 80s, yet individualism prevailed..
@@joshmcdzz6925Yep. AI really can’t emulate the originality of the human spirit, so it could push creatives out of this stagnant rut we find ourselves in as a whole. Humans will adapt and strive harder to create more original and human work. There will always be a market for that.
@@joshmcdzz6925You nailed it! If AI is a threat to you, then you're just a robot as well.
I feel you, man! Been creating videos for the last 20 years. This world today is changing way too fast for humans. Change brings anxiety and rapid change brings paralysis and depression. I spent several semesters around 2010 learning to shoot 16mm and 35mm film in college, and the moment I graduated RED One took over the market. Lot's of learned skill was tossed, but I feel like I kept that etiquette of shooting film. Yes, we will have to find a way to stay relevant and never forget that WE are the MASTER and AI is a TOOL - literally, lol.
Vesperance: nostalgia for the present knowing that tomorrow will bring something dramatically new
Lifelong creative also. I’m fearful but embracing it as much as I know how
People have been making bad art forever. Look at how hard it is to even start making a movie, and yet there are still TONS of bad movies. AI is just going to make it cheaper and easier to make bad art, and the market will be flooded with it. One hopes that will make the good art stand out more. There's a theory that AI is doomed to eat itself because of this - since it needs to continually train on new media, and the world is just going to keep being flooded with more souless derivative media that is increasingly being produced by AI, you will increasingly have AI being trained on AI art. I have no idea what that will look like, but though I suspect it will look very clean and "realistic", I doubt it will be very inspiring.
When I read your comment I thought of DAWs for creating music getting more and more accessible to people over the years. Especially with cracked software and UA-cam tutorials to learn from.
Doesn’t mean that musicians/producers will go out of business, just that the access to making music is becoming more ‚accessible‘.
I think it’s kinda the same for AI stuff. It makes everything more accessible but you still have to give it context/story/emotion/thought.
Thank you so much for the video! Been grappling with this for a few months, I’ve slowly been levelling up my video skills over the past few years, taking photography classes, buying online courses but like you said it feels like the rug has been pulled out from underneath us. My only comfort is the fact that culturally we seem to be heading back towards rich unique storytelling. Some of my recent favourites have been Noah Kahan (Stick Season album is so beautiful), Baby Reindeer (I can’t imagine an ai writing something this messed up), and Alex Garland’s Civil War (just surpassed 100 million worldwide and is A24’s 2nd highest grossing movie). Keep supporting the art that you want to see more of ✌️
well, I‘d look up the civil war ai controversy about the ai generated movie posters.
Fu*** A24, they pretend to give a toss about art.
Man, I feel you so much. I come from a family of artists, I am a filmmaker, my mother is a painter etc. The thing I'm most afraid of is not that AI will replace us or that we won't have jobs anymore (although it might happen to some extent). The fear is rather that art will lose its relevance. If everyone can create art, people will get tired of it because there is so much of it.
I uploaded pictures of my mom to Midjourney and tried to create paintings in a similar style and the results were super close. Of course, her paintings are still worth more, but that shocked me. How easy it was. And the thought that someone could create paintings, upload them to Instagram and maybe sell prints of them just feels wrong. When you used to see art, the first thought was always “that person has so much talent” or “how did they do that” and now it's often just “is that AI?”.
I'm still trying to fight it. In my company, I have to book a lot of voice overs and I tell the ad agencies we work with that I don't book AI voice overs. I want to work with real people. At the moment they still understand, but more and more questions are coming in as to why we can't solve this with AI. And I think it will only be a few months before I can no longer resist it because it's not cost-effective. And then you have to ride the wave.
I fucking hate this. I hope that there will be regulations. But I don't think it can be stopped. Its fucking depressing and I really don't care if AI can make my life easier.
The word I'll use is: confusing!
Being a (young) person in this world was never easy. Being a creative was never easy. But with this new tech it might have gotten a little more.
I really resonate with your thoughts. Its fun to dabble with AI... but also worrying as a creative.
I've watched a video essay a while back. Can't remember the name. But one of the main points was the curious fact that we chose creativity to give to AI to do first... Instead of more boring tasks. Like your taxes and what not.
Have a good day anways🤞🏻
Hell yeah! A good old Tom rant! Man, I totally agree. All these tools, I am sure I'd utilize the tools, but I'd probably not enjoy it anymore, it'll just be for money. Money that I'm not sure what I'll do with because all my hobbies have been hijacked lol.
When I studied music and went into that industry, my dream was to write music, record in studio with bands, perform live shows and distribute CD's. But by the time I got to that point, studios were outdated and everything got recorded at home with an Avid M-Box. Drums were programmed, CD's released and made no sales because a month later CD's were off the market. Everything got distributed electronically and live shows were empty. At that point, I realized, my dream of being on stage, recording in studios and the whole "journey" that I enjoyed, was no longer a part of the process. It was just the music that remained. And I was there for the whole ride, so then, I switched to film because it was the only thing left where I can still "go to set, work with actors, use a clapper board, set up big lights, etc". And now I fear, I'll never have that authentic "on set" experience because by the time I get noticed by a producer with a budget, things wont be the same anymore.
I wish I had some advice but truth be told, I honestly barely make enough money to survive, nevermind with AI as a competitor. I've already lost work to "tiktok" style cellphone videos, at this point, they don't even need people anymore lol. So honestly, I feel the same way you do as a writer, musician and cinematographer. Because AI can write the script, generate the content and put it all together. 🤷♂
Finally, It all reminds me of the time a guy pressed the print button on a 3D printer and said "wow, what an amazing feeling. I MADE that, with my bare hands, all by myself" and I was just thinking to myself "No.... you downloaded a template and hit print. You didn't create anything". But he was so damn chuffed with himself believing he was an artist. I don't know 😅 let's just go with the flow, use the tools and hope that we can continue to express ourselves and tell our stories one way or another!
Agree with everything you hit on to the T. It's totally useful and helpful and yes, will replace us. Next BIG skill for the Corporate market: Professional Prompt Writer
There will still be room for people in the loop in creative fields, but despite challenges in the cinematography field, almost every industry is or will be going through the same thing eventually. We have a long way to go and grow as a society as this tech gets better, and AI will challenge our "live to work" mentality as certain jobs become a thing of the past, and once complex actions become button clicks. I think regardless, there will (or should) always be room for humans to explore their passions, and experience what it takes to learn a skill from scratch and gain that knowledge, mastery, etc. Hopefully this technology allows us to do more of that, and explore more of what makes us human.
It’s got me down a lot too. Really hard to feel hopeful about the future of this business because of AI, I mean I know most people working in film/tv are already feeling its effects. There’s part of me that believes even if AI completely takes over every profitable sector of filmmaking there will still be a group of creative purists making films and images that are shown in indecent theatres and film festivals. Stuff made analogy, shot of film, projected on film etc. You can see that film photography has truly made a massive comeback, perhaps the same will happen and we will go back to more analog filmmaking. But I still fear that AI is going to take such a massive chunk out of this industry. Whatever happens AI has changed creative work forever, I think only time will tell what the cost of that will be.
I'm feeling the same. Afraid for my livelihood. Hoping we are being over dramatic and that AI will become another tool in our creative arsenal instead of a replacement for DPs, producers, editors, musicians, etc etc. In the short term, I know my business is already looking at ways AI can help them cut costs. But in the long term, and more in general, 'art' is never cheap or easy, and I think there will always be an appreciation for gifted artists in society. "Not made with AI" may become a new flex in the years to come.
Hi my friend. I feel the same. I have no idea where this will end and it will not stop at our business of music, film, art etc....
You make some great points. It's too early to tell all these effects of course....but one has to believe that live events will now be valued at a premium, Theatre, Sports Concerts...bec they can't be AI'd...but also like you said many will still pursue the 'Arts' just for the joy of acquiring those skills. AI also needs and feeds off of original content...if there is no original content AI will quickly all look and feel the same (I think ..! Help!)
AI,will not stop me from making music or anything else because I enjoy, I enjoy film making even though I struggle to make a living at it, and I won't stop collaborating with people on either of these endeavors because I enjoy it and these things are fulfilling and enrich my life and the lives of those around me. I opt and for the human touch and that is a new cultural shift as AI moves forewarned.
I agree with you 100%! That's my "Human-ness" detecting a threat in the midst. I believe that behind the scenes there's something big going on but it's not what we think. I think humanity is being gently lulled into mental, emotional, physical and financial prison. At the end of it all we'll see with our own eyes who was behind it all the entire time. I believe we'll see clearly what the goal for humanity was by this dark force. Human Slavery. Fasten your seat belts...
i had the same thoughts, but a healthy middle ground i reached was, fusing Ai with what we know as film makers to expand our creativity even more, because creativity soars, when its growing
As a photographer, filmmaker, voice-artist and soon psychologist I agree with what you said. But I think there comes a point when people realize that AI can't or shouldn't replace everything: Humans need meaningful occupation. Humans need recognition for their work. Humans need challenges. Artistic creation includes all of this and will therefore always be an important part for human happiness.
I agree with everything in your video. It’s why I pivoted and decided to focus on character driven verite style documentaries. True human stories can’t be replaced by AI but these tools can be used to tell these stories in innovative new ways.
Make a podcast. You bring me back to my childhood. I feel like I’m watching Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and you are teaching me how to make crayons or why I shouldn’t be afraid of the wicked witch of the west. Just don’t stop.
Oh wow I love that guy!
I've become less and less worried about AI as a threat to graphic design, videography, art, and illustration. Work with a human touch simply has a certain "it" factor, a certain authenticity, that always distinguishes it from the robot. It's so personal and authentic, and it has this indescribable resonance.
I’m a classically trained, multiple degrees, yadda yadda , musician. Your version of the song was more inspired than the AI.
But yeah, give it a couple years (or one) and it will out rank you. It’s only a matter of time.
I once dropped one of my compositions into AIVA to hear what it would do with my arrangement and then I felt like crap when it came out better than mine 😅
@@WhySteve sorry to hear that. I don’t have the self confidence to put myself through that.
Remember, art is subjective. As long as you like your stuff, nothing else matters. But that's the hard part, liking your own stuff 😅
@@WhySteve of course, but that doesn’t change the economics of it.
Nah, it doesn't. But it might make you feel a bit better, haha.
I’m a 1st AC in Houston and while I believe AI cannot replace my job (except maybe pulling focus) it absolutely could replace the people and projects that necessitate my help. It’s conflicting for sure.
I'm with you on everything.
It's actually making me want to do things in an analog way, just for the sake of it.
My next project I'm going to transcribe a whole book onto one big canvas.
Just to "waste" my time, and then be able to hang my spent hours on the wall.
I might be late to this one, but I'm a corporate/commercial director. Making videos, probably similar to the ones you make, is my lively hood. I found myself agreeing with everything you're saying. What's been more popular lately are organic style videos. I've never seen more demand for iPhone style videos than I am right now. With that said, those types of video tend to be simple and pay less. So it's still not great. Everything is easier, but worse now.
been having the same crisis over the last few weeks - I have all the same skills besides painting and I fear that my childhood and adolecense that I used to build those skills was for nothing - there is no scalable human art anymore - unless we can seriously market the human aspect of each thing that was made - my whole theory for building anything going forward is painstakingly marking every nuance of creativity in order to convey just how much effort went into these things - we watch Christopher Nolan because of how real we know his movies are - and we watch people do their own stunts because we know the risk they took - art used to embody the effort that was put into it - but it can't anymore, effort to output was a 1-1, then a 1-10, now it's 1 to ∞ - barely anything will be made with effort going forward - but proof of effort and heart will make things stand out infinitely more and therefore audiences will be drawn to it
I like to think that people will actively seek out genuine art. Perhaps live performances will see a resurgence. Or maybe nobody cares and just want something they can nod their head to, regardless of who or what created it.
I'm in the Vanlife UA-cam niche, so I've seen and met a lot of real life humans who turned out to be fake way before the AI boom.
I’m not sure how I feel about it, but I do know that we as creatives have to find a way to work with it. It is here to stay and nothing we can do about it! Humans love change as long as everything stays the same!!!
I feel that the only appropriate response is to move into a cabin in the woods and face the essential facts of life, and not find, when we come to die, that we had not lived. Back to nature, back to carving wood and stone, back to fishing, back to singing with a guitar by a campfire.
There will be a response. It’s coming. We still matter…
I've never posted a comment on your channel before. First things first, though. Thank you. Thank you for this channel. It is the first one I always check when I log into UA-cam to see if you've posted anything new. It will continue to be my first stop.
Now, to the business at hand: AI. There is something to keep in mind here... Technology always replaces, over time, manual methods of doing things. Period, end of story. I'm not talking just digital technology here, I'm talking ANY technology. I'm old enough to remember when calculators replaced slide rules. That replacement was a revolution, and nobody worried about the creative people who made the slide rules. Nobody worried about the writers who created texts based on those slide rules or professional instructors who passed on the knowledge of how to use them. Nobody worried about their jobs, about their skill sets. Today, virtually nobody (and I mean NOBODY) knows how to use slide rules.
Or, another case in point: Printing and bookmaking. This is a dying art, being unquestionably replaced by digital texts. I have no doubt that most of an entire generation being raised right now has no understanding of the joy of printed books. They are content looking at text on a screen, if they bother to read at all. In this tidal shift of how information is disseminated, nobody worried about the jobs and, more importantly, the knowledge that was lost--knowledge about how to actually put together a book.
Case studies could go on and on. The bottom line is simply that technology always replaces whatever came before it, and the knowledge about how to do what came before is lost. "Creative people"-as if creating a painting or a song or a video is any different, endorphically, than creating a new way to teach people how to do math using a slide rule, creating a design for a book, or actually binding the book-will be displaced by the technological changes that are disrupting their hard-earned skills. There is no way around it. It has happened before, and it will continue to happen. It's always sad when it happens to you or to those you love.
When I was at a shopping Centre in Perth, Western Australia; there was an old boomer lady using a midjourney discord bot with a reface type program to put peoples faces onto images, and then print them out on canvas. I was disgusted that these digital art styles were being sold when we all know midjourney is dodgy with using other artists work. Although I did think that these people are happy that they are getting a product they wouldn't have been able to get otherwise, it's still stealing though imo.
"creativity" is getting redefined. Photography changed forever once digital cameras hit the scene, art changed when computers and photoshop hit the scene. We just have to learn to embrace the new art of prompt engineering if we want to make things fast and cheap. At least we get to be part of "the beginning" of whatever this is. And it's still kinda fun for the DIY creators... at least for now.😕
Prompt engineering is a very easy to learn skill, much easier then in real life directing and photography. There will be no viable business in being good at something millions of others can do just as well, including people in economies where rent costs $200 a month.
Well, right now I’m taking a deep breath while the ia in my phone is already guessing the words I’m going to write… at the beginning I was so happy thinking in the time I was going to save, but right now I’m not so sure what to say. Maybe I’ll come back in a month or so and write something different 🤯
I'm feeling very much the same way. I work in communications for a non-profit and am not sure what this is going to do to my field over the next few years.
It's sad but enjoyable what AI is doing, and gonna do in a near future!
I almost expected you to say "subscribe to this channel" how sad it was:( (this comment was translated from Czech using Chatgpt).
same here, fun & terrified at the same time. Im going for the prompt master job b4 its too late.
What i'm telling myself is that although I never made a camera, I never coded an editing software, I use other peoples music, and I have never created a light, I still somehow get a lot of satisfaction when I put all of those things together in the right way and create a video.
We may still have the chance to be the orchestrators, but we'll be standing on the shoulders of a new set of manufacturers and creators.
In my opinion, your worries are directed to who do art as a job, but no A.I. will block you to learn something or do something just for the enjoying of the process.
I call it "the Knockers-Up effect": in the past, people were paid to knock up at your house early in the morning; then alarm clocks were sold at a cheap price for everyone... It's the life, it's evolution.
My thoughts exactly. It's terrifying. It's going to to destroy digital artists careers. As an editor and filmmaker, I'm trying to learn how to use AI to its advantages for now, and I guess I'll continue to work as long as I can because I don't have any other marketable skill. After it's stolen all my editing work, I'm not sure what I'll do.
My only hope is that for now it can't replicate real life. So documentaries, live music, live theater, paintings, sculptures, etc will continue to be safe for a while longer. And will AI ever truly learn what it is to be human? Sure it can replicate it pretty closely, but I can't imagine an AI actor ever being a Jack Nicholson or Meryl Streep, so there will need to be people there to capture those performances. But AI will likely take over all post-production work. So yes, it's a scary future. My other hope, is that there have always been advancements in society that were scary, and this is our electricity, our horseless carriage, our next computer revolution. Humans aren't going anywhere for a while, so we'll find a way to live with it.
I hear you. Just used Adobe's AI sound website to clean up TRASH location audio. Stunning. Used to work freelance in the print textbook industry -- watched it all go to India starting in the early 2000s. (Same vibe now.) Bought rental property -- figured they couldn't send that to India. FML
One pithy quote: "The future is not the extension of existing trends, nor resistance to them. The future must be *created*."
My hope is AI art/music/video creation is a fad that people get bored with before too long so we can keep cranking out new original content for the AI robot overlords to continue scraping.
The prespective you shared, has been the prespective of machiniest 60-70 years ago when CNC machins were getting famous. This is infact a common discussion in my classes with my studetns. Back then, machine operators were well know for their skills in turning and milling parts precise and accurate. then came the CNC that could have done more complex jobs, better, faster and cheaper. Machinists were struggling with this technology and were afraid of lossing their jobs because of it. They were worried about the next generation and the lack of requirement to learn the skills they've mastered in their whole life. Meanwhile, some tried to adopt to the new technology and learned cnc machining while implementing what they've learned in years of manual machining on the new technology. Those were the ones who won this battle and became the leaders of this industry. We didn't lose those skills after 70 years. We still have incridibly skilled people running CNC machines making parts that is around us for cheap. We can explore space cheaper, expand human vision and capability. We can well prepare for unexpected disasters. We expanded our bubble of communication thanks to technologies such as social media, and so many more benefits that weren't accounted for back then. Interestingly, none of the things that those manual machinists were worried about came true! Humanity always finds its way to progress and these are just tools to help. You can either fight a losing battle with technology or try to adopt and learn how to use it.
Thomas feels empty or frustrated because he has personal, intellectual or creative needs developed and based on a world that is about to disappear. As long as you have tools (and the need to use them) crafted to be useful in an environment that is no longer there, the emptiness and frustration feeling is unavoidable. So the only way to overcome this (I think) is starting by changing the mindset: either accepting that those skills and their associated needs will become just a "useless hobby" and take them just as that expecting nothing beyond that, or looking for new activities, skills or areas still not colonized by machines as long as they remain so. Taking care of stray cats, plant trees, spending more time with the family, whatever that can be.
We come from a past where we needed to be useful and we needed to take care of ourselves, and we are heading a future where all that will not be a thing anymore. The new people will have a mindset adapted from the beginning to the new reality, so they will be used to that without needing any adaptation. I guess there will be two kinds of people: the "passive" just sitting and watching memes and social media, and the "active" like Thomas who will still need a purpose doing meaninful things. Maybe those will have learnt to not care if there's a machine doing what they do better than them and will just enjoy, or maybe they will indeed find "machines-free" areas still not colonized. By the way, with this new reality there will be new questions to answer, so maybe there will still be open positions in the philosophy sector.
Thank you for creating this video. I feel the same.
The new Eleven Labs music generator seems to be amazing. Better than Udio by far. Not available to consumers yet, so there's a bit of skepticism, but the improvements are coming faster than you can keep up.
I think we're headed toward what I will view as a dystopia, but what will just be normal life for people being born now. I think the time of humans being creative may well be coming to an end. BUT it will take a generation or two to get there. And, there will be backlash -- people choosing art made by humans for humans over any "superior" work pumped out by the AI.
I think we're all going to turn into Rick Rubin. (A world-class music producer with almost no musical ability.) When asked what he actually does the conversation went like this:
Cooper: "Do you play any instruments?"
Rick: "Barely ... I have no technical ability, and I know nothing about music."
Cooper: "Well you must know something."
Rick: "Well I know what I like and what I don't like..."
Cooper: "So what are you being paid for?"
Rick: "The confidence that I have in my taste, and my ability to express what I feel - has proven helpful for artists."
Its sad to me ... but I think thats kind of where things will go. The need for humans to provide the technical skill will diminish, while the need for humans to provide the 'taste' will increase.
I am a creative director who has been working in the field for over 12 years. Somehow, I manage to maintain optimism. If I try to understand why, I think a big part of the reason is that I know there are "more people in the boat with me." Moreover, the changes will not happen in a vacuum just for the creator community; the changes will affect every aspect of human society, so suddenly there will be "more people on the ship" with us. Additionally, I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume we can predict which technology will exist and how it will affect things. I guess things will ultimately be so different from what we can imagine, and when we finally get there, we will find a way to satisfy our drives. True, it will be different from anything we know, and our tendency will be to say, "But this is what worked for me, this is what's right to succeed, to evolve and enjoy..." From here, I think what we need to emphasize is the mental flexibility we must maintain, which will be expressed in every new tool that emerges and how we respond to it
I work with Youth ministry students at our local University and so many of them are using AI to generate content for sermons and lessons for kids, but unfortunately its answers arent always accurate, and the students arent checking... my fear is that its going to diminish critical thinking even more, stop people from putting in the labor to enjoy the final product, whether its study, videography, art, music etc. It'll be interesting to see where the world goes with all this
I understand the concern (I'm a video editor, with over 15 years experience doing corporate video), and it is a legitimate concern. However, it's how you look at it. AI can take away your job, or you can use it to make your job easier. I prefer the latter. As you said, there's no use fighting it. So why stress out about it? Use that energy to find new ways to use it to your own advantage. Instead of recreating a picture created by AI, use it as an idea generator. If I'm stuck on something I put in a prompt and BOOM I'm not stuck any more. Also, look at the limits of AI. Yes, it is advancing, but even Soro (or whatever it's called, I just had a brain fart) can only generate 1 minute clips at a lower resolution. Also, according to several articles I've read, AI will literally run out of Internet to scrape in 2 years. Another thing is that AI can't create from nothing. It needs things to take from. What happens when it starts taking from itself? Then there are the puppy dogs with 3 heads we've all seen.
Portrait painters all thought they would be out of work when the camera was invented, and some of them were, but their fears were not fully realized for all of them. I see AI the same way. There's a site that allows people to make corporate videos using AI. I see it as a fancy PowerPoint generator when I really look at it. I'd be losing those clients anyway. It's also an excuse to pivot to more documentary and narrative.
On the other hand, I can use AI for all kinds of things to make my job easier. Noise reduction in both video and audio, motion tracking, panning in relation to object position, text based editing. I could go on forever. Don't be completely discouraged. That's what the AI companies want.
I know it's hard to quantify right now, but you will have an advantage in a future where ai does the heavy lifting precisely because you put all those years of work into your mastery. Your tastes become refined through those rigorous years navigating your own Dunning-Kruger shortcomings, and your art will always be better for that. There was a similar scare about computers replacing actors when CG was getting more realistic in the early 2000's, but there was a CG fatigue that set in during that time and there was plenty of counterculture movements that operated in complete opposition to that. What ai can do is indeed mind-blowing but the current best ai art is still made by people who are skilled artists and leveraging ai as a tool, and employing that as an extension of existing technique. The way that this could be really good for media is that the writing and the story you want to tell will be far more important than the flair and spectacle, and it will democratize filmmaking in a new way that requires us to be more direct with our voice rather than hiding it under beautiful cinematography, music and visual effects. The one constant about tech making our lives easier, is that the DEMAND for what tech can do in service of entertainment will always increase - so you have an opportunity to tell stories in new ways you never dreamed possible. People will get bored with uninspired and low-effort ai films and will look to filmmakers to codify it in more human ways.
"am I supposed to fight this?" Am I supposed to hire a company like yours ever again and pay for something I can type? Then the answer is yes , you are supposed to.
Why do we, as creatives, create? Is it for the profit of our status or our soul? We live in a world that requests the former, but in a body that yearns for the later. Create, bring to existence what you envision, regardless of how the tools of time change. Even if your career shifts, keep on creating, if even just for yourself.
Enjoyed the video.
I'm hoping some regulation comes along that makes it illegal for companies to be selling generative ai products that have scrapped copywritten works. It's theft on an unprecedented level, and ironically I think the verdict in the Andy Warhol case could be a precedent to use moving forward.
My prediction is the world will change and live performances will become huge. Livestream is where video may be going and there may be a huge live theatre resurgence. Look at film. It's been coming back for years. Human culture will evolve in a world where nobody can believe their eyes unless they are actually there.
Interesting, but scary insights. I thought for sure at the end you were going to tell us this entire video was generated by AI. That would’ve scared me.
What you said 1,000%. I'm holding out hope that at some point, we as a society will value AI human generated art over AI with some form of authentication.
Comforting response:
AI is at its peak and may not get better. People are finding clever ways to use it (generating music, art, girlfriend, etc), but it may never become perfect.
AI has issues and those may not improve simply because AI companies are out of data to feed the AI; and the only way AI improves is with more data.
*Lots of oversimplifications in my response, but i dont want to write an essay
Source:
-The Daily: A.I.'s original sin (From NYT)
Yes my friend im terrified( I will keep making music anyways, because thats what i do, im nothing without it
Something to keep in mind is that we will get better and better at discerning AI and rejecting it is cheap and empty. Go look at early 90s 3D - it looks like a PS2 game. But people at the time thought it looked "almost like a photograph". We get fooled in the beginning, but then we learn to adapt our senses. probably what kept our ancestors from eating too many berries that were poisonous but looked almost like healthy ones.
I follow you because I enjoy creating in my spare time. I have blackmagic cameras and other such things that I bought simply to play around with. It is as you say - what will humanity do when there is no need for such playing around? What does one do to fill their time? What will be the point really?
My work is in the sciences - I'm an engineer. When GPT came along, my colleagues and I put it to the test and started asking it tough engineering questions - things from our area of expertise. It was flat out wrong at times, but when it was right, we were astounded at its accuracy, and its ability to get to the meat of problems and solve them.
We concluded that even at 'our level', our jobs were absolutely not safe in ten years. Maybe even less. Why pay us when you can run A.I. that is vastly more capable and can work forever, all day, all night.
Elon and those like him are correct - A.I is a highly dangerous thing, that can, and will, destroy humanity as we know it. What comes after is anyone's guess.
all I can say is that I am glad I am at the tail end of my career and not just starting out. the race to the bottom continues