[atleastoptimal]

The question is, since commercial illustrators can be more efficient using AI, will the total number of jobs in the space lower, or will the expectation for commercial illustration increase, thus increasing the workload and keeping the number of jobs the same.

[satvikpendem]

In all of human history, work has always increased. This is akin to Parkinson's Law, where work expands to fill the time (and now resources) available.

[singlow]

I don't disagree, but concerning particular trades this is not true. In the mid-19th century there were more than seven thousand blacksmith shops in the US, which employed over fifteen thousand people, but today there are fewer than one thousand professional blacksmiths. Many of the products they produced either have lower demand or are produced by other means. If you consider the entire metalworking industry, we have many more total workers, but very few have the skills of a blacksmith.

The number of people who do the current work of an illustrator might go down eventually due to AI, but there will likely be more total people employed in the process of producing illustrations. It is just likely that fewer of them will have the skills that today's illustrators need, and also likely that fewer of them will command extraordinary wages. Many of the jobs that replace it will likely be closer to the median wage than today.

Also we will eventually turn the corner and start having population decline. For the US this might be just a few decades away. And some time after that, work would eventually decrease.

[atleastoptimal]

Work has always increased, but work in a specific profession doesn't necessarily increase. There are certainly fewer phone switchboard operators today than there were 100 years ago.

[satvikpendem]

Indeed, but that just means that humans will have to find new jobs, not that jobs will become obsolete. How well they will find new jobs, though, is another story, based on socio-politico-economic conditions of the country they reside in.

[LordDragonfang]

In most of human history, the type of jobs available were relatively stable century to century; today, the types of jobs aren't even stable decade to decade.

The automation of physical labor let us turn to intellectual labor and creative labor. The coming automation of intellectual and creative labor is not like the previous automations of physical labor, because it leaves human jobs no where else to turn to.

CGP Grey's "Humans Need Not Apply" video[1,2] covered this almost a decade ago:

> Imagine a pair of horses in the early 1900s talking about technology. One worries all these new mechanical muscles will make horses unnecessary.

> The other reminds him that everything so far has made their lives easier -- remember all that farm work? Remember running coast-to-coast delivering mail? Remember riding into battle? All terrible. These city jobs are pretty cushy -- and with so many humans in the cities there are more jobs for horses than ever.

> Even if this car thingy takes off you might say, there will be new jobs for horses we can't imagine.

> But you, dear viewer, from beyond 2000 know what happened -- there are still working horses, but nothing like before. The horse population peaked in 1915 -- from that point on it was nothing but down.

> There isn’t a rule of economics that says better technology makes more, better jobs for horses. It sounds shockingly dumb to even say that out loud, but swap horses for humans and suddenly people think it sounds about right.

    [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
    [2] (transcript) https://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/humans-need-not-apply

[addcommitpush]

This is completely false; working hours per worker have declined after the Industrial Revolution [0].

[0] https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours#are-we-working-more...

[satvikpendem]

That does not say anything about how much work exists in aggregate. The human population has gone up, so it can be simultaneously be true that the amount of work being done increases even as each worker works fewer hours. As well, this also says nothing about the quality of work, as GDP is going up, so it can also be simultaneously true that the quality of work increases even as each worker works fewer hours.

[addcommitpush]

I think the relevant metric is the amount of work per people, not the agregate amount of work. If tomorrow there's twice as many people but only one more job because of AI, then sure! the agregate amount of work has increased.

[bsder]

> In all of human history, work has always increased.

Production has increased. It's not clear that work has increased.

Mills and factories used to employ people by the hundreds of thousands and maintain people in a blue-collar standard of living. Now, no manufacturer even exists in the top 25 employers in the US--it's all service industry.

The vast majority of the decendants of the people working those manufacturing jobs are not working in better jobs than those were.