[tekne]

I mean...

There's the concept, and then there's the painting.

AI slop from a generic prompt is not the same as "using AI to get my concept in physical form faster."

Imagine, for example, a one-man animated movie. But, like, with a huge amount of work put into good, artistic, key-frames; what would previously have been a manga. That's possible, soon, and I think that's huge and actual art.

[throwaway613745]

> what would previously have been a manga

Completely out of touch to downplay the entire manga industry as "skill issue".

Akira Toriyama totally created Dragonball as a manga because he was just wasn't good enough to make an animated movie!

Berserk is a book because Kentaro Miura just had skill issue!

Only imagine if Tolkien wanted to create the Lord of the Rings if he had AI!

As if a medium only artistic merit because sufficiently advanced technology just didn't exist yet. groooaaaaan

[tekne]

That's an uncharitable interpretation.

Let's say it takes 10 units of work to build a house, and 200 units of resources to build a skyscraper; on average. Let's further assume, after a point, that skill tends to increase quality by a lot more than it decreases resource consumption, so this is "about the best you can do".

A very skilled craftsman/artist can build an amazing house with 10 units. A low quality bargain barrel contractor will build a skyscraper for 200, but it's not going to be pretty.

If new technology means you can now build a skyscrapers for 10, that means that many more exciting and experimental concepts can be tested by building a skyscraper right away, whereas previously they could only be built as a house.

- Some concepts are just better as a house. Even with infinite resources, people will still make houses to this concept; it's not like houses are devalued or less useful or less nice. - Some concepts would be better as a skyscraper, but are very niche, so they were built as houses as a compromise. These can now be skyscrapers. This is no comment at all on the skill of the builder, only on the resources available to them (time, money, etc.)

I never said: - houses are worse (or better) - building houses is a skill issue

I merely said: - the choice of what to build is not 100% based on artistic merit; resource constraints must also be taken into account

And hence concluded: - if it becomes cheaper to build things, the choice of what to build depends more on artistic merit now

And speculated: - since there are all kinds of things that are really cool but really expensive, meaning we often (due to resource reasons) need to substitute a cheaper thing (which can be just as good or even superior for other concepts, just not the particular concept in question), we will likely see a lot more of Really Cool Thing now that it's cheap.

In short, thinking photography will enable a new mass market of images whereas previously paintings were really expensive and difficult to make, while still respecting that: - a master photographer can be just as skilled as a master painter - a master painter's work is not necessarily devalued by the existence of photography

And yet noting that - some paintings might be better as photographs, or would never be made at all because there simply wasn't enough money to paint them even if they in fact would be better as paintings

Think, for example, realistic war photography. Or realistic photography of non-privileged people and cultures. That's just... not painted very often.

Cheap is good for diversity of expression. It does not devalue what used to be expensive, except insamuch as the value was simply a shallow status signal about burning resources rather than real human expression.

Ok, /rant