[burntoutgray]

To use an analogy, back in the days of film cameras and before 1 hour labs, the "craftsman" photographer would carefully frame the shot, carefully setting the exposure, aperture and focus. The most meticulous would take notes in a notebook. There were only 36 frames to a roll of film and all going well, the photographer had to wait a couple of days to get back the proof sheet. Those were the days when expert photographers were commissioned to take photos for special events, etc.

These days, everybody is an expert photographer, taking thousands of irrelevant photos with their smartphones. The volume of photos has exploded, the quality of the best has minimally changed (i.e. before being photoshopped, etc.)

The current crop of AI-aided tools are comparable to the early digital cameras in phones.

[sph]

> These days, everybody is an expert photographer

No, everybody is a photographer, and a mediocre one at that. That's the point.

AI won't turn laypeople into expert programmers. Mediocrity might be just enough for the problem they need to solve, but quality and craftsmanship comes from dedication and hard work, not one-click solutions.

[dugite-code]

> These days, everybody is an expert photographer

If that were true there would be no wedding photographer's or any sales of high end DSLR's. The barrier of entry may have fallen but the need for real experts and tools still exists.

I expect AI's will cause a similar shift, lower barrier to entry but still requiring the hand of the expert in critical situations.

[mpalmer]

This fails to take into account a pervasive, global lowering of standards on all fronts.

Who will retain the good taste to keep paying a premium for professional photographers, etc?

[calvinmorrison]

We shot our wedding (2021) entirely on film. Some medium format, some 35mm, some instant film (polaroid and instax mini)

[airbreather]

Just wait long enough

[belZaah]

An excellent analogy. Everyone is an expert in taking the photo. But this does not make them a photographer. Even that expert claim is actually not fully true, the phone camera is woefully inadequate in many ways. But the main difference between a photographer and a layman like myself is the ability to produce output strongly linked with clear artistic intent.

Writing code is not the hard part and never has been. The hard part is having a clear understanding of how to solve a specific complex problem and being able to express that intent in code. Getting a decently exposed image was never the hard part.

Finally, there’s no scaling issues with cameras. You just make them better until it stops making economic sense. This is not true with code. To make llms better, good human-made code is needed for training. Better llms lead to less human-made code being available. This means there’s not an exponential growth in quality but a S-curve with a balance point. I’d say we are already there: innovation is shifting from the models to the ways of harnessing the models.

[gexla]

And you could say similar for the transition between painting and photography.

ETA: It's interesting how the bottleneck may reveal the real skill in the thing. Architecting the code. Having a eye for interestingness in creating an image / painting of something, etc.