This.

This is more or less precisely how I feel. Other creative fields have already begun to get a handle on how AI is a soul-deadening thief of joy in their fields. I have hope for illustrators and painters and photographers and musicians and makers. With those friends and in those communities I see people who have already done the thinking, can already express their feelings, and are already making commitments to do work in ways that defend them.

The software development industry has still to reckon with the extent to which it is punching itself in the face, and it is precisely because AI does have at least some utility.

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ideashower an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I don't know. Maybe it's the people doing software dev that are yet to reckon with it to a degree -- or have found themselves on opposite sides of denial.

I think industry is quite clear that AI is helpful to their bottom line. At the end, that's all that matters to them. That SWEs cannot, say, unionize to prevent this shift in labor-elimination or articulate any other coherent way of countering the industry's desire to push forward with AI-assisted coding, shows me that there's an understandable desire to preserve this golden egg of being a high paying SWE. But that ship is setting sail, and becoming rarefied.

	▲	dofm an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> I think industry is quite clear that AI is helpful to their bottom line. No, I think the industry is hopeful that AI is helpful to their bottom line. I don't really think there is very strong evidence that the ROI is good. The problem is that the industry is riddled with FOMO and FUD: everyone thinks everyone else is using it so they must. And this FUD and FOMO is being imposed upon them from above: there is a mandate to be afraid and fearful you're not using AI enough. Even I, a burned out freelancer who once used to be happiest writing code, have to accept that if I return to my career, I must develop ways to use AI to keep up with people who are clearly already using it indiscriminately (or at best over-optimistically). And I must develop ways to talk to potential clients about the aspects of indiscriminate AI use that they should care about, and about the value of stepping back from one-shotted ideas. I am trying to operate without FOMO and to see past FUD, but I accept I am compelled to do that or quit. I think SWEs can't unionize for very different reasons, and that if you hang out on HN long enough you will develop a deeper understanding about why. But I am not restarting that discussion beyond saying this, because it always makes my head hurt!

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CuriouslyC 43 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

You're projecting, and there are plenty of people in crafts who are using AI output as an input to their own works who are having a blast. AI images make amazing collages/photobash inputs, and AI music is useful to sample or use as inspiration for parts you're stuck on. These people just keep quiet about their use because of the witch hunts being persecuted by people who are afraid of change.

AI use in creative fields is similar now to PEDs use in sports, except more ubiquitous.

	▲	dofm 23 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> You're projecting, No, I'm actually not. I'm an active creative portrait photographer and I take part in photographic communities with people much, much better than me, I am surrounded by dozens of gigging and working musicians, songwriters and composers in my friend group (and play a couple of instruments myself); I know painters and illustrators of great ability (though I am not that kind of artist). I listen to what people say and I talk with them about how they feel about it. > AI images make amazing collages/photobash inputs, I fully, fully disagree. I think using AI images in this way — for collage or moodboard — is completely ruining the point. I do know some photographers who haven't yet figured this out, unfortunately, but they will. Letting an AI image into your collage or inspiration for another piece of work is just opting out of a creative choice; you might as well place a grey rectangle, because that is what it is. > and AI music is useful to sample or use as inspiration for parts you're stuck on AI music is not and cannot be inspirational. It's the absolute opposite of it. And serious musicians know it. AI content might have some value as placeholder but even then you have to be careful that the prototype does not go into production. I'm also aware of someone who used AI images to generate a series of test prints for her new alternative process printing practice, precisely to make sure that her test prints never had any accidental value — it makes it essentially compulsory for her to destroy them when they have served their purpose. I have no particular problem with them being used as a more varied alternative to a step wedge like that, but the point is this: AI generated creative works have zero value. Anyone who is seriously involved in creativity knows that even replacing something that is working against you with something that has no value either way is probably a bad idea. And putting out work that has this absolute zero value does you more harm than bad work. It's way better to try and fail than not to try. Think for example of all the ambitious, earnest failures of movies you've seen; would any of them have been actually improved by AI? > AI use in creative fields is similar now to PEDs use in sports, except more ubiquitous. You were saying that you thought it was an "amazing" tool, and now you are saying it's like drug-assisted cheating? I think you still have some of the internal work to do.