As Nader has said: Saying software is dead because anyone can build it is literally saying professional photography is dead because everyone has a camera in their pocket.

Professional photographers are different to everyday phone-photo takers because they have the experience built up over so many years in that sector, same as AI SWE, where the humans in the loop need experience to master AI SWE.

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0c3ca83 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If the camera was capable of deciding how to frame the images, how to stage them, what lighting was required, how to edit them after taking them -- yes, professional photography would be dead. Hobbyist photography may stick around for people that value humanness, but photographers wouldn't be commercially relevant. Just ask the camera.

AI isn't a better keyboard. The goal is to automate the decision making.

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alfg 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> capable of deciding how to frame the images, how to stage them, what lighting was required, how to edit them

This is all possible now. I don’t think it’s dead (yet), but it’s certainly becoming more weird and artificial.

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aprilthird2021 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> AI isn't a better keyboard. The goal is to automate the decision making.

It pretty much is. And it won't

	▲	FreePalestine1 10 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you haven't extensively used the latest models. You should really play around with them. Give Sonnet 5.5 / Opus 5.5 a shot if you haven't. I am not a shill, I do not work for any AI company, and I used to think like you. But I've come to terms with the fact that Sonnet 5.5 does most aspects of my job better than me and faster than me. It made a mistake? No problem, feed the mistake back to it. I have yet to have it fail when it iterated on its mistakes. All that happens asynchronously in the background and quite rapidly with 5.5.

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blktiger 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There is a lot of variability in photography and there aren’t hard rules for deciding what makes a “good” photo. A good photo comes more from selecting a subject, in a particular environment, etc.

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0c3ca83 7 hours ago | parent [-]

There's also a lot of variability in AI, and it doesn't follow hard rules for what makes "good" output; it's capable of selecting a wide variety of subjects, environments, etc. And it's trained on more art critics than any photographer has read.

Taste is a set of heuristics for what's worked for the taster in the past. AI is very good at heuristics.

	▲	32 minutes ago \| parent [-]
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eluru 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

if AI was able to do so...

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nitwit005 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A lot of the reason for hiring a photographer is the raw number of shots you need to take at some events. If someone needs to be dedicated to the task all day, you may as well have someone with experience.

	▲	agnishom 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well, someone with experience might be more expensive to hire.

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causal 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah I probably know more photographers than ever. Maybe an apt comparison given the wild amount of AI and processing that goes into the average iPhone photo as well.

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tines 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Software isn't dead, thinking is dead (or dying).

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altmanaltman 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Isn't it more like saying professional portrait painting is dead because everyone has access to a camera today that does a better job and costs significantly less? A phone camera is just an extension of digital photography, which is an extension of film photography, which first drove the massive shift in replacement and is most similar to AI as a metaphor.

Interesting read on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_...

	▲	cesarvarela 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, but also way more people are getting portraits than before the camera was invented—there’s a bit of a Jevons paradox there.

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bluefirebrand 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I dated a professional photographer for a while.

Yes, she knew an assload about lighting, composition, etc.

But her primary skill was marketing herself. Next most important was the editing. Lightroom and such.

You would be surprised how easy it is to take an awesome photo. But you can't just deliver an awesome photo to your clients when you're a pro, you have to deliver photos that look like what they want to remember, not necessarily what the camera captured

	▲	nicce 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Since the technical skills are probably not so valuable anymore, probably the same will happen in software and science. The people who market themselves best or who pretend to know most without any shame, will get the jobs and AI will compensate the most of the lack of other missing perks.