Computers have been mechanizing people's jobs away for god knows how many years now. Everybody on this site is guilty of it to some degree. I'm a doctor, and automating me out of a job has been one of the wettest dreams of programmers since the expert systems of the 20th century, and that dream is palpable in every HN thread about medicine.

But now that computers have come for the "creatives", it's suddenly an attack on human dignity? No.

Programmers are not special. Artists are not special. Humans are not special.

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hgs3 19 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The person you're responding to isn't talking about automation or jobs, they're talking about creating being fundamental to the human experience. And they're 100% correct. Humans have been creating since ancient times; the earliest cave painting discovered is 67,800 years old [1]! By comparison, how old is modern capitalism?

Work and art have existed long before emperors, kings, feudal lords, and capitalists and they'll exist long after them. Any economic or political system that misuses technology to disrupt the ancient human need to create is fundamentally anti-human. The biggest fault with our current socioeconomic system is it prioritizes the worst aspects of humanity (greed, hoarding, consumption) over the best aspects (building and creating). That's why people are upset.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/world/asia/indonesia-hand...

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matheusmoreira 19 hours ago | parent [-]

> creating being fundamental to the human experience

Fundamental, I can agree with. Exclusive? Clearly not. Not anymore.

People can still create now, even in spite of AI. Will anyone pay for it? Who knows. Doubtful.

> The biggest fault with our current socioeconomic system

I can agree with this. I believe that at this point the only hope left for humanity is to leverage AIs to the max and achieve a post-scarcity society. It's our only chance, and things are gonna get ugly if we fail.

The socioeconomic argument is sound, just don't let it get twisted into "but think of all the creators, the super special noble humans, they deserve protection against the AI onslaught".

Nobody cared about all the countless skilled labourers who were disrupted and automated away by technology. Asking us to shed tears for artists now is honestly offensive, doubly so when the people asking are programmers who literally make bank by automating away the jobs of others.

We are job destroyers. Our work inherently reduces the set of people who are still economically valuable. We are all about getting more done for less. Our only hope lies in finishing our journey, and making it possible to do everything for nothing at all.

	▲	hgs3 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The harm of generative AI runs much deeper than economics. Creating is communication. When you share your work, you're sharing your mind. You're demonstrating mastery of a craft. You're inspiring others. The linked article is specifically about how AI is actively harming the relationship between readers and writers, and not in a hypothetical future, but right now. Even if we enter a "post-scarcity" society, I'm concerned fewer people will create. Why speak if your voice is silenced under a sea of synthetic outputs? Yes, you can create because you enjoy the mechanics, but the communication will be gone. Generative AI is a long term concern as it hurts something fundamentally ancient.

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smashburger 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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magicalist 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Programmers are not special. Artists are not special. Humans are not special.

Really winning me over with this take. Definitely prefer this vs checks notes human experience, creativity, and dignity.

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matheusmoreira 19 hours ago | parent [-]

You're not exactly winning me over with these "but these specific humans with noble professions are special and shouldn't be replaced" takes either.

I mean, what's this supposed to mean? It's totally fine to replace all those blue collar labourers with mass production factories, but replacing programmers and artists with AI is somehow a crime against humanity? Absolute nonsense.

This discourse does nothing but betray one's own sense of superiority over the lesser humans. Enlightened thought workers who thought their positions were unassailable and their leverages secured, but were proven wrong by the very technologies they helped create.

It's got nothing to do with preferences and everything to do with reality, and the reality is AIs are changing the world and the only hope left for us humans at this point is that they will somehow enable us to achieve a post-scarcity society.

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magicalist 19 hours ago | parent [-]

> This discourse does nothing but betray one's own sense of superiority over the lesser humans

What are you even talking about?

The comment you were responding to said:

> Delegating the thinking and feeling parts of the human experience, mechanizing human creativity itself, is a direct attack on human dignity.

Everyone can and should engage in creativity, on whatever scale. No one in this thread you're responding to privileged a certain type of worker or even a certain type of creativity (let alone the "experience" and "dignity" the comment broadened it to).

Also just real weird post. The relative worth as humans of doctors and blue collar labourers vs artists and programmers was not the matchup I was expecting, but I guess it's ok because we're all equally garbage in your eyes? FWIW, I'm hoping for more from us than accidentally ending up in a human zoo.

	▲	matheusmoreira 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Everyone can and should engage in creativity, on whatever scale. But not everyone will, absent economic incentives. Calling the mechanization of human creativity a "direct attack on human dignity" is a revealing moral judgement. What makes human creativity so special that it must be so thoroughly protected against technological progress? Why "human creativity" specifically, and not any of the other categories of human activity? Why is it "an attack on human dignity" to mechanize it? What if it's the opposite? What if this is the technology that will finally free us from all the other indignities we suffer? What if it's the technology that could create a post-scarcity society? > No one in this thread you're responding to privileged a certain type of worker or even a certain type of creativity Somehow I just don't see anyone make these kinds of sad posts about displaced skilled craftsmen or poor factory workers or any other economically displaced human. People make a few documentaries here and there so that history is documented, but we all accept that they are gone as a byproduct of the inevitable technological march. Why should "creatives" be an exception? > but I guess it's ok because we're all equally garbage in your eyes? I never said we are all equally "garbage". I said we are all equally replaceable, and that to believe otherwise is to betray a sense of superiority over those who were replaced. Even the CEOs will meet their match in the end. Stopping before their replacement would be the true crime against human dignity.