I really don’t understand how people thought that AI was going to be able to do physical labor for them. Robotics can do some level of physical labor however most physical labor still requires a human being as we are years and decades away from any sort of robotic entity with any sort of llm or AI or whatever intelligence or even just a basic programming script being able to perform most jobs. My job myself will never be replaced in my lifetime I probably have another 15 to 20 years of doing what I’m doing right now and I can pretty much guarantee that there will not be any sort of advancement in labor by robotics or AI that could complete the job that I do.

Yes, because so many of the extremely celebrated human artists (please support my digital created artwork that is a circlejerk supporting the current popular trends on the internet y’all) have lost their jobs. Can you name one?
I’m a watercolorist, I actually paint on paper. I don’t like digital artworks, they feel sterile to me. I don’t sell anymore, but others who do watercolor/gouache, that I follow on instagram (i.e. indie artists, not gallery artists), can’t easily sell stickers anymore, because all that sticker-type illustrations (e.g. teapots with nice designs, animals etc), have been taken over by AI designs on Etsy. Stickers has been the primary way these artists were making money in the last 10 years. Very few people buy prints, as they’re more expensive.
I have been making physical art myself since I could walk pretty much, and I have never once heard of anyone with similar interests evwn mention making stickers for a living. Maybe it’s a geographical thing? I know some where making postcards and selling them on the streets for some beer money, while others kissed who ever ass they needed to in order to have gallery shows and establish themselves in the disgusting art world and make a decent living of their art… But never stickers. I never bothered with trying to make money off it myself, I enjoy painting and making money from it has never crossed my mind.
I’m not saying that you’re wrong, just to make that clear. But given how people will literally refuse to even touch anything that’s been made with AI these days (gaming industry for example), I personally feel that the loud minorities of this online activism of “AI stealing creative work” is digital artists who only have grown their fanbase by a lot from slapping a “human made” note on their work, rather than having their livelihood snatched because of a Ghibli or a Disney generator available online.
I can tell you somebody that collects stickers hardcore. Me and my family will go for a sticker over most prints just about any time. We have limited amount of walls that we can put prints up on and we have a massive amount of art that we circulate from various pieces throughout each month. But we can still only hold around 10 to 15 pieces at most. However there’s a crap ton of art that I bought that has been turned into stickers because I can stick those on my truck I can put those on my toolboxes I can put those all over my kids Xboxes and pretty much everywhere around.
Most of the illustrators I follow on IG, do stickers. Here’s just one of the 600 i follow: https://www.instagram.com/cecileberrube/ Maybe you’re into different type of art, that’s why you haven’t seen this kind of product. But cottagecore and lifestyle illustration usually produce stickers.
Yeah, that might very well be the case. I don’t follow anyone online, which might explain my lack of insight of the different online art communities. Not because I don’t think there’s great art available online, I’m sure I’d find a lot that I liked if I used Instagram, for example. But because I don’t really look for it. The only content I see online is pretty much posted on spaces like Lemmy (or Reddit in the past), like Comic Strips for example. Those spaces typically involves either digital anime drawings, realistic IRL paintings/drawings, or digital comics which often are easy on the eye with the point usually resolving around making a social comment on what ever topic people are upset with that week, neither of which speaks to my preferences. I appreciate the added context!
On the one hand you have the loud public outcry against AI art.
On the other hand, you have a ton of people charging ahead, particularly in commercial art. A restaurant in my area uses an AI generated illustration when they might have paid a little for an artist to make a fun illustration instead. The mandatory training at my work that used to ultimately hire random actors are now AI generated cartoons. As the parent commenter stated, random Etsy accounts using AI are now drowning out human artists. Maybe some of the big names are currently shamed away from using obvious AI, but so much of the market is not related to those.
Thank you! That’s a fair point that helps broadening my understanding of the affected areas for me. I see the issue, but I think it’s more of another example of capitalism stepping in and slimming down the cost/time for optimal profit and thus lowering the quality of the product. I have mostly seen people complain about digital artists, comic artists more precisely (which I a bit foolishly assumed automatically meant “digital comic artists” by default) being replaced or ruined because some kid is using a image generator online. I believe that because of the hate for AI, the online artists (again, my mind went straight to comic artists) in contrary have seen an increase in their fanbase and supporters.
My reaction was to the parroting online trend that has been gaining a lot more attention lately because of the current political environment, which basically seems to be resolving around updoots if you say that AI=bad.
They’re not judging anything, they’re visualizing a future where their needs are met based on trends in tech. They just forgot we live in a world where the rich’s needs are met instead.
Turns out the physical tasks that hadn’t been automated by 2015 were really hard and generally risky if you get them wrong. The risks of generating slop are minimal.
Folding laundry is a task that has stumped robots since 1990.
Look at google’s last robots, they have them tying plastic bags and screwing light bulbs.
I think a lot of those robots are very expensive and liable to break the bones of onlookers when they go wrong…
I don’t think they’re for sale, more of a research thing right now, but the point is that the technology is there, it just hasn’t reached the market yet.
As for being liable to break the bones of onlookers… This is always the argument that comes up for some reason, same as self-driving cars. In reality, I’ve known my fair share of humans who are liable to break the bones of onlookers when things go wrong too.
Yes, those things will make it eventually too, I don’t mean to imply they won’t. Just emphasising that we can see the difficulty of the task still in those current efforts.
They also get pretty banged up from working in real life situations like factories so they’re expected to not be that cheap with replacement parts.




