In this article, I used images from the article and Arcade's Website. However, these days, most of my articles have images produced by an AI image generator.
That image never existed before and will probably never be duplicated again. It was for single use, embedded into the particular article.
The cost of production was zero, hence it is affordable to make one for each article.
This is something I'd like to speak to, also. It's a very good example of how this tech distributes power. I can't draw for shit, but I wanted an original design for my avatar. The few times I tried to work on one with artist friends it never worked out and everyone's time was wasted. I can't imagine what the cost might have been if I had been getting billed. Fast forward to Midjourney. I played around with it long enough to burn up my free time, paid $10 for a one month subscription, and got what I wanted free and clear.
I hear a lot of podcasters complaining about it because of how it will impact jobs in the creativity fields, but they aren't considering how much opportunity it opens up for average people in daily life. I'm trying to learn to play saxophone, but I'm not a musician. When I was a kid that meant I had weeks, months, maybe years of practice ahead of me before I could play something. Now, thanks to tech, there are all kinds of "fluff part" tutorials out there that make it so I can spend a few minutes practicing a key part, record it with my phone, loop it, add a quick drum track and simple bassline (which are also automated in dozens of apps) and I can give the illusion I know how to play. It isn't high art, but it's a door into another realm that just wasn't as easy to peek into a decade ago, but people who play bass and drums bitch because they had to learn, so it isn't fair that now I can just have bass and drums without years of study. It's a tired position across the board. If you enjoy playing the drums go play the drums. If you want me to pay you to play them go fuck yourself. Drums are free, now, man.
You have struck upon what 99.9% of the people miss about technology. We hear discussions about inflation and how much it is jumping. Yet then we hear about jobs being lost, which is deflationary.
What is not discussed is the fact that standards of living go up.
To your point, I generated a movie poster in about 15 seconds. This was about 6 months ago so it is now "dated" from a technology standpoint. Nevertheless, I have no skill in this area yet was able to generate an image that rivaled (although not perfect) the movie studio poster from the ere (it was a 1980s film).
How much did the studio spend on the design? And I did it in 15 seconds.
So I agree with you. For all the complaining, what we have is abundance. There was a time when photography was very difficult. Today, we are nearing 3 trillions photos taken annually. With generative AI, how many more photos will be created each year?
People overlook the abundance that is before them.
This deserves discussion. How we are defining standard of living as a society is where the conflict lies, I think. I see people living on the street with cell phones. Yes, they have access to all the wealth of human knowledge, but when the robots took their jobs making those phones they lost the ability to afford a place to live. I think most people find this trade reasonably unacceptable. How we distribute the wealth generated from automation needs to be addressed, but I don't really know what the solution is. I'd like to see it discussed more, though. It feels like it's getting close to a point where the majority won't be able to keep up, which means crime goes up as people try to survive. That gets more cops and people in prison. I don't want to live the life of a factory farm animal in my final years. I suspect no one else does either.
Web 3.0 is the answer.
The major debate is corporations or government. Most of the discussion falls along these lines. Private ownership of the means of production versus public. It is basically the old capitalism versus communism.
To me, there is a third option, communal ownership that comes from having stake in the network which generates the means of production.
It is why I am always going on about Web 3.0 data, AI, and AI agents tied to blockchain. It is crucial.
Yes, I completely agree, but I'm more concerned with how to get there. Everything is already in private hands. The food we eat, the water we drink, everything we use in daily life, and, likely someday, the air we breath. How do we pry all that away and institute a policy of everyone getting there own piece of it to grow?
History shows that it has to be taken.
People with power tend not to willingly give it up. There are many who benefit from the existing systems and keeping them the way they are. So, unless people grow a backbone, i.e starting to do things differently, we will simply keep empowering those who have the power.
As I said, even something like posting on here as opposed to X or Meta is a big step. It feeds more data to the blockchain, something that is open to everyone. Data is the basic component to the digital world (if we exclude energy). The tentacles of the digital world are only expanding, bridging into the real world.
Who has the control? Unless people decide, Big Tech is only going to gain in strength. They are already in entertainment, news/information, and food.