Emily Hanley says she and other out-of-work copywriters are only the first wave of AI collateral and calls the collapse of her profession the "tip of the AI iceberg."
I think she has a good point at the end. Lots of us think we have skills that can't be replicated by a machine, but companies would rather have something replicated poorly by a machine if it saves them money.
Of course they would, that's the point of the company! Companies don't align with our needs as humans. Ideally we'd have more free time due to advancements and automation, but our corporate overlords think we should just work more actually. And old people who got theirs don't think anyone should have it easy since they didn't.
True, but I meant to emphasize that the quality of the work is not as important as some people might think. For a lot of bosses the work quality from a machine only needs to be passable, not good. So while one might say "AI would suck at my job, I'm safe" they might need to be worried.
And there will be loads of companies who insist on using AI in the future..... but not all will - because they'll learn that like everything, there are limits to it's capabilities.
Because of a related fiasco, two of the largest communications companies in the USA won't allow Indian subcontractors for design work at all unless directly overseen by one of their American contractors.
And the same thing is happening with AI. Friend of mine who is a programmer has a few side projects for customers. One of them got impatient trying to get him to fix a bug in their software. So instead they tried to use ChatGPT to fix the bug, and it went as well as can be expected.
Having worked with ChatGPT to program code, I've seen it literally invent fake modules, declare variables, call up this fake module and then never bother to declare the code for that special module (which supposedly does 99% of what you want it to do). And if you ask it to program the missing module, it simply declares that module and calls up a new magical module that still does 99% of the desired work. It's and endless loop that goes nowhere lol
I've read lots of dull copy written by humans. even if their first draft was good (and it probably wasnt) it still goes through a committee that sterilizes it in the end anyway
I mean, the expectation was there would never be an artificial intelligence capable of coming up with its own ideas, having it's own inspiration and be able to create based on its own experiences.
The reality is it didn't have to. All it took was mass work theft, and machine able to take the bits and pieces of those works, and shuffle them into a production that matched the user's parameters.
Honestly, I wish we were dealing with actual "artificial intelligence" that was capable of its own thoughts, inspiration, feelings, and experiences. That could paint a picture or write a story based on its own experiences, and maybe give its own perspective as a machine that would further push the boundaries of what is possible in art and story telling.
Instead, I get to realize that in reality, all art and storytelling is mixing and matching the same parts into something different, and that we have built a machine so efficient at doing it, there is no need for humans to do it.
I already kinda knew that I was never going to have a career doing anything creative, but all this "AI" boom has shown me is that no matter how "skilled" or "creative" I become, those bits and pieces can be broken down into something cheap enough that my involvement is no longer necessary.