#so many destroyed jobs

[lordadmiralfarsight]

Yeah uh, I saw an article on AI in French (my birth language) from a local Management big name professor, and that issue is spilling out of art real fucking fast. The tone of the article was so very peppy and eager and happy, and ... and all I could see in my mind's eye while reading the article was the loss of jobs, the displaced people, the perspectives for abuse and totalitarian things, the sheer fucking dystopia springing on it's AI-generated own in my mind's eye.

"Oh, AI will allow to build an emotional profile of the candidate using everything they've posted on social media!"

Girl, it's not gonna be limited to social media, it's going to be the biggest automated violation of the right to privacy EVER conceived, and that emotional profile is going to be used for discrimination. You'll have preconceptions saying the people with the blue dot in that particular part of the graph are better in accounting or management, and everyone with a blue dot elsewhere is gonna be shit out of luck.

"AI will help locate who's going to get into a burnout and then they can be sent to rest!"

No, not in the real world. AI will help to keep these poor fuckers on the edge, just on the edge of a burnout, until the AI determines there's nothing else to squeeze out, and then they're gonna get kicked out. Or pushed to the brink until they do something drastic, and then the company can fire them without paying a cent or even demand compensation for any damage incurred during the nervous breakdown.

And of course, the drivel about "mindset" and "stay ahead of the curve", usual shit. Thing is, mindset can't do shit when you are so exhausted from doing your job, fending off proposals to replace you with AI and struggling to follow everything that's evolving, all at the same time.

What truly drove home just how dire this is going to be, was a small little line, listing some - just some - of the works AI will be able to take care of. Among them was website creation. I know website creation. I studied up to a Master's degree with the perspective of having that as part of my job. And now AI will do that. But I put this in perspective with where I live.

I live in a small-ish city in France. Around 20 000 inhabitants. You can easily find one or two dozen local companies that make websites and offer associated services. Count somewhere between 30 to 60 people in the business in that small city. Maybe slightly more.

They are all fucked.

Website creation? AI. SEO? AI. Content creation? Yup, AI. Website updates? Yeah, you can AI that too. In short, there is not a single one of their activities (of the activities I was planning to do) that can't get AI'd. They are all fucked. One SEO AI service can put a thousand local SEO teams out of a job. Easily. That's actually a conservative estimate there by the way. The reality will be much, much worse.

Now add translation. And accounting. And marketing soon enough. Secretaries, administrative personnel, graphists...

And so, there I sat, contemplating the horror crawling out of my imagination, wondering just how many people would be hit. Well, I wasn't the only one wondering.

Yup, you read the title right. 300 million jobs. That's the USA and Europe only, by the way. If you take the entire world ... it's gonna be worse.

So, artists are taking the brunt of the shock right now, but it's gonna get worse. Way, way, way worse. Oh, the economy will be great, truly amazing even. Economies of scale and productivity multipliers galore, fantastic! But ... what about humans?

Because yeah, if you care about the economy's numbers going up, AI will be amazing. But is that really the end game we want? In short, what is more important? Humans, or the Economy? Actual people, or spreadsheets?

I know what is more important right now to the people in power, but I feel that question will be asked in much clearer, starker and unescapably bleak terms very soon.

“AI generated art won’t hurt that many artists, see, photography didn’t kill painting!” Except it actually did greatly reduce demand for painters, and the thing is, AI generation can also replace a great deal of photographers.

“They’ll still have to pay artists to further develop the generated work”

MOST of the jobs available to illustrators are just static images. AI generation has already rendered them heavily obsolete. “It can’t replace the human imagination” Yeah it can, people are already mistaking AI images for creative original works. *I* am mistaking AI images for creative original works that would have blown me away at one time.

“A lot of what it generates can look fairly plain and derivative“

Literally what most employers want. Look at how many video games have the same classic dragon design or how much advertising has deliberately generic anime style characters.

“It draws from existing images, so it isn’t even really generating anything new” We’re talking about tens of thousands to millions of images for some requests. There will be some that you can trace back to a source but the vast majority are impenetrably distinct, at least as much as any human artist drawing from general inspiration.

“It looks bad though, it’s full of weird mistakes when you look at it closely” That was only true for a few months, tops; almost every generator can now produce character art indistinguishable from the quality of a professional and the nature of algorithmic learning will continue to improve the process forever.

“Employers will pay extra for a human touch” They already avoid doing that at every single possible turn that they possibly can and are already willing to sacrifice an enormous degree of quality just to avoid paying union wages alone.

Guys, please just accept that AI art generation IS going to ruin the market for the majority of illustrators and concept designers. A lot of industry professionals have switched to it or just given up.

Human artists absolutely do have valuable creativity that can’t be replicated but that has never ever been what the industry looks for. It looks for marketability alone, and marketability most often means broad, inoffensive, flexible appeal; exactly what this technology produces in an infinite, infinite volume to pick from.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 168

So. Apparently halfas are like phoenixes or something, which Danny would’ve really liked to know. 

See, usually with ghosts if they’re forced to retreat to their cores they reform as was, but apparently, since they’re still partially living, schrodinger's people and all that, halfas have to regrow their body from scratch. At least that’s what he’s understanding from Frostbite. 

But how come he has to deal with it? It’s Dan’s fault for trying to pull such a stunt! Oh, it’s either him or Vlad? Well fuck, he might have calmed down and is going to therapy in both the living realm and the Zone, but he’s waaay not equipped to raise a child except for like, monetarily wise. 

Well dammit, how long will this core incubation thing last, he has his new job in… let him check which offer he accepted again… He has his new job in Coast City that he needs to finish packing for and then all the rest of the stuff to do. 

What do you mean it’ll take months?! He doesn’t have months?! Urgh, fine. At least being a mortician isn’t that exciting, nor dangerous. Just hand him Dan’s core and he’ll figure things out for the living side of things. He’s sure Tucker and Sam wouldn’t be against helping, if only to try and claim favorite aunt or uncle spots. 

[luck-of-the-drawings]

smth smth about 'the thing that the character did that you thought was rly rly funny in the moment is actually linked to a terrible trauma that lies within said character.' or wahtever.

[smimon]

every now and then I see posts from artists who lament that they crave to draw all day long and when they finally have time for it in the evening, their brains suddenly don't want to draw anymore. let me share an observation I made about myself

In general, I have the most ideas when I'm the most stressed. During a busy period at work I will imagine vividly all the silly things I will draw when I'm finally free. And thinking about all those possible drawings makes me feel good, because I think they will be good and I really want to draw them, and as a result I gain some energy and motivation to continue with my current task

What I'm trying to say is. If you're an artist, you probably love to draw. So when your brain is stressed and experiences unpleasant feelings, thinking about drawing will counter those feelings and help you feel better

And, it's only natural that once you're after work and no longer worried about deadlines and coworkers, your brain no longer needs to counter the stress, so it no longer feels the need to think about drawing. Simply relaxing might become a more urgent need and that's fine too

Not all drawings in your head are meant to be made real; some of them exist just for you, to help you with your day, and I think that's beautiful

[brown-little-robin]

~

[llatimeria]

just doing some thinking about the adderall shortage

[crystaldeclear]

The way I wouldn't even know who the UCL ref was if he hadn't birthed Leo but I could tell four facts about Oliver because these nasty English refs have the worst case of main character energy

[philcoulsonismyhero]

Man, I'd missed DnD. My flatmate got a group together and we had our fourth session tonight and it feels like we're really properly getting into the swing of it and it's So much fun.

My character, Benjamin Larkwright, is a war wizard who was a magically-trained soldier as a young man and then a watchman for about a decade before quitting to take up his magic again and become an adventurer, and playing a mystery adventure as an ex-cop who keeps forgetting about his magic and solving problems like a detective is Really fun. I'm getting to mess around with all the crime drama tropes that I love while Also being a wizard, it's Great.

A couple of stand-out moments from this last session included getting to do the Hot Fuzz fence jumping thing, where the loxodon paladin just walked through the garden wall and Benjamin, on principle, vaulted a bit of still-intact wall aaand managed to roll an 8, land badly on his bad ankle and nearly faceplant in the street. The other wizard who, despite being a nerd and unathletic, is also 17 and limber managed to get over the wall with no trouble and got waved off from helping him up with a cranky "I've got a bad ankle, it's fine, I'm old, leave me alone." (He's like 45ish.)

We'd also earlier been to talk to the local sheriff about the epidemic of missing people we'd been hired to investigate (by his sister, it turned out, who thought he wasn't doing enough about it), and I got to play Benjamin going from marching in all judgemental and dragging this guy's curtains open in the face of his dreadful hangover and pointedly shifting the bottles off his desk to put down the list of missings we got from his sister, to leaving with a gentle word about hangover cures and all his missing person files and a promise to deal with whatever hold the villain has over him that he couldn't tell us about but had clearly caused an extended breakdown and is preventing him from investigating properly himself. (Kidnapped wife and son, we later worked out, who are among the people going missing around this Highly Suspicious Casino that appeared in town six months ago.)

The best moment, though was when I finally got to catch the other wizard out on the gems she stole from a bag in the mail car when we were searching the train to the town for Weird Shit. She'd managed to do it while the rest of the party were all out on the platform tidying up the mess from our fight with a gargoyle that had also been sent in the post via the train, so none of us had any reason to even suspect she'd nicked them. But then we were investigating a weird magical effect outside the temple we were in, and Abigail goes and pulls out these gems right in front of Benjamin's nose to see if they react to the magical field. He recognises them from before, asks her where she got them from, and she lies to his face that they were something she inherited from his wizard grandfather. So, two sessions after the theft, I finally get to insight check her, with my +5 insight vs her +0 deception, and I roll a 21. Which, upon realising that there's nothing she can roll to beat that, causes me, out of character, delighted, to exclaim "ha! Get insighted, crime child!"

Which was apparently the highlight of the session to the DM and everyone else and got me an inspiration as the culmination of a bunch of good ex-policeman roleplaying, which was delightful. (Got a good grade in DnD, which is both normal to want and possible to achieve.) The player of the other wizard now desperately wants me to draw a very pleased-with-himself Benjamin looming over a cowering Abigail pointing and exclaiming "Get insighted, Crime Child!", he was that amused by it, and honestly I might later when I'm less busy.

In-universe, Benjamin just gave her The Look, though, and said "alright, I'll believe you", with them both knowing Full Well that he doesn't. It was then followed up by him dashing (so Detect Magic didn't run out) over to the temple down the street to check if the magic field effect was also unable to penetrate the inside of that temple, and passing Abigail who tried to follow him on the way back, much slower on her "weak nerd legs" and pestering her into jogging the whole way back again while Benjamin made it very clear without outright saying that the jogging was her penance for the petty crime. (He's not a watchman anymore and he's not her dad so he's just going to mess with the kid in the hope that it makes her think twice the next time she gets the urge to be sticky-fingered with potentially dangerous magical items. And also for his own amusement, tbh.)

It was all very funny, I'm having a great time being the (metaphorical, he's aroace) straight guy to the rest of the party's hijinks and also occasionally indulging in my own. We ended the session thoroughly convinced that all roads lead to the Suspect Casino, having tugged on every investigative thread to Benjamin's satisfaction (and everyone else's), and he snapped his suspiciously-police-looking notebook shut and said "On that, Droozh, we are in complete agreement." to the loxodon paladin's declaration that he thinks now is Definitely the time to march into the casino and demand to know what the hell is going on. And yes, Droozh has wanted to do that since we arrived in town and the place seemed a bit sus from the whole 'got sent a gargoyle in the post' thing, but now we can march in and start cracking skulls in an Informed and Well Considered manner, having a better idea of what we're up against.

I love DnD, I've missed it.

[robertsbarbie]

talking to people who don’t have an anxiety disorder will never not be fucking wild like they truly view the world through a ‘if i don’t want to think about it i’ll just move on’ lens which i absolutely adore for them but trying to explain that you literally feel sick to your stomach and like you’re holding your breath in every conversation even when you’re merely listening sounds crazy to them

[ivytwines]

btw the only reason the usa dominates in the olympics is because we’re a very wealthy empire. if u even care

[bimbotron2000]

@cowboylovin oc issac ‼️ i will start a fanclub he is so real 2 me

[luvsavos]

i deserve financial compensation for the amount of fucking hoops i had to jump through to enable tipping on here

[chaoticrystal]

EVERYONE SAY THANK YOU SOUTH-AFRICAN FIREFIGHTERS!!

[wild-at-mind]

I crave validation so strongly. I wish I could help everyone in the world and yet I am unable to help myself.

[k20spock]

how am I going to survive living here for three months I hate it

[unluckystreak]

god youre so right about job applications, i never feel so hopeless as when im sitting down to pick out the next round of things to get ghosted & rejected from

not to mention that filling out just a few job applications feels like running a mental marathon. like i'm mentally exhausted by the end of it. why did i have to enter the same information over and over again? why did i have to create an account? why did i have to write a personalized essay for you that you're not going to read?

ALSO scrolling through jobs that suck is just draining. you have to lower your expectations until it wears you down to not even respecting yourself as a person and you're forced to accept being exploited.

but i want to end it on something positive. keep going, keep trying. it is worth it in the end. we will get there. it's hard out there for everyone and we're all in this together. it's not that you're doing anything wrong or that you aren't enough. take breaks when you need to. don't forget to enjoy your life. don't let the tar pit of capitalism suck out and destroy all the joy in your life.