Mastodawn

Piers Cawley 2d ago

@simoncozens the job of a professional cameraman was always more about lighting the shot than it was about the camera itself. That’s why “camera operator” is a separate job on the credits. Good lighting never changes, and doing it well is a creative skill. Those jobs were never at risk.

@pdcawley Well, sure. All analogies break down; it's just that the story's a bit more fun than "Technological progress has always democratized access to technology and given the appearance of deskilling, but in reality instead simply creates a distinction between popular and professional use."

@simoncozens @pdcawley That’s just a bad metaphor. There were a lot of other technologies that attacked established job but camcorders weren’t one of them. Those jobs have basically remained the same, only moving from analog to digital. The only affected jobs were related to the actual film, so companies like Kodak certainly saw a significant decrease in their profits. To survive they had to do a partnership with the filmmakers unions with a promise to continue to make analog movies.
But the problem with AI is not that the quality is not good enough, it is its economical, ethical and environmental impact that is the issue. It is the amount of spam, the amount of stealing, the amount of energy required, the amount of economic speculation, the amount of money that is given to it instead of basically everything else based on pure faith…

@simoncozens @pdcawley And the other problem is that it is only going to increase the profit of the already rich, increasing an already big divide, without helping the poor in any way apart from allowing them to maybe make some new personal app. The governments are then going to use it as a tool for war and surveillance. You are encouraging people to embrace a tool clearly designed for enslaving its users. Forcing them to use a paying service, controlled by very few companies who have shown no respect for rules, laws or moral. Once you bought a camcorder you could do anything with it, OpenAI or Anthropic can change their rules at any time and then you are screwed.

@antopatriarca @pdcawley I don't remember encouraging anyone to do anything at all. Maybe see a doctor about your knees?

@simoncozens @pdcawley Except your metaphor was the good old mantra of AI enthusiasts repeating how programmers job will have to change from just writing code to be an architect because AI is inevitable. The job was never to just write code to begin with.
While you may not have explicitly encouraged AI use, you are repeating AI propaganda.

@antopatriarca @pdcawley The first part of your answer explains why this is a *good* metaphor. The second part of your answer is unrelated, but tells me things I already knew. Thank you for contributing.

@simoncozens @pdcawley No, the first part was correcting your metaphor. Videographers job was never to point the camera without purpose. As the programmers job was never to just write code. The only industry influenced was one that was producing a concurrent product.

@antopatriarca @pdcawley THAT WAS MY ENTIRE POINT.

Mark Dominus 2d ago

@simoncozens @pozorvlak

I'm wrapping up a project where I did the back end, and Claude did the front end under supervision of a nonprogrammer, and I'm convinced even more than before that programming as a profession will continue to exist, and probably in a better form.

Related: my kid was concerned that generative AI art would destroy the need for human artists, and I don't believe that either. If art survived the invention of photography it'll survive this.