> Finally, most artists don't think like you. It's not "pointless" to do something that can be technically repeated by other humans or AI. You do art because you want to express yourself.

I've seen this sentiment a bunch of times, but I don't agree. Most people practice skills and make art in order to demonstrate their value to society. Art (and media) doesn't exist in a vacuum, it surely exists for societal reasons.

A person may want to make a game or a comic, but the reason they want to make those things, instead of just consuming existing media, is also to demonstrate their value to society. But they won't have any value either when everyone else can easily make games and comics.

I don't think you are disagreeing with me. I also mean by "expressing yourself" that the artist is trying to communicate with the community and be of value to them.

I'm saying AI does not allow anyone to easily make games and comics, at least not for a some while. Currently AI allows you to easily make still pictures, maybe a written chapter of a story. It does not yet compete with artists who do larger pieces of work like a book. And I'm not sure AI ever(?) will make "complete" works because it doesn't have full human background required to have "something to say". It only "mimics" in a manner that many artists focused on technical ability find threatening. So yeah some "artists" will be out of work because of AI, but it will not be a big loss for the community if they are merely replaced.

The surface area of "art with message or meaning" within "all art AI can randomly generate" is so vanishingly small that it doesn't matter. Humans will be in control of the message, and thus in control of art for the foreseeable future.

When the AI finally is smart enough to have something to say, it will be an AGI and humanity will quickly be enslaved to it. No point thinking that far.

Okay, I see. I'm less worried about AI running the whole thing, and more about the diminishing quality of life for creators. Also I'm less sure than you about AI being unable to compete with larger pieces of work in the near future, especially books and comics seem pretty doable. Humans might stay in control, but over time it moves from creation towards curation, which is pretty different and has different implications over who gets to experience artistic fulfillment, and who gets to make a living. But hopefully you are right and it takes long enough that we can make some sort of societal adjustment.

Value to society seems like a niche motivation, a very external focus.

To me it seems like a fundamental motivation - we do art because we want to impress those around us, gain respect, help to attract a mate, make money... Those reasons don't exist without other people to show our art to, and are much less effective if art is too easy to make and too common.

I'm sure there are people who don't have ambition to ever show others the skills they've been building, even in indirect ways, but I doubt it's common... What do you think the motivation is?

To make oneself happy, to look at something and say i did this. To pass time and gain skills. Even if you want to show it to people you care about, it's not about the rarity it's about sharing. I may have doubts of the existence of pure altruism but gaining the respect of others is a very A_type personality selfish type view. I don't think everyone is really that concerned with others.

I don't mean "gaining respect" like that's some explicit goal, but I do feel like people are pretty concerned with others, and most of us do really care about the opinions of others. It might be selfish on some level but it's a big part of being human. I can't speak to everyone's relationship with creating, I imagine if your social needs are being met already then you might just use art to pass the time and not care much about it. But usually the outcome we want when sharing our work is to feel appreciated, noticed or special in some way that scales with the amount of effort, time and skill we put in.