If current “AI” is taking one’s job as a graphics designer, it means that one isn’t a very good graphics designer.
I think more likely answer is that most businesses are cheap and a mediocre image generated by AI is good enough vs paying a human to make a really good one.
This is something people always miss in these discussions. A graphic designer working for a medium marketing company is replaceable with a Stable Diffusion or Midjourney, because there, quality is not really that important. They work on quantity and “AI” is much more “efficient” in creating the quantity. That too even without paying for stock photos.
High end jobs will always be there in every profession. But the vast majority of the jobs in a sector do not belong to the “high end” category. That is where the job loss is going to happen. Not for Beeple Crap level artists.
I would question the efficiency claim. Uber and the like claimed incredible market dominance, driving local food delivery and taxi services out of business. They’re only now really being forced to find profitability.
I wonder if AI is going to be similar. The powerful models right now, as I understand it, have ludicrous power requirements. I don’t know their balance sheets, but in the current race to market share, I’m skeptical that most of these services are in the green.
What that ultimately says about the future I don’t really know. Like it could be we reach some point where the models get better, or more specialized, or something and profit arrive. Or maybe theres a point of diminishing returns where the profit just can’t be made, and once the hype falls off (and investors stop clamoring for AI) these companies will ask what they’re getting for the money spent.
(And of course I could just be straight up wrong about profits today not being there.)
Almost, the likeliest answer is that CEOs and the ruling class have no fucking clue whether AI can be good enough to replace graphic designers but they also know that this was never the point, AI is a weapon of class warfare, and a nuclear one at that.
Even if the entire industry crashes and decides it does actually have to hire lots of human artists back, those artists will be hired as alternatives to cheap AI and graphic design will have permanently been dissected and destroyed as a decent career for hardworking people who may or may not be the most talented people in the world.
If you (as in anybody reading this not who I am responding too) think this isn’t happening you need to shut your mouth trap and go read a book about the Industrial Revolution not written by an apologist for the ruling class.
High-end businesses that need high-quality design would never use output from an “AI”.
If they do, that means they don’t take design seriously, and are fine with “not a very good graphics designer”. So my point stands, IMO.
If they do, that means they don’t take design seriously
The diploma mill MBAs that run the place don’t know (or care) what good design is.
They only know how to look at business costs as “cutting into our profit”.
Yeah, quality is expensive, welcome to Earth.
That’s not capitalism, that’s economics. It’s the way it should be.
I invest half of my life’s time studying and honing my skill. I will charge accordingly for it.
You missed the point. Where I made it rather clear why AI is chosen over GFX designers. Why buy good and expensive, when you can have mediocre and dirt cheap? That’s capitalism.
Most clients don’t understand art or graphics to begin with, I guess. They just wanted someone good at Illustrator.
Most clients don’t understand art or graphics to begin with, I guess.
That means shit prompts and shit visuals.
They just wanted someone good at Illustrator.
Well, that’s where the “not very good at graphics design” comes in. If you’re only hired because “you know illustrator”, that says more about you than the client.
Your attitude says more about you than your supposed knowledge does, if you think AI won’t have a catastrophic impact on the value of your work, of the artistry of what you do in relationship to being valued by society, you are an utter fool.