The AI Antidote
Image generated using Mid Journey
The conversations of AI development continue to unfold and I have just read the thoughts of a photographer whom I admire, who seems to believe our job market will soon be dead before we know it.
His direct opinion is that companies will opt to use AI for all photoshoots that do not involve personalities (celebrities, athletes, politicians, etc).
In the same breath, he also admitted to being a nihilist — at least when it comes to politics.
Myself, I’ve chosen the route of caution when it comes to putting too much thought into the threats of AI as related to the career I am actively pursuing. To do so, I fear, would be devastating. I’d stop before I started; the path ahead appearing too futile to walk because I’m being told no one in the future will be walking.
On the contrary, I believe the only antidote is to continue full-steam ahead.
And I believe this for all of us. We must chase self-mastery in spite of changes in the wind, while allowing space for adaptation and opportunities in adjacent areas to reveal themselves organically.
The cat: he’s out of the bag, man.
There are no safe choices of career as we know them to be historically. We have already created the thing that is “better” than us. Better for business, yes — but still not us.
When the shininess of AI wears off, I’d like to believe we, a people, will collectively return to admire the wonderful things created by imperfect human hands. In the meantime, corporations will continue to chug full-steam ahead. They will over time —perhaps quite quickly — devolve into that of the soulless as they rely on AI instead of us.
If all goes well, the disconnect between us and them will grow, and the working class will ultimately return to face the rising sun behind. The rebels will always choose to be human as human does at its core.
Does AI then become the cure for humanity?
To speculate is likely to spend time inefficiently. AI developments will continue to unfold no matter how much thought my monkey-brain gives to the matter, and, sure, it’s probably a good idea to acquaint myself with these emerging tools to see if they can serve my work in the here and now. Already, I see opportunities in creating things like mood boards.
So much fear and so much hope lies on the horizon.
The story of mankind continues.
There will be many who throw in the towel to AI while others continue as is, keeping their heads down, doing the work that matters to them.
This energy in the air — all the uncertainty and speculation — is a matter of our species having its new philosophical crux dropped on its head. Yet we cannot compare with the previous paradigm shifts of the printing press, the automobile, and the internet, to name a few. We’ve gone next level. I’m talking meaning of life type shit: overall human utility; Camus and the absurdists; Nietzsche and his proclamation: “God is dead.”
If you believe in nihilism, kill yourself.
Hyperbolically, that’s what Camus proposed to highlight his contrary opinion in The Myth of Sisyphus.
And, yes, if self-annihilation is too extreme — too wasteful of a beautiful thing — then choose the alternative. Find the task you yourself cannot ignore. Take arms and march forward. Don’t look back; don’t look sideways. Develop a deep yearning to wake up with excitement as you prepare to carry your own Sisyphean boulder up the giant hill that lies ahead, knowing that every pain-aching step leads only to the bottom where you will face the same hill anew tomorrow, and every goddamned day after that.
Yet, breathe.
There is only today.
Adapt.
Shoulder your boulder.
Create or die. Die and create.
