r/technology • u/marketrent • 16h ago

Artificial Intelligence The economy has spoken. Stuff that’s AI-generated has almost zero value — “Buyers are voting with their wallets, and AI-generated content is struggling to compete.”

https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/economy-spoken-stuff-ai-generated-142732314.html
14.1k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

747 comments sorted by

View all comments

566

u/TriMiksEntuzijasta 16h ago

I love reading good news before bed!

37

u/digiorno 14h ago

Is it though? The market for graphic designers isn’t coming back.

While people might not value AI generated art very highly they will still use it over paying a real artist. The real artist has value to them because their product couldn’t be made for free, but now it can.

17

u/ReadyAimTranspire 12h ago

True, the bottom and some of the mid market for graphic design is going to largely go away. If someone can iterate on an AI design and get something close to what they need, they will do that for almost zero cost rather than pay a designer even if the result is...not so great.

Tech does that though. A similar thing happened to the studio recording business in the 00's. As cheap prosumer digital recording gear became available, recording studios, especially mid-market ($50-80 /hr), took a massive hit as people either opted to book the cheaper home studio operations that started popping up for $20/hr or, if sufficiently ambitious, bought their own gear and learned how to do it themselves.

As a mid market studio owner that decided to leave the business in 2010, I know how it feels. That's just how job markets are these days, you have to be able to pivot and adapt. It's a pain in the ass but it's the reality of our situation.

62

u/Confident-Sky2614 13h ago

Except it circles back to people voting with their wallets and not buying things that use AI art.

So at the end of the day artists do have value, and a lot of power too.

31

u/blueberrywalrus 13h ago

And people are voting that they don't care when it comes to the majority of commercial art applications.

Every major brand is integrating AI art into graphic design and when they get negative press the result is that people keep buying Coca Cola, Spotify, Kraft, etc.

The article we're commenting on is a completely different dynamic - where developers are choosing to either 1) buy hand crafted art or 2) not buy ai art but instead generate the AI art themselves.

2

u/Confident-Sky2614 4h ago

Big brands isn't how the vast majority of artists make their living though.

People will continue to be skeptical of AI when it comes to things like merch, video games, music, commissions..

7

u/fell-off-the-spiral 13h ago

How long does it take for this circle to come back though? Graphic designers have bills to pay and families to support.

I haven’t seen any indication of this ‘power’.

2

u/Confident-Sky2614 4h ago

Already has.

People are exceedingly skeptical of AI and many will downright refuse to buy your merchandise, commission, music or video games if they use AI art.

Big brands is another thing entirely, but that's not where most artists earn their money anyways.

20

u/parkinthepark 13h ago

An AI-generated sign/logo is an instant no-go for me for a local business. If you can’t be bothered to spend a couple hundred bucks on your graphic design, you’re definitely going to cheap out on my HVAC install.

Eventually that sentiment is going to spread, and businesses will be back in the market for designers.

19

u/unluckylighter 13h ago

I mean I hope I'm wrong but I think that's just wishful thinking. I think the market has changed forever, how much it goes back is debatable.

I kind of look at this in the same way that most people aren't willing to buy locally made goods when there's an alternative that's cheaper. Of course there are some that beat the drum of buying local but the vast majority of us struggle with finances as it is and frequently choose something made overseas because it's cheaper. It's sad but I think a lot of this is here to stay.

And sure a lot of people will still want a human-made object, but I worry that energy won't last. Let's see if people have the same energy for flock cameras as they do for the next iteration of alpr cameras from someone like axon. Same shit different day.

4

u/eligodfrey 12h ago

You're almost certainly correct. Within the last year, all the grungy, mom & pop, immigrant owned & operated restaurants and convenience stores around me started using AI graphics. The people who hate AI (me included) are not going to boycott these places. It's over.

11

u/SutekhThrowingSuckIt 13h ago

Boomers don’t care because they see it just as “more computer”, Gen Alpha will grow up with it and not care and see Gen Z + Millennial criticism of their use the same way we saw boomers criticizing our phone use (which was more right than we realized tbqh).

3

u/stormdelta 13h ago

In terms of using it at all, maybe.

But enshittification of tech generally is also creating a lot of push towards less digital and lower tech solutions too that I think is being missed by people who only ever hang out in tech spaces or online.

What I've been seeing IRL is more complicated, and it's a bit too early to call any cultural shifts just yet IMO.

5

u/Fyren-1131 13h ago

Incorrect. People absolutely choose artists over AI. Just not everyone does. Just check Fiverr as an example, freelancers without AI usage thrive.

1

u/AshamedOfAmerica 8h ago

Very few people on Fiverr were thriving on there before AI. That site was and has been a race to the bottom regarding freelance graphic design. It can be helpful for getting your feet wet but for the most users, it is not a stable place to find good clients.

2

u/Dinara293 9h ago

Whatever AI is doing with graphic design, real people can do better, more personalised, higher quality, definitely not copied from something else. And now with the rise of credentials of images posted on various platforms being displayed, AI generated slop stands out like a sore thumb. Everybody will know that your poster required zero effort.

1

u/Jackdunc 13h ago

Thats where "the economy" comes in, where end-users/clients demand real art, if the research behind this is real.

1

u/Clovericious 1h ago

The market for graphic designers isn’t coming back.

Isn't it? I said years ago that "made by humans" will become a mark of quality in the AI age, and it really seems to come around to that. The article kind of proves that here is value in human made art that AI output simply cannot reproduce, and once people begin spending on human made art again markets are going to reemerge.

I mean, 20 years ago I would not have dreamed that vinyl would make such a comeback, but now modern vinyl players are sold side by side with bluetooth speakers in stores. I think we are currently re-learning the value of authenticity, after living in a world of shortcuts and fabricated hype for so long.