LLMs and image generation models make it even more difficult for artists and thinkers, who are already in a precarious situation, to make a living from their work. This is not a recent development, as evidenced by the fact that they have been referred to indiscriminately as merely content producers for decades, which gives the loss of value of their important work a telling name even in today’s logic.
This professional group has not received adequate financial recognition for its work, - tbh they never did - but their situation has become way worse since the advent of the World Wide Web.
Still: Today’s technology in the form of so-called AI intensives this problem to an unprecedented degree.
So: Have we reached the end of culture and are we now entering an age of absolute dullness in which there can no longer be a critical spirit, but only amateurish work and industrially mass-produced corporate views? All that however far removed from the craftsmanship that has so significantly shaped the culture of all civilizations throughout the world’s history for so long?
A lot of artists only received recognition after their lifetime because their works became a scarce resource that the rich could then use for circle jerking and tax breaks, and without any pesky living creator to have to pay or worry about doing things that put their investments at risk. It’s been the rich ruining everything and compensating nobody all the way down.
Yes, that’s true, but until now, people could still make a decent living from scraps. That is no longer the case.