The issue, as I see it, isn’t just the ability to do so. Theoretically, I could have taken the picture of the two of us, gone to a human artist and gotten a portrait with kids commissioned. I would have been exceedingly unlikely to go down that route, or even explore alternatives like using old fashioned Photoshop for that purpose. The option of just uploading a single image and a short prompt, and it taking a mere few seconds to conjure exactly what I’d envisioned? That temptation was too alluring to resist.
Ease of access makes all the difference, a quantitative change can become qualitative. Honey was a delicacy to be savored, but now, we can get something as sweet or sweeter in minutes, delivered to the comfort of our homes.
I try not to make sweeping declarations here, I’m a technophile, and I think that the ability to conjure arbitrary, high quality images is amazing. A small subset of that capability can cause immense pain, or at least did to me. The rest of the time, I’m still marveling at my ability to illustrate ideas I’d never have hoped to see with my own two eyes. Even as painful as this way, a small part of me appreciates the ability to have seen how things might have gone differently.
Zvi’s post “Levels of Friction” is relevant here. In his terms, AI moves the friction level of rendering your counterfactuals from level 2 (expensive and annoying) to level 1 (simple and easy).
Thank you.
The issue, as I see it, isn’t just the ability to do so. Theoretically, I could have taken the picture of the two of us, gone to a human artist and gotten a portrait with kids commissioned. I would have been exceedingly unlikely to go down that route, or even explore alternatives like using old fashioned Photoshop for that purpose. The option of just uploading a single image and a short prompt, and it taking a mere few seconds to conjure exactly what I’d envisioned? That temptation was too alluring to resist.
Ease of access makes all the difference, a quantitative change can become qualitative. Honey was a delicacy to be savored, but now, we can get something as sweet or sweeter in minutes, delivered to the comfort of our homes.
I try not to make sweeping declarations here, I’m a technophile, and I think that the ability to conjure arbitrary, high quality images is amazing. A small subset of that capability can cause immense pain, or at least did to me. The rest of the time, I’m still marveling at my ability to illustrate ideas I’d never have hoped to see with my own two eyes. Even as painful as this way, a small part of me appreciates the ability to have seen how things might have gone differently.
Zvi’s post “Levels of Friction” is relevant here. In his terms, AI moves the friction level of rendering your counterfactuals from level 2 (expensive and annoying) to level 1 (simple and easy).