Six months ago, Serena, an original artist at Activision Blizzard, firmly stated in an interview with reporters that AI could never replace her work, as it lacks creativity and a unique style. Anyone who has seen AI-generated art knows that it consists of rigid element combinations, and regardless of the AI art website used, their styles are all the same, which I call “AI style.” These shortcomings are enough to show that an excellent original artist will not be easily defeated by AI.
However, in this era, technological progress may be faster than you think. Let’s take a look at this picture: Stable Diffusion drew a cyberpunk scene in just 20 seconds. Although the AI style is still very apparent, AI-generated art surpasses average artists in both creativity and image detail. And in terms of efficiency, no human artist can compete.
It can be said that AI’s involvement in the game art industry will lead to unemployment for half of the original artists worldwide. The industry shock brought by AI in the game art field is just the beginning. AI language models represented by ChatGPT are also rapidly upgrading, bringing a devastating wave of unemployment. From an efficiency perspective, humans cannot compete — tasks that would take two weeks can now be completed in two days or even one day.
According to professional media statistics, when AI reaches a certain stage of development, it will replace nearly 300 million jobs worldwide, and that day may not be too far away.
On March 15th, OpenAI released the latest version, GPT-4. Compared to the previous generation GPT-3.5, this version made significant breakthroughs in image understanding and information processing capabilities. It can not only read images and program but also write copy and plan, and even write poetry. The next day, Microsoft released the Microsoft 365 Copilot, an office software assistant tool equipped with GPT-4, capable of analyzing data, organizing document key points, and automatically generating PPTs based on a single sentence.
The rapid progress of artificial intelligence has caused many white-collar workers to worry about being replaced by AI. On social media platforms like Xiaohongshu, discussions about planners, operators, and copywriters facing unemployment are pervasive.
At the root of this panic lies the contradiction between dependence on AI technology and the need for human intelligence.
On the one hand, with the continuous development of artificial intelligence technology, more and more tasks and jobs can be completed by AI. This, to some extent, liberates human labor, improves work efficiency, and saves labor costs. However, this also impacts some traditional jobs and careers, leading to unemployment and job instability issues.
On the other hand, although AI technology can complete some tedious and repetitive tasks, human wisdom and experience are still irreplaceable in certain situations, such as handling complex interpersonal relationships and making ethical and moral judgments.
More importantly, this panic is unnecessary. The best example is the devastation the First Industrial Revolution brought to traditional handicrafts. However, after the initial pain, productivity was thoroughly liberated, and the overall living standards of society improved. Those unemployed artisans found new positions as machine workers.
Furthermore, AI intelligence represented by Stable Diffusion and ChatGPT is considered “weak AI.” They are not the traditional sci-fi concept of “artificial intelligence,” and the hype around their intelligence far exceeds their practical applications in industrial production and life.
Secondly, as cutting-edge AI applications like ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion gain widespread attention, they bring confidence to the capital market. Many successful entrepreneurs who have already achieved financial freedom see the potential for growth in the field of intelligent technology and view it as a new opportunity to start businesses. This is also because they are favored by investors as entrepreneurs themselves.
However, all of these developments stem from the capital market’s ability to boost market confidence, attract capital inflow, and further speculate on new concepts. It does not necessarily mean that these large-scale AI models will truly change the world.
Please remember that the greatest value of a market trend is to attract capital investment, rather than determining the development direction of individuals or society.