Over the last few years, I’ve studied the encroachment of robotics in human labor markets. No, technology is nothing new to the replacement of jobs, humans make tools for a reason, so do chimpanzees if we really want to admit it. Eli Whitney made the cotton gin and that changed labor needs, today, computers, software, robotics, and AI or artificial intelligence is doing the same. Most of the jobs robots do have been about manufacturing and service and yes, those drones in the military – but what about creative jobs?
Sure, in fact, just the other day I was speaking with a PhD in education who noted how the global economy was changing the way we teach too, and online courses are coming on strong, even though they often clash with cultural issues as they boot up to full capacity. My acquaintance and I discussed how graphic artists could live and work anywhere, and major animation companies could hire 1000s of graphic cartoon artists using computers for $2-3 per day in India, so no need to hire a graphic artist here in the states at full-cost. Well, there goes some creative jobs in that realm of animation right.
But surely, you’d think that modern day artists could never be replaced, sculpture artists and painters for instance, right? Wrong – 3-D printing will replace sculpture artists and robotics are already poised to replace painters too – do you doubt what I am saying here? Really, well read this;
There was a troubling article in the Singularity Newsletter on Future Technologies on July 28, 2013 titled; “Canvas, Camera, Brush, and Algorithms Enable Robot Artist’s Beautiful Paintings,” by Jason Dorrier which has a video of a robotic painting machine painting a portrait from a picture using special software called; “e-David” and the finished painting was excellent in all regards. So, what does this all mean you ask? Well, it means that our fine art painter’s days are numbered and the robotic artists of the future will take it from here.
Can you say; “You’re Fired!” like Donald Trump often does? This is quite an accomplishment for computer scientists isn’t it? The article stated as much as well; “If there were a Turing test for artificial creativity (AC), e-David might well be on its way to passing. The robotic system, built by researchers at the University of Konstanz in Germany, employs a variety of styles to produce paintings remarkably similar to their human counterparts.”
The robotic painter depicted is slow, but it’s probably three-times faster than a human painter, plus, it doesn’t take breaks, so it is automatically much more efficient and at the cost of fine-art, a much better investment than a persnickety manic human painter. Please consider all this and think on it.
