In context it is all or nothing - because people on HN think illustrators and artists are what they find on fiverr.com. They're making hugely naive blanket statements saying that this will destroy an industry and make creatives unemployable. These doomsayers have literally not the faintest idea about the job they think is being erased by txt2img.
If people were saying "oh hey this is going to give the lazystock on iStockPhoto a run for their money", I wouldn't debate that point, it's true. However that's not the industry, and it's certainly not where the money is - neither in # of customers nor total spend. Those people who you might think are customers simply put: aren't, they get by with images stolen from google images and bundled clipart, or frankly: nothing at all.
Now this isn't to say that txt2img isn't useful or exciting. I can say that it is the largest and most significant expansion of creative tech since the advent of DTP. This will absolutely accelerate and open the door to not just higher standards, but new ways of rapidly ideating concepts. I've already seen fantastic examples of txt-to-image-to-mesh-to-live animation. All automated through AI.
This is also why I speak against the other kinds of naysayers: the ones that think this tech is unimportant. These types are being incredibly short sighted and acting like we're looking at this tech's endpoint, rather than its infancy.
tl,dr: No creatives are not being put out of the job. Yes this tech is incredibly important.
I agree with you. I think it's understandable that non-artists commonly associate art with what they interact with or see the most: illustration and decoration, stuff found at artstation, the like.
Surely you have a point that this does not cover the entire world of art, but I think it would be helpful if you constructively explain which parts are less or not affected, instead of calling people ignorant.
I’ll definitely continue to call people ignorant when they make grand unsubstantiated claims, that frankly are nothing more than trollish internet behaviour.
A better approach for people is to ask questions, rather than trying to write controversial falsehoods.
Right now there is at least one high ranking submissions on HN where a creative details how this won’t end their career, but you don’t need to read it - social media is filled with creatives literally rejoicing - no one is sweating this.
So to that: I say that ignorance to this is definitely a choice.
If people were saying "oh hey this is going to give the lazystock on iStockPhoto a run for their money", I wouldn't debate that point, it's true. However that's not the industry, and it's certainly not where the money is - neither in # of customers nor total spend. Those people who you might think are customers simply put: aren't, they get by with images stolen from google images and bundled clipart, or frankly: nothing at all.
Now this isn't to say that txt2img isn't useful or exciting. I can say that it is the largest and most significant expansion of creative tech since the advent of DTP. This will absolutely accelerate and open the door to not just higher standards, but new ways of rapidly ideating concepts. I've already seen fantastic examples of txt-to-image-to-mesh-to-live animation. All automated through AI.
This is also why I speak against the other kinds of naysayers: the ones that think this tech is unimportant. These types are being incredibly short sighted and acting like we're looking at this tech's endpoint, rather than its infancy.
tl,dr: No creatives are not being put out of the job. Yes this tech is incredibly important.