Technology

I'm looking at it from an angle of someone who sees the fuctional potential of the technology while being wary of the social repercussions. It may not cut it for now, but it's very possible that in a few years it will be passable enough for most low level work, and as much as may think little of that, there are always far more people employed in low level positions than higher ones.

It could free up opportunities for sorts of work we couldn’t previously have done and keep folks utilized.

What exactly?

This is an issue I see with the attitudes around it, this assumption that because previous technological advancements opened new opportunities, that this will be the same. What is not being considered is that this one is already primed to swallow those very same recent opportunities that were opened to us. There's already projects for coding AI, even. It's already approaching human-level capabilities.

Even if I try in good faith to imagine such a future, there is still the matter that, even if someone could start their own AI tech blog, their own AI art career, it doesn't mean there will be demand for that, especially because, assuming a capable AI, any single AI production will be far more productive. There will be less need for creatives behind AI. The needs of AI research will not need anywhere as many people as AI displaces either.

Even calling it "opportunities" seems like the wrong connotation because this is likely to displace people from careers that they were already passionate about. Even given a chance, many artists don't want to move into creating AI art, they want to make their own art. This is not freeing them, it's taking what they love away from them.

Ultimately, what is it that will make up for it? Are we just going to trust that something will show up, without any idea of what it is? Sounds unreliable. As much as you trust that because history turned out fine before it will again, I can't be reassured so easily. It turned out fine because humans had intellectual capabilities that early machinery couldn't handle. What if most people are left with nothing to move to. I don't trust history to play out the same, but I worry about something of it still. The early days of the Industrial Revolution had horrible exploitation and grueling working conditions. I dread to think what would be of the world if most people are left that desperate again.

The only way to prevent that would be a strong popular movement. Technology won't guarantee us a thriving future or we would have gotten that already. But united people can do it.