The untouchables - AI immunity in the arts?
"But what are you going to do with a degree in fine art?". A question levelled at many who have aspirations for careers as artists. The same too has been asked of other "softer" disciplines that tend to have fewer job prospects when studying is over and there are bills to pay.
But just as parents used to bemoan their children for playing video games that are now netting gamers comfortable - and sometimes incredible - incomes, are we set to see a rise in demand for creatives as automation and AI continue to erode some of the more traditional job functions?
The current demand for technical skills in many industries points to a push from all sides to "get into" or take advantage of the new technologies available. This push though is sure to reach a saturation point where front-runners emerge and some fall by the wayside, both individual businesses as well as internal initiatives. When the dust settles what will the landscape look like?
It seems logical that with any contraction there will be a surplus of skills in this area, and with many of the companies and/or systems being designed are engineered specifically to replace those who are creating them, we could see a sudden overload of skills and a future where these expertise are not required any longer.
Odd though it may seem, there are already examples of systems that allow the lay user to put together websites and the like without writing a single line of code and with the same principle being put to work in industry suddenly the current trend of "learn to code" might not be the ticket to guaranteed work that it seems.
This is where fine art comes in. Any art in fact, and any medium. In a world where everything logical has the potential to be automated out of existence and where artificial intelligence is being used to catalogue and predict everything from financial markets to scientific research, we look to the arts for protection from the juggernaut of technology.
Art is not predictable, it is not something that can be automated and while it can be re-created by machines, these pieces lack the intangible element that defines art. Art requires humans and humans require art.
It's not yet clear how things will unfold, either for the arts - who have be especially hard hit during the lockdown period - or for those in roles destined to be obsolete, but what is clear is that for those with a talent for it, art will always be a haven safe from technological-takeover.
