The Luddites weren’t anti-technology—they opposed machines that destroyed their livelihoods and benefited factory owners at workers’ expense. Their resistance was a critique of the social and economic chaos caused by the Industrial Revolution. Over time, “Luddite” became an insult due to capitalist propaganda, dismissing their valid concerns about inequality and exploitation. Seen in context, they were early critics of unchecked capitalism and harmful technological change—issues still relevant today.
Maybe with some far future AI we have no idea how to create. But what we have now is just the averaging and amalgam of the work of countless artists. This is why AI art is so bland and soulless; it’s like asking a work of art to be made by a committee of a hundred people. The end result is always bland. Yeah, you can tell it to do it in a certain style, or even the style of a specific artist, but that’s still just copying. It has no original creativity or idea of its own. And that’s before we get into corporate censorship which is the anathema to art. It’s hard to see AI art pushing out any biting criticisms of the rich and powerful.
Why can’t commercial artists like game writers continue? Again, the market value of any AI-produced game is zero. This stuff is a field of academics, the big AI companies can brute force their way to superior models right now, but the smaller models able to run on individual desktops isn’t far behind. And the hardware is only getting better. A few years after OpenAI can do something, the average person can do something similar on their own hardware.
The point is, you’re imagining this future where game companies are going to keep making games, and gamers keep buying them, but that the game writers are fired. But why would anyone pay money for that game? If an AI exists that can churn out entire games, the market value of those games becomes zero. I can generate my own AI schlock. I don’t need to pay someone to give me AI slop. So game studios will naturally focus only on those things that can’t be churned out on mass. There will inevitably be some areas that the AI algorithms fail at, and that is what “real gaming” will be.
AI art will be seen like clipart. Yes, you can use MSWord clipart in your publication. But it’s seen as cheap and tacky. The same will be the case for AI art. It’s market value is zero.