AI for coding has made certain classes of SWE dramatically more productive without making experienced programming work cheap.
It HAS made the job market more competitive at the senior level for a lot of reasons. My working theory is that the biggest reason is people who burned out on the industry coming back to the job market.
And somehow, there's still a labor shortage.
For now, a lot of the pain is landing on junior SWEs. And that sucks, but I don't think it's permanent.
The industry is ageist. They'll eventually return to hiring malleable 20-year-olds as soon as the AI-native kids are up to speed, provided there are enough of them.
And that remains to be seen, because the industry would be in some real trouble if that doesn't materialize over lopsided incentives today.
The senior engineers I see having the most trouble are the SWEs in the anti-AI space. I feel for them sincerely.
But some of the hardship there is self-inflicted.
It's different for artists because, while the management layer's reasoning isn't any different, the behavior of the community has been.
Jobs are still moving toward using AI, especially in marketing. We can have the discussion about whether that's good or bad. But those jobs aren't necessarily going to the incumbents because the incumbents, largely, aren't interested in using the technology.
Those jobs, too, are going toward coders and photographers with technical backgrounds. I interviewed for two of them last year when I was looking.
They both thought my art was way too "experimental," which is honestly a fair observation.
It was the first time I've ever been told, "You're the strongest technical candidate who's ever applied here, but I think we're going to go with someone else."
And that's fine.
What they actually wanted to see was stuff that looked like clean photography or conventional looking commercial work.
I would get very bored doing work like that, and for me... boredom more than anything else is the enemy.
When I sat down to reflect on it, I realized I don't want to be involved with AI video for commercials. It might not be illegal, but it feels anti-consumer.
Especially mock product demonstrations.
Once synthetic media starts functioning as evidence that a real product can do something, it starts feeling a lot like fraud.
But if you do want to work in those areas? It pays well.
The AI-forward marketing industry is still starving for people who are good at everything, and there's a lot of opportunity there, especially in consulting.
I also think that the concern about low-end art commissions drying up for the time being is a real, actual, valid concern.
That's a thing that happened.
How much of that is actually the fault of generative AI versus the bad and sometimes frightening behavior of illustrators on social media channels, in an age where companies and individuals check these things, is still a matter of some debate.
I know for a fact that it has changed the way I hire freelancers for creative projects, though.
And I think I would still argue that the transition is going smoother than digital did. Nobody in illustration is turning to violence the way the analog typesetters did when Quark came out.
At least so far, nobody's thrown a flaming bag of shit at my head yet... at least over AI.
Shit happens.
Filmmaking is more like software engineering. VFX artists have been quietly adopting the tech for years, and it's all moving down the stack now.
This is going to be a problem for voice talent, actors, animators, and some directors.
I wish I had an insight there, other than that the people who adopt it, or at least play with it, will probably be the ones who benefit.
And I think the transition in music is going slowly but smoothly as better tools involving less prompting make their way into plugin stores.
Personal opinion: music is actually the strongest practical use case for local AI right now, and producers are awesome experimental types anyway.
For them, this is a moment.
The DAW tools just need to be fidgety enough to be satisfying.
I find that encouraging.