Image source: Generated by Unbounded AI tool
The development of artificial intelligence technology is ushering in a singularity, especially since the rapid momentum of ChatGPT and AIGC this year, countless people have been caught off guard, and it has really impacted the existing jobs in all walks of life. Recently, BlueFocus completely ceased four outsourcing expenditures related to creative design, proposal writing, copywriting, and short-term employees. In the field of games, some companies have laid off two-thirds of the original artist team after using AI for drawing. This undoubtedly makes migrant workers feel anxious and re-examine their existing jobs under the wave of AIGC.
On the other hand, after the end of the three-year epidemic, domestic employment issues have received widespread attention from the society. On April 18, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that in March, the surveyed unemployment rate of the labor force aged 16-24 rose to 19.6%, an increase of 1.5 percentage points from February and a new high since August 2022.
This brings us to the topic discussed in this article. On the one hand, the emergence of new AIGC technologies has improved productivity in certain areas, and while reducing costs and increasing efficiency for enterprises, it has caused panic and anxiety among some migrant workers. On the other hand, in the context of the complex international situation, lack of confidence in domestic private enterprises, and layoffs by large companies, will the emergence of AIGC further aggravate the employment problem.
01
The screen is full of anxiety, and the wages of the workers are lost
Since ChatGPT and AIGC became popular, almost all social platforms and media platforms have spread an argument since the beginning of the year: Your job will soon be replaced by AIGC.
On March 2 this year, Huang Yimeng, the founder of Xindong.com, said that he recently chatted with two game teams. The first team cut down the original painting outsourcing company, and the second team cut down the translation outsourcing company. AI has actually started to affect many people's jobs.
On April 12, a screenshot of an online email showed that the Operations and Purchasing Department of the East China Headquarters of the public relations and advertising service provider BlueFocus sent an email requesting the complete discontinuation of copywriting outsourcing.
On April 13, according to 21st Century Finance and Economics, the development of AI technology is intensifying the competition of live broadcasters. The cost of using virtual live broadcast on an e-commerce platform is less than one-tenth of that of live broadcast, and the monthly cost reduction is as high as 95%. The average GMV ( transaction value) conversions increased by more than 30%.
Employment anxiety caused by AIGC even spreads to primary school students. Recently, a primary school student in Sichuan has attracted attention because of AI can draw, program, write papers, and create music.
A report by Goldman Sachs claims that artificial intelligence could replace 300 million full-time jobs and complete a quarter of jobs in the United States and Europe. According to a paper released by OpenAI researchers, about 80% of American jobs will be affected by AI.
Based on reports from various sources, AIGC can currently replace positions including original painters (designers of characters, scenes, actions, etc.), illustrators, UI designers, beauty propaganda designers, copywriters, anchors, live models, etc. Maybe before long, photographers won't exist anymore.
Left: The photographer who rushed to take a seat under the Fenghe cherry tree in Quyuan, Hangzhou at 5:00 in the morning; Right: The AI photography that won the Sony World Photography Award
Facing the menacing AIGC, what is the attitude of enterprises, migrant workers and creators? Recently, Babbitt conducted interviews with relevant personnel.
The picture above is an AI work designed by Lightsaber AI Vision Lab for Taobao, which basically achieves the effect of replacing plane models.
Li Da, the head of the laboratory, told Babbitt that the team has been researching natural language processing since 21, and is currently providing visual solutions for automobiles, mobile phones and luxury brands. However, in view of the fact that the public opinion of AIGC commercialization is not mature enough, these manufacturers are not willing to take the initiative to announce it.
The convenience brought by AIGC is obvious. Commercial advertisements do not need to be shot on the spot, and the cost is saved.
"For example, car customers don't need to drive the car to the scene, we can basically make a concept map that can reach the level of printing. In the past, we would give some drafts when we made proposals to customers, and now we can basically generate them with AIGC Almost as good as the finished picture. Then it saves a lot of money, and if you want to be more sci-fi, we can make it do commercials on the moon."
ChatGPT is a general-purpose large language model, and there are many things that cannot be done, especially in the image, because the image is much larger than the text. The Lightsaber AI Vision Lab makes customizable large vertical models. The method is to use small models to interfere with large models, and separate models in different fields such as automobiles, mobile phones, and portraits, and then subdivide them in these models. different labels. Moreover, the generated pictures can be modified twice.
Although the pictures generated by AIGC have been commercially available, Li Da believes that it is not yet mature for AIGC to replace models. This is because it takes time for the AI to train the model of the clothes itself, and it also needs to do some debugging, because it is not 100% perfect, and there will be some defective products that need to be picked out. If this time is fast, it will take 4 hours, that is, 4 hours of labor costs will be paid. The external model shoots clothes very quickly, and can change dozens of different angles in a minute, and finally pick out 8 pictures, and charge you 300 yuan. In comparison, the cost of AIGC is not necessarily cheaper than real shots of models. Therefore, the modeling profession still has value, and there is no need to panic excessively because of the emergence of AIGC.
Austin, who is engaged in compiling in a Web3 media, was asked in an interview with Babbitt whether the emergence of ChatGPT would replace his work. He said that for rough web3 articles, ChatGPT is indeed used instead of manual work, but some academic journals, the latest professional No one dares to use AI for research papers and new books in the field.
"I feel that AI is still in the stage of nonsense. It may replace translation in the future, but it doesn't seem to work right now."
Several part-time translation groups that Austin belongs to are still very active, posting a lot of job information every day, and some of them have marked that machine translation is rejected.
Babbitt contacted Language Bridge, which publishes various foreign-related language translation tasks in the group. Huo Zhanyu, the director of the company, said that ChatGPT does have a better translation effect, which has an impact on translation positions. However, as costs drop, more translation opportunities will emerge. Whether translators can use tools to provide customers with better, cheaper, and faster services is what we need to explore and break through. In the short term, translation services such as 51 languages have not changed significantly. In addition, in relatively small languages, limited by the amount of data, it mainly depends on human translation.
As for the news reported on the Internet that many game companies have laid off a large number of original artists after adopting AIGC, a game original artist said that he is also using Midjourney, but in the end he still has to draw by himself. Because the training data (pictures) of the Midjourney model is actually imitated and modified by others, the copyright issue cannot be resolved. They didn't dare to use what Midjourney drew in the game. If they were accused, they would lose a lot of money.
In the clothing design industry, according to media reports, a clothing design client of a certain company originally had more than 30 development teams, but some time ago the remaining 10 people were laid off, and the remaining people were required to learn AI painting within a week or two. , otherwise layoffs will continue.
In this regard, digital artist Hu Bo said that AIGC can open the designer's horizon and clarify what they want and what they don't want, and then present it by hand. For example, in the home improvement industry, AIGC can quickly catch the attention of customers, turn design fees into benefits, quickly look at 30 styles, and grab customers if the price is ok. AIGC is not capable of cutting and pattern-making. AIGC can be used as a means of marketing and stabilizing customers. After the order is signed, a draftsman is still needed.
The rapid popularity of AIGC has also begun to make some people question the majors studied in universities. For example, AIGC is so strong in painting, is there still a need for art majors in the future?
Liu Qiushan, Chief Scientist of Unbounded AI, believes that we have been giving AIGC lectures in different universities across the country during this period of time. From the communication with university teachers and students, it is found that the attitude of university teachers and students towards AIGC is more of an embrace, or a kind of enthusiasm. They are willing to actively learn and use these tools, and especially for downloading ChatGPT. The enthusiasm for the product even exceeds that of some professional creators in the AI painting industry in the past.
"Take the Wenzhou University School of Fine Arts and Design that we have visited, no matter from the dean, teachers or students, after having AIGC, they will actively integrate AIGC, including AI painting tools, into some of their courses , to enable students to master some better design concepts and advanced design tools and production."
Some students will also express some concerns about the future, because AI can keep copying the style of painting, and worry that some of the skills and concepts learned in the four years of undergraduate will be impacted by AIGC overnight. However, worry represents a kind of pressure, and only when you are under pressure can you learn new things.
In general, AIGC's overall replacement of existing jobs is overstated. Moreover, there is no clear legal regulation on the copyright issue of AIGC works, and there are potential risks in commercial use.
02
Behind the layoffs is the company's cost reduction and efficiency increase
Since February 2022, there have been rumors of "the most violent layoffs in history" among major domestic Internet companies, and "Ali layoffs" and "Tencent layoffs" have all been on the hot searches.
March 14, 2022, Weibo hot search
JD.com's layoff letter was called "Graduation Notes" by HR, and congratulated the laid-off employees on their successful graduation from JD.com.
Since 2018, Chinese Internet companies have experienced a series of pains. While Alibaba's revenue continues to grow, profits are on the decline. In 2022, the net profit will be 47 billion yuan, the worst in the past five years. Net profit decreased by more than 67% year-on-year, the largest drop since listing.
Compared with Ali's "increasing revenue without increasing profits", Tencent's revenue in 2022 will fall into negative growth, and its net profit will decline by 17% year-on-year.
Giants are stalling, and cost reduction and efficiency increase have become the main tone of the development of Internet companies.
Tencent began to cut off marginal businesses, shrink the front line, and focus more resources on core businesses. According to media statistics, in the past 2022, Tencent has shut down at least 45 businesses. According to the 2022 annual report released by Tencent, as of the end of 2022, Tencent has a total of 108,436 employees, a decrease of 4,335 compared with the same period in 2021, or a reduction of 3.8%.
In order to cut expenses, Tencent no longer provides free fruit with meals, and even began to charge restaurants for takeaway boxes. In August 2022, Tencent announced the cancellation of restaurant benefits for some outsourced employees, and fees will be charged for subsequent use of the canteen. At the same time, Tencent Restaurant started to charge for takeaway boxes, and no longer provided free fruit with meals.
Therefore, under the current background of peaking market dividends, intensified competition, and an unspeakably optimistic overall economic situation, any tool that is conducive to reducing costs and increasing efficiency for enterprises will be magnified.
The game industry has undoubtedly experienced a cold winter in 2022. Under the suspension of the domestic version number and the stricter regulatory pressure on the domestic game market, from July 22, 2021 to February 2022, about 2,000 domestic game-related companies have been cancelled, and many game companies have been exposed to layoffs and cut projects.
Not long ago, Maimai users broke the news that Netease’s game project team is aggressively promoting AI. Whether it is original paintings or copywriting, it must be mastered, and if they can’t master it, they will leave.
In this regard, a user's comment pointed directly to the core: the core is to reduce costs and increase efficiency.
03
Optimistic view of AIGC's impact on employment
Human beings have carried out three industrial revolutions before: steam engines, generators, and computers. The emergence of these technologies has greatly improved the productivity of human society.
In the 1930s, the Great Depression occurred in the United States. Economist Keynes proposed "technical unemployment" to discuss the impact of technological progress on employment. Subsequently, "classical" and neoclassical compensation theories appeared in the economics circle, but neither of them could perfectly explain the complex relationship between technological progress and employment.
French economist Philippe Aghion pointed out in his book "The Power of Creative Destruction" that except for the British Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and the Great Depression in the United States in the 1930s, human society has not caused mass unemployment due to technological revolutions since then. .
So under the current domestic employment situation, will AIGC trigger "technical unemployment"?
As an entrepreneur who has followed AIGC for more than a year, Liu Qiushan believes that more and more people will take the initiative to master advanced productivity such as AI painting and GPT. Even groups such as designers, art practitioners, and animation producers are more likely to master this productivity than the general public, because they have the most essential advantage-the ability to correct aesthetics, and it will be easier to "tame" this "magic".
Under the anxiety of layoffs caused by AIGC, not only will the employers of the above-mentioned personnel not lay off them on a large scale, but they will rely more on and rely on those designers and creators who actively embrace change, and give a new era (AIGC creation) A new salary system under the economy). In addition, for those who are not very professional, there is also the opportunity to use AIGC to engage in sideline jobs in self-media, design, and traffic fields.
Tiger Bo is also optimistic. He said that AIGC has improved the working methods of flexible employees or slash workers, such as receiving orders on social platforms and using AIGC to paint, and KOLs engage in paid groups.
Huo Zhanyu believes that the application of AIGC will create more jobs, and more people will be released from the ordinary labor force to engage in more creative affairs. Moreover, when AIGC is applied in a specific way, people still need to control it to produce the expected effect, so how to efficiently use AIGC tools will also become a new industry opportunity.
Zhao Jiecheng, head of Unbounded AI content, also believes that AIGC can enable more people to work.
"Taking the game industry as an example, a painting costs more than 20,000 yuan, which is a high premium compared to other industries. If everyone can realize their creativity, the market will be even bigger."
However, the current situation in China is that Internet companies have too high expectations for the realization of the game industry, and the introduction of masterpieces from overseas platforms such as Nintendo and Steam has not done a good job in game content.
Regardless of text novels, comics, animations, games, or the media they carry, either the creation itself requires time and energy, or the creation itself requires financial support.
In an era when the environment is not good enough, the market is not big enough, and the platform is monopolized, good ideas are buried rough stones.
In the past, you had good ideas but no art skills, and you couldn't make independent games. But now AIGC can help you achieve it, and the game art market will be full of lights in the future. The works that appear have all been tested by the market and can be competitive internationally.
It can be said that the creativity equality brought by AIGC makes everyone hope to become a super individual, and one person can be competent for a team.
Of course, the premise is that the society must be prepared to actively embrace AIGC changes in terms of public opinion, policy, supervision, evangelism, and ideological enlightenment. If practitioners blindly resist, doubt, and despise this advanced productivity, they may face employment challenges. .
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