Kurt Vonnegut wrote in a couple of places about how recording and mass reproduction destroyed the social (and monetary) value of small-time creative or artistic-expression talent, like knowing how to play the piano OK or being a pretty-good singer or dancing decently well, or being a quite good (but not top 0.1% good) storyteller, or being fairly good at sketching people.

Took social, and perhaps making-a-living value almost totally away from anything but tip-top talent in those areas. Nobody in your family needs you to play music at get-togethers and parties—you’re worse and less-convenient than thousands of artists on Spotify. They don’t wonder with excitement what sort of sketches Uncle Robert will bring to the next holiday, to give to his extended family. At best, that kind of thing’s indulged and tolerated now. The demand is all but entirely gone.

I reckon it was a real belief of his, given he wrote of it more than once, and whose voice it was put in, the one specific case I can call. There’s a chapter in Bluebeard about it for sure (that novel’s kind of a whirlwind tour of most of the major themes and points of Vonnegut’s work—dunno if it was intended that way, but that’s how it turned out) and I know I saw it other places, can’t recall which books.

This is very close to my feelings about the swathe of AI tools being released. The ability to write an essay, create unique art, spit out a SQL script, write a pithy limerick... all these things are being cheapened somewhat.

It's like every time hundreds of millions of humans figure out how to do a creative thing to a given mediocre standard, the rest of us figure out how to either give global broadcast reach so that the work of one can satisfy millions and raise the bar that way (large amphitheaters, printing press, public transit, tv, telephone, internet), or teach a robot how to accomplish the same task (sewing, precise assembly labor, automobiles vs horses, GPT, maybe eventually self-driving cars or vending-machine cooked to order fast food).

If I talked about putting all of the telephone sanitizers on a spaceship that might be a reference those of a certain age might be able to grok. :)

I agree with you on everything except the SQL scripts. A world where absolutely nobody has to master SQL or regular expressions is a small step closer to paradise.

I see the same things emerging in the computing realm. Really, we don't need you to come over and help with X, ill just get off-the-shelf commoditized do-hickey and we'll be all set. I'd like to think the same won't be said for developers in the future.

Really thoughtful comment. (An upvote was not enough :-)

Haha, the thoughtful parts are Vonnegut’s.

I found an abbreviated quote from the bit I’m thinking of in Bluebeard. Loses some of it, but gets his point across:

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/277466-simply-moderate-gift...

But I am quite sure I saw similar sentiments at least one other place in his work, and I think a couple places—years and years ago I read most of his novels, plus most of the collected short fiction and short stories, but it’s all pretty fuzzy now.

His first novel, Player Piano, is about a different, but related theme.

It's about machines replacing human work, but it's not at all about the machines. It's about the people. It's about human dignity. Or, as Vonnegut says, it's about "a problem whose queasy horrors will eventually be made world-wide by the sophistication of machines. The problem is this: How to love people who have no use."