>"You put in text, you get out an image, no more need for discernment or skill or labor."
This sentiment is reminiscent to the attitudes around photography when it first became practical. People wondered how photography could be considered a form of art when all one had to do was point and press a button. The amount of effort is minuscule compared to what it takes to depict the same subject using traditional media. That being said, there is a lot of skill necessary to capture a photograph properly; lighting, composition, shutter speed, exposure, and so on. I agree that generative AI images will disrupt the market segment for stock photos and "clip art" used for articles, presentations, et cetera.
There will be a need to study and acquire skills related to the use of generative AI image creation. While technology will make simple prompts "good enough" for most outputs, just as our smartphone cameras make taking a picture "good enough", people will still need to study and practice in order to make high quality output.
Describing those who have lost trust in journalists as "postliterate" is not going to engender any reconciliation between the two. I for one, roll my eyes whenever journalists elevate themselves as the keepers of truth and democracy. Despite all of their self-aggrandizement they're just writers and citizens like the rest of us.
You are likely not a professional writer, unless that happens to be your job, but then you are not “like the rest of us”. Also, journalists are held to the standards of their organization, unlike “the rest of us” who have no standard.
I always assume something a random citizen says is 99% false because yes, most people know very little.
> I always assume something a random citizen says is 99% false because yes, most people know very little.
That's one way to look at it. Another is, a random citizen has no reason to lie to you. A journalist working for an "organization with standards" does.
It has nothing to do with someone lying to me, rather that the average person is very uneducated on any given topic and these days largely consumes propaganda from people who DO have a reason to lie to me. Thus, random people are not to be listened to.
My hierarchy of trust is random people 10, government 40, journalists 60, science papers 80, scientists talking about their own area 88. Everything else 0.
I'd be surprised if this hadn't happened at some point. Rocks from Mars found their way over to Antarctica.
However something to consider is that whatever biological material that ends up landing elsewhere probably wouldn't be able to survive and reproduce. I say that because even the hardiest microbial organisms on Earth still depend on the activity of other species in the ecosystem. For instance, only certain species of bacteria produce Vitamin B and I can't think of any species that is completely self-reliant. It's one thing to keep a cell from dying in a harsh environment, but it would have to bootstrap itself into metabolizing and reproducing in a barren environment with no prior life to consume building blocks from.
That being said, I'm not enough of a biologist to know if there are any extremophile bacteria which are completely self sufficient. If there are, we can rule out my layman's assertion/thought experiment.
Maybe the main melt probe could leave behind little RTG powered relays as it descends. They'd get frozen in place as the main probe continues melting its way down.
This sentiment is reminiscent to the attitudes around photography when it first became practical. People wondered how photography could be considered a form of art when all one had to do was point and press a button. The amount of effort is minuscule compared to what it takes to depict the same subject using traditional media. That being said, there is a lot of skill necessary to capture a photograph properly; lighting, composition, shutter speed, exposure, and so on. I agree that generative AI images will disrupt the market segment for stock photos and "clip art" used for articles, presentations, et cetera.
There will be a need to study and acquire skills related to the use of generative AI image creation. While technology will make simple prompts "good enough" for most outputs, just as our smartphone cameras make taking a picture "good enough", people will still need to study and practice in order to make high quality output.