Is AI about to decimate employment or simply alter the way we work? From scary scenarios to familiar patterns, we sift the data to uncover the true impact of automation on jobs.
When UK freelance illustrator Jenny Turner noticed a sudden drop in online sales, she logged into her Etsy shopfront to find out what was up. Scrolling through an item listing, she spotted that the ‘recommended products’ section at the bottom contained an influx of competing goods, many of them AI-generated.
“They were all quite a bit cheaper than mine,” says Turner. “Mine were priced around £50 to £100, versus £10 to £20 for the AI alternatives.”
That discovery, in 2023, was a precursor of things to come, and today Turner’s workload has diminished to the point of being “non-existent”, a situation she says is “having a significant negative impact on my mental health, complicating how I feel about my career choice and art as a creative outlet in general”.
Elsewhere, Munich-based photographer Oliver Fiegel counts...