Race to the bottom

[Kisaha]

13 minutes ago, kye said:

There's a fundamental problem with 'freedom!' as a goal, because not all freedoms are compatible.  The right to live in safety requires that other people do not have the right to kill, rape, rob, or otherwise hurt my possessions or myself.  A society where people are freed from all rules is anarchy, not nirvana.

If you read about Utopian anarchism, then is a good thing. It talks about a society that needs no laws and restriction organs because everyone is just and fair with unlinited respect for the next person, whoever that person is (race, sex, education, all are irrelevant of that respect).

Living for 4 decades on this planet and reading as many historical books as I can, I am sure this is impossible as of now!

Still, to dream of anarchy is not always a bad thing, is closer to a perfect society that we have right now.

[IronFilm]

46 minutes ago, kye said:

There's a fundamental problem with 'freedom!' as a goal, because not all freedoms are compatible.  The right to live in safety requires that other people do not have the right to kill, rape, rob, or otherwise hurt my possessions or myself.

You only need everyone to follow one guideline: "The Non-Aggression Principle"

You only have problems with conflicting "freedoms" when you mix up negative and positive rights. 

If you buy into various positive rights then yup, you can run into contradictions pretty quickly. The rights which matter to me are negative rights.

 

 

 

[Mokara]

8 hours ago, IronFilm said:

I could be selling shoes from my basement or garage, or I could rent a small warehouse or rent a shopfront in a mall, and yet in none of these situations I would need to get a business license in NZ. 

 

Your local town/city/municipality likely thinks different. 

[Mokara]

4 hours ago, Kisaha said:

If you read about Utopian anarchism, then is a good thing. It talks about a society that needs no laws and restriction organs because everyone is just and fair with unlinited respect for the next person, whoever that person is (race, sex, education, all are irrelevant of that respect).

Living for 4 decades on this planet and reading as many historical books as I can, I am sure this is impossible as of now!

Still, to dream of anarchy is not always a bad thing, is closer to a perfect society that we have right now.

The problem with that idea is that every person has a different view of what is "just and fair". Your idea of what respect is may not be the same as Joe's idea of what respect is, so what happens then? That is why we have laws and regulations, so it is reasonably clear to everyone what "just and fair" and "respect" actually means. That is why anarchists are idiots … there is a fundamental flaw in their philosophy that they choose to ignore. Or, more precisely, if you don't share their view of what "just and fair" means, they put a bomb under your bed.

[kye]

5 hours ago, IronFilm said:

You only need everyone to follow one guideline: "The Non-Aggression Principle"

You only have problems with conflicting "freedoms" when you mix up negative and positive rights. 

If you buy into various positive rights then yup, you can run into contradictions pretty quickly. The rights which matter to me are negative rights.

Great video - thanks!  I, too, am a fan of negative rights

[IronFilm]

1 hour ago, Mokara said:

Your local town/city/municipality likely thinks different. 

False. 

[Mokara]

7 hours ago, IronFilm said:

False. 

I guess that is why NZ cities have departments devoted to consents, permits and licenses then. Because you can do anything you want without authority from local government. Right.

Try setting up shop in your local mall selling rat kebabs and chilled moonshine, and see how far you get before the neighborhood gendarme shows up.

[IronFilm]

4 hours ago, Mokara said:

I guess that is why NZ cities have departments devoted to consents, permits and licenses then. Because you can do anything you want without authority from local government. Right.

The discussion was about business licenses, with specifically the example of selling shoes. 

And no, we don't ever need a general business license or one for selling shoes. 

Yes there are some specific narrow examples which has regulations around that: alcohol and food. (and even then, there are various exemptions for example: Food stalls that sell food to raise money for charitable, philanthropic or cultural purposes, for up to 20 occasions a year on private land do not need to register.)

But if I wanted to import a dozen cameras from China tomorrow and start selling them? No problem!
Want to order a few rolls of cloth and start making my own clothing designs to sell? No problem!
Want to open a business offering website development? No problem!

It is really only once you start to get to a certain scale that the red tape really bites into you (for instance once revenue is over $60K, or once you start taking on your first employee). 

As for what all those people at the Auckland Council keep themselves busy with? Lots of permits/regulations/consents around construction (thanks guys, one of the reasons we're one of the most expensive places in the world when it comes to housing costs!), or coming up with ways to spend our ratepayer dollars...

 

[BTM_Pix]

Of course if you are an enterprising baker and want to stretch their "Need a license to sell food but not to sell shoes" rules then you could always make these.

[kye]

1 hour ago, BTM_Pix said:

Of course if you are an enterprising baker and want to stretch their "Need a license to sell food but not to sell shoes" rules then you could always make these.

And then it wouldn't be so bad when you accidentally put your foot in your mouth!

[nigelbb]

On 4/7/2019 at 10:23 PM, Kisaha said:

To be honest I know nothing about U.S! Only from Michael Moore documentaries

I have lived and worked in 4 E.U countries and more or less it was a similar system.

Things are much more regulated here and we have the strictest laws and regulations (environment, food and drinks, internet, monopolies e.t.c) but for the benefit of the citizens and our societies. In my opinion, E.U and the rest that are very close in essence (Switzerland, Norway, Iceland) are the most democratic and forward thinking in the world (add Australia, NZ and Canads to those). 

Anyway, I was just trying to make a point, and I believe I brought a different approach to the subject matter which is true for many blue collar video and photo professionals around the world.

In the UK we are still in the EU (just!) but the VAT threshold is £85K of turnover before you need charge VAT. You don't pay any income tax below £11850 then it's 20% until £46351when it rises to 40% while social security charges are around an extra 9% between £12000 & £50000. You don't need to register in any way to work as a photographer or sell shoes. No wonder so many other EU nationals want to live & work here?

[dbp]

I do think the mid range has been slowly shrinking. There's tons of work at the bottom, probably more than ever.  And there's still work at the top.

I've learned a few things, finally. Only took almost 9 years! I think a big mistake I made was fretting over and trying to turn cheap people into rich people. Clients who have no money are never gonna pay, no matter how much you convince them of your worth. It's always better to just ignore them and go where the money is.

With the bigger clients, I find they almost need a big dog and pony show to make them feel like they're getting a high end production. Big crews, cameras, lights that they probably don't need, but makes them feel secure. 

There's still really good money in the high end wedding market, if you can stomach it. Just saw a guy in town charging minimum $4500 for a highlight + some multicam ceremony. And he's got hundreds of 5 star reviews. A few days work for $4500!

I suspect location matters tremendously. I've been fortunate to live to two big markets. Vancouver, and now DC. DC in particular seems to have lots of rich people. No way I'd be getting anywhere close to the rates I get here in the town I grew up in. That said, cost of living there was substantially less as well.

Being a specialist is probably the ticket to big money if you're really fucking good, but have general skills can help at least keep the lights on during slow times. I've played DOP, camera op, editor, motion graphics guy, even photographer at times.  

My biggest worry by far is AI and robots. Our industry is going to be absolutely gutted at some point,  I think people have no idea. People talk about the DSLR revolution changing things....that's absolutely compared to what's gonna happen, IMO. 

 

[zerocool22]

4 hours ago, dbp said:

bsolutely gutted at some point,  I think people have no idea. People talk about the DSLR revolution changing things....that's absolutely compared to what's gonna happen, IMO. 

 

Well I feel like ART is one of the only jobs where robots will not catch up too that easily.

[hansel]

13 minutes ago, zerocool22 said:

Well I feel like ART is one of the only jobs where robots will not catch up too that easily.

It's also kind of wierd if you have robot drone shooting a wedding. Sometimes the human factor/interaction is what counts. 

[dbp]

18 minutes ago, hansel said:

It's also kind of wierd if you have robot drone shooting a wedding. Sometimes the human factor/interaction is what counts. 

Actually that would be really handy at weddings. One of the big challenges is staying as invisible as possible. A photographer + assistant, 2-3 videographers already starts to look like a circus that's hard to ignore. Several small (presumably quiet) drones would be much less disruptive, and could be operated by one person.

Weddings are fairly safe, though. There's always the personal element of knowing the couple and who in their family/friends group is important, and making use of their speeches in the edit. Any editing that requires understanding of language and human social elements will be the most protected. People rag on weddings, but they're a pretty solid way to make a living if you live in a big city.

34 minutes ago, zerocool22 said:

Well I feel like ART is one of the only jobs where robots will not catch up too that easily.

A lot of video production work isn't art, though. The above the line people might be making those decisions, but a lot of it is mechanical grunt work. Think of all the Camera OP/First/2nd AC positions. Those will be bye-bye.  Lots of camera op work for live events will easily be replaced by cameras controlled by AI and/or one human. 

Facebook has already started doing AI generated montages of videos and photos. It won't win awards, but if that's all you need, it gets the job done. A lot of assistant editing/rotoscoping work will be gone. After Effects is already pushing auto-content aware stuff. 

And once those positions are gone, people will be clamoring for the few jobs that do need humans. It's already a terribly saturated industry, it's only gonna get worse when those jobs shrink. 

[KnightsFan]

16 minutes ago, zerocool22 said:

Well I feel like ART is one of the only jobs where robots will not catch up too that easily.

First of all, a lot of the video/editing jobs aren't art. Analyzing a billion ads and creating something similar for a new product is EXACTLY what machine learning does best. And it's not like it's just a black box--an AI can spit out a dozen, a hundred, or a thousand samples, let a human pick what they like best, and refine, and with each iteration, the machine creates a slightly better algorithm. Instead of hiring a motion graphics artist, a business owner who wants a commercial can just sit down with an AI and pick which ads they like out of a never-ending stream.

Second, I disagree entirely. How do human artists work? They build a knowledge of art history, change a few things, and build off of feedback. That is exactly what machine learning does.

15 minutes ago, hansel said:

It's also kind of wierd if you have robot drone shooting a wedding. Sometimes the human factor/interaction is what counts. 

Instead of C-3PO wandering about shooting a wedding, picture this:

A robot scouts the venue ahead of time and sets up a few dozen small cameras to film the wedding from all angles, and then uses those cameras to reconstruct the entire ceremony in 3D. It then picks the best angles based on the knowledge of every single wedding video ever shot, taking into account the satisfaction ratings of the couples (using videos of the couples' faces when they see their video). With each video, it experiments slightly by changing a few things. It composes music for the wedding based on knowing what songs the couple plays, and knowledge of all music ever written. It does all of this by the next morning. No one sees the robots at any stage--completely discrete. With each wedding it shoots, this system improves slightly. And since it's a machine, it can shoot virtually unlimited weddings every day, thus quickly becoming the best wedding videographer on the planet.

Obviously this isn't going to happen tomorrow, but there is no way to stop it from becoming a reality in the near future.

[zerocool22]

2 hours ago, KnightsFan said:

First of all, a lot of the video/editing jobs aren't art. Analyzing a billion ads and creating something similar for a new product is EXACTLY what machine learning does best. And it's not like it's just a black box--an AI can spit out a dozen, a hundred, or a thousand samples, let a human pick what they like best, and refine, and with each iteration, the machine creates a slightly better algorithm. Instead of hiring a motion graphics artist, a business owner who wants a commercial can just sit down with an AI and pick which ads they like out of a never-ending stream.

Second, I disagree entirely. How do human artists work? They build a knowledge of art history, change a few things, and build off of feedback. That is exactly what machine learning does.

Instead of C-3PO wandering about shooting a wedding, picture this:

A robot scouts the venue ahead of time and sets up a few dozen small cameras to film the wedding from all angles, and then uses those cameras to reconstruct the entire ceremony in 3D. It then picks the best angles based on the knowledge of every single wedding video ever shot, taking into account the satisfaction ratings of the couples (using videos of the couples' faces when they see their video). With each video, it experiments slightly by changing a few things. It composes music for the wedding based on knowing what songs the couple plays, and knowledge of all music ever written. It does all of this by the next morning. No one sees the robots at any stage--completely discrete. With each wedding it shoots, this system improves slightly. And since it's a machine, it can shoot virtually unlimited weddings every day, thus quickly becoming the best wedding videographer on the planet.

Obviously this isn't going to happen tomorrow, but there is no way to stop it from becoming a reality in the near future.

Not even in our lifetime. If it gets as far as this we would should be happy, because there would be no jobs left, the robots will be doing all the work. Everybody will get a wager for doing nothing. And we have a lot more time on our hands to enjoy life. 

[BTM_Pix]

If the robots and AI gets that advanced then surely everyone will be shacking up with virtual partners anyway so they can just get them to film it as well ?

If we've learnt anything from this thread its that unlicensed shoe selling is the only thing that can save us.

[KnightsFan]

45 minutes ago, zerocool22 said:

Not even in our lifetime. If it gets as far as this we would should be happy, because there would be no jobs left, the robots will be doing all the work. Everybody will get a wager for doing nothing. And we have a lot more time on our hands to enjoy life. 

Depends on how old you are. A lot of the stuff I mentioned are real things that we can do now. Here's some really interesting things to look into:

Many of us have probably already seen this, where they generate a 3D map of the entire soccer match from an array of cameras. That was a tech demo from over a year ago.

Here is nice overview of where we currently are with machine learning as it relates to 3D modeling. Includes some links to tools you can go try out right now. In the later half of the video he shows off some text to image generators, and photoreal facial generators. Certainly worth a watch. Speaking of which, there's the amazing deepfake engine. we've already seen the beginning of machine learning creating screenplays or even entire movies.

And before you point out that these aren't anywhere near the quality that humans can produce, look at the timeline. According to Wikipedia, deep learning "became feasible" in the 2010's. In 2018, nVidia announced the Turing chips with Tensor cores, which use machine learning for denoising, really the first real integration of machine learning into consumer vocabulary that I have seen. It's used for real time raytracing in video games. Just in the past month, both Adobe and Blackmagic have announced integrating AI into their NLEs.

We've barely begun with AI and machine learning. Where do you think we'll be in 20 years?

As for your thing about robots taking over jobs, that is exactly right, which is why we need to figure out what an economy that no longer requires human input will look like, before it's too late, which comes full circle back to the original post. What will be the monetary value of work when the end for which that work is a means is unnecessary?

Edit: Couldn't resist adding this one: An AI found a glitch in the video game Qbert to get an obscenely high score. In 35 years, no human had found the glitch.

[jpfilmz]

6 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

Well I feel like ART is one of the only jobs where robots will not catch up too that easily.

Yes, it will be quite sometime before a robot can move about places with a camera as a floating shooter getting shots and tracking a subject in a dynamic enivornment like a wedding.  Way to many variables.