Previous posts: https://programming.dev/post/3974121 and https://programming.dev/post/3974080
Original survey link: https://forms.gle/7Bu3Tyi5fufmY8Vc8
Thanks for all the answers, here are the results for the survey in case you were wondering how you did!
Edit: People working in CS or a related field have a 9.59 avg score while the people that aren’t have a 9.61 avg.
People that have used AI image generators before got a 9.70 avg, while people that haven’t have a 9.39 avg score.
Edit 2: The data has slightly changed! Over 1,000 people have submitted results since posting this image, check the dataset to see live results. Be aware that many people saw the image and comments before submitting, so they've gotten spoiled on some results, which may be leading to a higher average recently: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MkuZG2MiGj-77PGkuCAM3Btb1_Lb4TFEx8tTZKiOoYI
This is basically just a "we shouldn't have cars because it would be bad for carriage and buggy whip makers, and they'd be less happy if they had to find other work" argument.
The short version is that the people upset about this stuff have also benefitted immensely from lots of other jobs being automated away and thought they were immune until the first image generating models hit the scene. Now they fear the same thing that happened to a lot of manufacturing jobs, except it's a problem now because white collar work and creatives are supposed to be immune.
I don't think it is as simple as that, but I certainly do see your point of view. And I'd probably agree if I didn't feel like society is accelerating towards a very problematic future. (The problems I'm thinking of are not directly related to what we're talking about here; but I just see this as part of what it might look like to start changing direction).
I'd just advise that we think about what the end-goal is meant to look like. What are we hoping for here. What does it mean to have a good life. In many stories and visions of the future, people seem to envision utopia as people spending their time on artistic and creative pursuits; as in, that's the thing we were meant to free out time for. So the automate that part away might be a mistake. We're likely to just end up freeing time for something destructive instead.