But how long is that, some men are longer than others....

Absolutely.

500 years ago was a very different time though. A lot of wood was needed for the witch burning etc.

I mean this comes after pretty much every tree was felled hundreds of years ago to fuel the industrial revolution and ship building etc.

Hopefully the rest of the world learns before chopping down all their trees.

https://forestry.gov.scot/sustainable-forestry

Its the standard across my entire country.

As for the volume, it probably isn't massive though as there are so many parts of the world where wood is far more abundant so just gets cut down.

If properly managed wood is fully sustainable. It is probably the cheapest "useful" material we have to build with. People really like the look of certain natural woods. It takes virtually no energy or other material to grow trees.

This lab grown alternative seems to lose literally all of the advantages of using real wood while offering no obvious advantages.

>In my mind it’s not what I consider art, but that’s just me.
>
> I’m not a fan, nor am I impressed, but I’m not opposed to folks using it to make logos and wall art and whatever else. And if it brings them joy, well shit, who am I to shit on that?

It would seem we have plenty of common ground after all.

If I spent 200 hours hand painting a living room wall magnolia with a tiny paintbrush then it would have no more value than if someone had done it with a roller in 5 hours.

>your McDonald’s drive through AI art can never hope to be considered something of any substantive value.

I've been telling you since the start that I'm not talking about "substantive value", I'm talking about the 1001 lower level things like icons, graphics, backgrounds or logos for youtube channels and the like.

There are so many things that people would like to be able to generate something unique and nice looking without spending a weeks wage for some pretentious and self important "savant" to scribble for them.

But you don't want to understand that point as you know it reduces your market.

>At a basic level your argument hinges on me accepting that the Sistine Chapel can be replaced by pressing enter on a keyboard.

It really doesn't.

All sorts of high end artisan goods are built by hand, all sorts of fancy crops still need to be tenderly raised by hand, and multiple parts of the construction process are done by hand too.

The availability of AI artist tools won't replace all art, but it might very replace the need to steal, overpay or go without much of the basic stuff.

It also isn't just "pressing enter". The ability comes not from the user of the tool but from the designer and builder of the tool here. The skill in farming isn't the person "just pushing buttons" to plough fields or plant seeds. The skill lies with the people that designed those machines or developed the sophisticate seeds.

>Your entire argument is predicated on a flimsy premise.

No its not. You just can't distinguish between the ultra elite version of the product from the mass market consumer goods. A heck of a lot of people are "happy enough" listening to music streams instead of going to a live performance, we still have concerts, but the streams allow more access at a far lower cost. We still have photographers and portrait painters, but most people are "happy enough" with smart phone phones shot by amateurs based on automatic settings programmed into their phones.

> incidentally, people still pay very handsomely for the work of photographic professionals. I have yet to attend a wedding where the photographer is equipped with an iPhone 12.

That's precisely my point. 99% of phones are taken quickly and easily but the high end special stuff is still done as it used to be. As for the price, I do agree they charge an utterly extortionate rate for a few hours work, especially when the cheeky sods also keep the rights to the images so they can rip people off with printing costs. The same issue is why no one hires artists.

>when the internet is down and power is out, I can still draw.

Good for you, everyone needs a hobby.

Being able to write a simple letter used to be considered a specialist skill, typewriters and keyboards put them all out of work but provided work for those making the technology. This allowed far more people to write their thoughts and run businesses.

Harvesting crops used to be so labour intensive that our school holidays are based around them as every able bodied person in the town would be required. The same is true for ploughing fields, clearing land or planting.

Explosives and heavy machines replaced 90% of the people doing mining or other heavy work.

90% of people in manufacturing have already been replaced with complex assembly lines that mass produce most of our produce.

In construction, only a fraction of the people are required compared to the past when everything was built by hand.

In terms of services, banking, travel agents, insurance, shopping services and countless others have been automated by the internet.

In research countless people performing arithmetic calculations have been replaced with computers, this allows us to do 100 times more than we used to.

Live music used to be the only option, but these days 99% of people can listen to 10000 songs at the click of a button thanks to the internet, the radio, TV or CDs and records.

In terms of basic photography, every adult and child now has a "point and click" camera phone that takes photos that are more than good enough for 99% of purposes.

In terms of design and engineering CAD has dramatically reduced the labour spent planning things.

The entire world has moved on based on clever people inventing powerful tools that reduce the need for manual efforts. Art is no exception to this rule and frankly it is long overdue for people to be able to use simple tools to generate their own logos, icons or basic artwork for YouTube channels, business cards or websites.