I'm of the opposite opinion. The arts industry is heading toward a trillion dollar one and it is ripe for commoditization. Literature, photography, drawing and painting, poetry, other writing, music, even one day comedy, film, and television. Automating the majority of this has the potential to bring prices right down, you look at the insane production costs and profits that some are reaping in the process.
Commercial "art" is not fundamentally different than the art of sewing a dress or forging a horseshoe or weaving cloth or making the coachwork of an automobile by hand, in my opinion, so bringing the price down helps poor people to be able to enjoy it too, and would free up a lot of people in the industry to do other things. The wealthy may continue to purchase custom "hand made" art as they might have cobblers make their boutique shoes, but a lot of the industry will die out IMO. A little disruptive for the people involved, but it will likely happen far more slowly than many other automation revolutions because it's far more diverse and subjective there won't be one day that a machine is invented which is more capable at creating art than humans, like Whitney's cotton gin.
I don't think consumption of commercial art has some deep meaning to humanity. It is entertainment, and almost as impersonal and industrialized as it gets already, automating a little more of it is just another step along the way.
If anything I think it could free more people to create their own art for themselves and to share with people they know.
I would not be so sure art production costs would go down. It all depends on how control of the technology is distributed, the willingness / ability to recognize and reward the still necessary human artistic input etc. Artists have been perenially on the receiving end as far as securing economic benefits from their work. On the basis of current / historical form the expected scenario is that intermediaries will create an oligopoly and will tax all such production at the maximum rate that won't kill the market.
But I think we actually aggree on the broader point that automation becomes just another tool in various professional contexts. What is annoying is that, at least to the "masses" it is not sold like that at all. Software is endowed with agency and miraculous powers, diverting the discussion to bizarre and pointless metaphysical speculation and crowding out the real discussions that we need to have in the public: who gets access to what data, what can they do with them etc. etc.
Commercial "art" is not fundamentally different than the art of sewing a dress or forging a horseshoe or weaving cloth or making the coachwork of an automobile by hand, in my opinion, so bringing the price down helps poor people to be able to enjoy it too, and would free up a lot of people in the industry to do other things. The wealthy may continue to purchase custom "hand made" art as they might have cobblers make their boutique shoes, but a lot of the industry will die out IMO. A little disruptive for the people involved, but it will likely happen far more slowly than many other automation revolutions because it's far more diverse and subjective there won't be one day that a machine is invented which is more capable at creating art than humans, like Whitney's cotton gin.
I don't think consumption of commercial art has some deep meaning to humanity. It is entertainment, and almost as impersonal and industrialized as it gets already, automating a little more of it is just another step along the way.
If anything I think it could free more people to create their own art for themselves and to share with people they know.