Concerns about AI often seem abstract and distant. This seems the case with AI and job loss. We understand the reality, but we lack the personal connections that are often required to motivate people to consider and pursue related actions.
I have realized I am a participant in the problem if only as a consumer. I have been a blogger for years and at some point I was told that you should include some type of image in your posts to make them more interesting. I have limited artistic ability beyond photography so to include some type of imagery in some of my posts I resorted to purchasing clipart. I used a service called the Noun Project. At the time, I think I paid $20 a year to select images from the giant Noun Project database and use them in my posts. The company name indicated how the process worked. You would enter a simple request and this request would bring up options you might select. For example, I might enter “classroom computers” to find examples the creators had tagged with that phrase. An example from one of my old posts follows. For years, I used such images in my posts and classroom lecture slides. Those contributing images received a small amount each time one of their images was selected.
Now with AI tools (e.g., Nano Banana) you don’t see many graphics of this type anymore. You can access such tools for no cost if you are not a heavy user or as part of a paid account if you are a constant AI user. The sophistication and flexibility is so much greater and the images are far superior (see following image from a recent post).
Somewhere, there are graphic artists who no longer have the income the Noun Project provided.