The issue is whether the artists creating things for love of the game will be crowded out even further by studios churning out slop (or in HN terms, Minimal Viable Products) for cash. There are probably 15 disposable reality TV shows created for every scripted sitcom or drama that needs good writers, set designers and directors.
The fact that those TV shows exist indicates the root of the problem has nothing to do with AI.
Those show are cheap because they employ fewer people. They still need to employ some people though. To me the greater tradgedy is that they make a product where those people who make it do not care about it. People are working to make things they don't like because they need income to survive.
The problem is not that AI is taking jobs, it is that it is taking incomes. If we really are heading to a world where most jobs can be done by AI (I have my doubts about most, but I'll accept many), we need a strategy to preserve incomes. We already desperately need a system to prevent massive wealth inequality.
We need to have a discussion about the future we want to have, but we are just attacking the tools used by people making a future we don't want. We should be looking at the hands that hold the tools.
Discussions like this often lead to talking about universal basic income. I think that is a mistake. We need a broader strategy than that. The income needs to be far better than 'basic'. Education needs to change to developing the individual instead of worker units.
Imagine a world where the only TV shows were made were the ones who could attract people who care about the program enough that they would offer their time to work on it.
That too would generate a lot of poor quality content, because not everyone is good at the things they like to do. It would be heartless to call it slop though. More importantly those people who are afforded the lifestyle that enables them to produce low quality things are doing precisely the work they need to be doing to become people who produce high quality things.
Some of those hands learning to make high quality things may be holding the tools of AI. People making things because they want to make will produce some incredible things with or without AI. A lot of astounding creations we haven't even seen or perhaps even imagined will be produced by people creatively using new tools.
(This is what I get for checking HN when I let the dog out to toilet in the middle of night)
The ones doing it because they like it don't need to care about the mass produced slop.
They already are; have been for decades now. AI is amplifying this, true, but art done for love and for money are already pretty much disjoint ventures, and in areas where they mix (like TV shows), it's an uphill battle for the artist - and they're not always right, either; a good show is more than just great writing or beautiful art.