Grant Long

The best entrepreneurs have an incredible ability to travel down paths, with calculation and conviction, knowing that they may learn that the path isn't the right one to travel after all, and they can take those learnings down a different path in the future. If you believe that a step down the wrong path is a slippery slope, you will never take that first step at all, and thus will never learn.

1) hobbyists - the majority of "artists" are not professionals. They spend more on their art than they ever will earn. Think, piano lessons, painting classes, etc. These people will continue to create purely for enjoyment. Many will augment their practices with AI that will further their creativity. 2) work for hire - other artists have developed specialized skills that others pay them to access. This group is most at risk, because many of the purchasers of that work will turn to AI tools for their needs. Stock images, background music, illustrations and designs, etc. 3) fine artists - value has and will always be subjective, as much about context as what is on the "canvas". AI will shift how that value is derived, but it will still exist

Many practitioners who have developed personal brands at the intersection of their industry and AI have done so through sharing their learnings, tips, and tricks.

Depending on where you are, in person events may be very available, but networking doesn't have to be IRL. Many AI companies are hosting webinars and online events to train early adopters for their products and to develop ecosystems or groom future employees. These skills are brand new, so companies are creating their future customers, partners, and work forces.

To be honest, one of the best ways AI can help you in interviews right now is just mentioning that it is a tool you will likely lean on in your job, and showing that you've already developed a habit of using it to drive efficiency and quality into work (or personal projects) that you're doing already. I have a close friend, an engineer, who just got his dream job offer... one of the key moments in his interview (with the company CEO) was when he was asked how he deals with situations where he doesn't know the solution. His answer: "In the past I would have turned to text books to do research, but now I just spend a couple hours conversing with ChatGPT" The look on the CEO's face said "This guy gets it!"

AI will be instrumental in augmented reality becoming viable. I'll call out two particular areas. First, through computer vision and object recognition, so computing devices can understand the physical environment that the user inhabits and the objects within that environment. Second, through the generation of visual elements that can be overlayed onto the world. One of the main limiting factors for 3D and AR/VR has be the difficulty in creating "content", broadly speaking. This is an even more challenging problem to do in real time. Generative AI can assist in overcoming this barrier.