Context

This bet is about the impact of AI art on the graphic design labor market in the US.

Graphic designer labor demand may decrease, and one line of reasoning for why this would occur is as follows:

• The introduction of AI art tools is equivalent to adding millions of artists to the labor pool.

• Thus, the quantity of art will drastically increase.

• Thus, the price for art will decrease, per standard economic models of supply and demand.

Market

If you think that net demand for graphic designers will go down 50% or more in the period from 2022 to 2025, choose YES (as in: yes I think that demand will decrease 50% or more).

If you think that that the net demand for graphic designers will not go down 50% or more in that period, choose NO (as in: no I do not think demand will decrease more than 50%).

So for instance, if you think demand will actually rise, choose NO.

For more details on how "net demand" is defined, and context for the question, read onwards.

Criteria

Net demand is a function of two metrics:

1. Mean Number of Designers Employed in a Year

   The number of graphic designers in the US. This is a mean figure, because the data is released monthly, and so the figure is computed as the mean of the monthly counts in the year. The data source used can be found here:

   https://beta.bls.gov/dataViewer/view/timeseries/CES6054143001

2. Mean Graphic Designer Annual Wage

   The data source can be found here: https://beta.bls.gov/dataViewer/view/timeseries/OEUN000000054140027102404

The net demand is the number of graphic designers, multiplied by the graphic designer annual wage.

For instance, the starting demand point is a function of:

• The mean number of graphic designers employed in 2022 = 59,700

• The annual mean wage for graphic designers in 2022 = 67,410 (USD)

And thus the net demand would be computed the following way (and is approximately equivalent to the total amount of money paid to graphic designers in the US in 2022):

• 59,700 x 67,410 = 4,024,377,000 (USD)

Note that inflation is not factored in, so if inflation adjusted demand falls 90%, but we have yearly inflation of 100%, the market would still resolve to NO. This decision was made because I am lazy.

In summary, if graphic designers in the US are collectively paid less than 2,012,188,500 (USD) in 2025 (in 2025 dollars), according to BLS statistics, this market will resolve to YES. If they are paid more than that, this market resolves to NO.

Notes

The reason the resolution date for this market is set to August of 2026 is due to the delay in the release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Updates

March 2024

While new BLS data has not yet been released, I did just read a paper from August 2023 which suggests that in the 5 month period between December 2022, and April 2023, the number of freelancer jobs dropped 2% and earnings dropped 5.2%.

Source: The Short-Term Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence on Employment: Evidence from an Online Labor Market. Xiang Hui, Oren Reshef, Luofeng Zhou. (cesifo.org)

Discovery Source: Is AI actually useful. Patrick Boyle. (youtube.com)

Interestingly the authors conclude:

In addition, we find that offering high-quality service does not mitigate the negative effect of AI on freelancers, and in fact present suggestive evidence that top employees are disproportionately hurt by AI.

August 2024

The BLS data has been released for 2023, and things are looking good for graphic designers and artists!

The annual wage of graphic designers in 2023 was: $68,110

The mean number of graphic designers in 2023 was: ~60k (basically unchanged)

The result is that from 2022 to 2023, net demand for graphic designers more or less stayed the same - perhaps even increasing slightly.