AI Automation and the Phasing out of Artists, Creatives, and Disabled People

By definition, artists are creative people. Whether the trade is graphic design, filmmaking, or architecture, the role of the artist throughout history has been to find ways to innovate, reinvent, and inspire as a result of their unique passions, talent and ingenuity. 

Often, the most impactful art comes from a unique blend of an artist’s specific taste, their personal background, and their strongest influences. But what happens when you strip artistic creation of these fundamentally human elements? How exactly do we define art or indeed, perceive the role of the artist within society, if a hit film script, popular song, or a viral image can be generated by an easily accessed piece of software within mere seconds? These are the most pressing questions to arise in our current era of widely accessible generative AI, a subject which inspires visceral reaction from both its champions and its naysayers. 

Since its widespread release to the general public through softwares like OpenAI and CoPilot, the negative impact of generative artificial intelligence has been most widely felt (and vocalised) by individuals working in traditionally “creative” industries; roles which have historically been considered niche, yet take years, or sometimes decades of dedicated practice to perfect. These include our web designers, journalists, authors, musicians and architects. These individuals form much of society’s backlash against AI and its use within creative industries.

And really, who could blame them? These individuals often spend years fine tuning their craft before working in highly specific roles that the average person might not care (or understand) much about. Previously, they were unattainable without higher education or a particularly impressive portfolio. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that they were invisible to the majority of society and quite often taken for granted. Frankly, it was inevitable that the automation of creative industries was going to become the straw to break the camel’s back. 

But as the saying goes, there’s two sides to every argument, and the one you’ll most often hear from the AI revolution’s most passionate advocates, is that generative AI tools are simply the newest innovation in a long history of technological automation. They will often tell you that artistic and creative roles will continue to exist and are not under any threat at all, they will simply be “reinvented” as the software becomes more powerful, complex. and hyper-specific. That AI will be one of many tools in the artist’s box of tricks, whether they use a pen or a paintbrush.

The companies leading by example in this regard, are unsurprisingly, the multi-billion dollar generating tech-giants; Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, and Apple. Companies focused on robotics, cybersecurity, mass transit computing, and e-commerce also land on this side of the argument, because they naturally stand to benefit from the implementation of AI. 

After all, why would Amazon or Apple continue to have customer service teams on their payroll in the future when they can just create a chatbot? Indeed, why would your local bar, restaurant, or pub bother to hire waiting staff when AI powered machines can take and deliver food orders to customers? Robots don’t need sleep, or breaks, or wages…

So what do we think about the long-term effects of AI automation? Well, we believe it is not just people who work in artistic industries that are likely to lose their jobs, it’s the majority of people who work in advanced economies. It’s our customer service providers, janitors and cleaners, fast food workers, delivery drivers, coders, accountants, teachers. Roles which require judgement, empathy, and emotional intelligence that AI simply cannot replicate.

And we haven’t even touched on the impact this will have on the people Direct Access drives to serve above all else; disabled people. A friend of our founder, William Coopock, has a son with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He’s creative, driven, and dreams of becoming a graphic designer one day. It’s the kind of desk-based role that suits his abilities (and disability) perfectly. But with the rise of generative AI, his roles are vanishing fast—and the gut feeling felt by his father, and everyone at Direct Access by extension, is that the very people who rely on them most, like him, are being quietly pushed out of the future of work.

Truly, the automation of the artistic industries is a smack to the face of artistic craft. While generative AI is novel in concept, it is nevertheless strongly concerning that anybody can simply type in a prompt and generate an architectural drawing, a song, or a film treatment. Its domination in our lives begins with creative industries and hyper-specific roles, but as the technology continues to grow in availability and application, the story will end with the slow eradication of many unskilled labour jobs that we depend on, which benefits nobody but those at the “top” of our society.

Tech CEOs like Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, and Bill Gates have all publicly acknowledged that AI will eliminate desk-based jobs while physical roles remain. For disabled individuals who can’t work in kitchens, warehouses, or construction sites, this is more than a workforce shift—it’s systemic exclusion. The gut-wrenching part of the CEO statements is this insistence that people will adapt, but while an able-bodied person may be able to adapt from a desk-based role to a physical role, a physically disabled person cannot, and a neurodivergent person will not (because they find it very hard or impossible to adapt their expectations).

Discrimination is also rampant among the generative AI algorithms themselves, resulting in real life consequences for disabled people. For instance, a specific legal challenge and CBI investigation going at the moment over AI hiring tools – bots which conduct interviews – and their inherently discriminatory nature but even beyond algorithmic bias at the recruitment stage, the problem we’re now facing is more foundational: AI systems are systematically deleting the very roles disabled people depend on—before recruitment even begins. 

Beyond physical disability, neurodivergent people are almost proportionately likely to be affected by this shift as much as disabled people. Indeed, the high affinity autistic people have to technical roles means the ones that do have the cognitive function to do work are disproportionately vulnerable. More to this autistic people find it hard to adapt, as people will have to go from doing desk-based roles to doing physical roles. 

Some roles—like coders, HR recruiters, and financial analysts—are admittedly still in a hybrid phase. AI is doing much of the grunt work, but human oversight remains essential for quality, ethics, and edge cases. However, the trajectory is clear: entry-level positions in these fields are vanishing fastest. 

And it’s not just disabled people under threat, Forbes has also reported that by 2040, AI will likely automate or transform 50% to 60% of jobs, with full dominance (80% and higher) possible by 2050, assuming steady innovation. The issue extends beyond disabled people, despite roles typically adopted by disabled people being most at risk. 

William is currently exploring the possibility of a Group Litigation Order (GLO) against AI vendors who are knowingly deploying systems that disproportionately eliminate accessible employment pathways. He has started drafting advocacy materials, a petition, and a GoFundMe campaign—but his mission will require more than just legal muscle. It demands, like many historical movements for change, the support of real people. So if this article has stirred anything in you, we would implore you to consider supporting his petition, which I will link below.

Support William Coppock’s petition – Petitions

Consider this; next time you think about using ChatGPT to create a flattering self-portrait, think about the real human works the AI has borrowed from to generate that back to you.  Computers are only ever capable of generating what we first put in. Ironically, it is not AI that is to blame for the erosion of the creative industries, the fault is entirely on us humans – so it is of utmost importance that we hold those that use generative technologies in place of humans accountable and support our creative industries before we lose them entirely or cannot tell the difference between what is and is not human artistic or creative expression.

For all you know, this article wasn’t even written by a person.

If you’d like to learn more on this increasingly vital subject, you can read more of William’s research on AI’s effect on disability inclusion within Direct Access’ home territory of the UK, in his broader research paper “AI and the Disappearance of Accessible Work”.