But that's the underlying problem with mechanization. It takes the personable aspects of the craft and feeds them through the machine. It's not your labor. It's just pointing in a direction and having the computer do all the work for you.

Who cares about their work more? The artisan who chipped away at every part of the toy horse for their store? Or the assembly line worker who spends all day every day making the same hindleg. One put more humanity into their work than the other by a long margin. You might say that the labor is taken out. But when you're competing with peers, in your own mechanized industry, how much of your art will you disassociate from to meet the deadline.

Who cares about their work more? The artisan who chipped away at every part of the toy horse for their store? Or the assembly line worker who spends all day every day making the same hindleg. One put more humanity into their work than the other by a long margin. You might say that the labor is taken out. But when you're competing with peers, in your own mechanized industry, how much of your art will you disassociate from to meet the deadline?

The time you put into the craft makes it.

As to your second point, of course, I'd spend hours even days laboring for my work. I and others love putting our souls, our wits, and our hurt, into our art. The act of doing as an artist is the end in itself. The fact that you would just brush it off as an example of people not 'getting with the times' just screams callousness on your part.

Also, how can you compare like art to medicine?? One is a subjective endeavor. The other is a scientific process that improves with time. Art hasn't improved with time. Its quality has always been defined by the work people put into it. Having photoshop tools is all and good, but without that crucible of dedication that so many have put themselves through, it just doesn't register the same.