I feel like the open models" part isn't being emphasized enough, given that like, I'd feel like one could put the same "This is meant to make you dependent on megacorps" argument for; say; word processing or art programs if we didn't have stuff like Libreoffice for the former or Krita and GIMP for the latter.
I feel like a lot of fears regarding this are a sublimated way of talking about how angry people are with "software as service" taking over everything and fearing AI's another step in that by changing the paradigm so that we ditch the other open source tools for a closed ecosystem, kinda like how smartphones did to the internet in hindsight.
Now, I don't think that's inherent to the tech, but I feel like that needs to be addressed way more in pushing back there.
Saaaaaaame. Like, I actually think Imagegen has a lot of potential as a multimedia tool. Keyword being multimedia tool, Trent Troop/TheRobotMonster/Deepdreamnights shows what someone trained in actual art can do with it.
And it doesn't have to be such an energy hog, Giovanh did some good articles on why the energy/water stuff is due to industry incompetence not inherent properties of the tech, and that was written before Deepseek proved them right!
And I do think that imagegen is going to survive the crash, if only because of all those open models and also Midjourney being one of the few things actually making a profit, I just hope it could actually finally have a chance at becoming a harmonious part of the creative ecosystem rather than an existential threat by way of Flooding The Zone With Shit...
My hypothesis: It's because they're terrified it'll be used to deny them the ability to work in the way they're accustomed to because the way they're accustomed to will be deemed "obsolete" and the mass use of it will be used to justify starving the resources from how they prefer it, so refusing to concede any use is a defense mechanism to take away the weapon that would destroy how they work.
Like how the mass-adoption of CGI pushed out practical effects, or the way the internet got gentrified by things like mass-adoption of smartphones; the death of Flash; the move away from independent forums to mega-sites and the way said mega-sites penalized external links in the name of "spam prevention," the way it got way worse and more hostile to be an artist online after everyone moved from Tumblr to Twitter, or the way those of us who hate non-chronological feeds and infinite scroll had them shoved down our throats in a way where we can't opt out.
There's been one forced disruption after another, hell algorithmic feeds that prioritize speed over quality are practically designed to push out craft for slop, and it's been sold as an inevitable result of the popular will and increased efficiency, so it makes perfect sense people would try to fight back with "Actually, it's not something people wanted," yanno?
Like, I agree with you there's a lot of uses for them, but a lot of anti-anti-AI stuff is tone-deaf on that, and I feel like that's what needs to be addressed.
Even the implorations that we need a labor response rather than a copyright one, while I agree with the principle, feel tone-deaf, because the average trans 20-something barely scraping by on commission money unable to work other jobs due to chronic pain (A very common demographic I see in anti-AI-imagegen circles) doesn't feel like labor works for them; it works for people who have Real Jobs, and I think there needs to be a push from the tech side of things to make an actual labor response that does work for them.
I suppose my point is, that seemingly irrational behavior denying the possibility of progress makes more sense when you think of how "progress" can look more like a threat to destroy than a promise to those under the steamroller, and it's the obligation of those of us who believe in actual progress to make the first move to make sure they aren't flattened into paving material for the road to tomorrow, yanno?
My problem with that argument is, most of the copyright "reforms" people are suggesting are for the benefit of the corpos rather than the artists.
Like, the copyright alliance people were cheering on the anti-Internet-Archive lawsuit, especially ex-RIAA ghoul Neil Turkewitz, who has overtly stated that the anti-IA lawsuits are a "dry run" for anti-AI lawsuits.
Now note how the Wayback Machine is being screwed over by news sites over fears of scraping "rights" and you can begin to connect the dots. It's an astroturf for big copyright, and everyone is falling for it because they don't think the leopards will eat their face.
The law is a blunt instrument, it doesn't care if you hate copyright overreach and AI, it is what it is designed to do, and I see where that design is going and it scares me!
...I'm gonna play devil's advocate for the moment and say that the issue is if they're just using it for function rather than the love of the art, it's going to suck ass.
Like, there are people I've seen who do good work with those tools to get around their physical illnesses, but to them it's a form they focus on not a means to an end, because the latter produces art that doesn't get anyone interested anyway.
The concern I think is valid is that these sorts of small jobs are the increasingly vanishingly rare entry-level work for illustrators who've already been squeezed thin as an industry, but I think the solution is to hit at the core problem rather than using AI as a proxy war.
Because again, entry-level jobs were already being screwed over well before AI, and I think that it's vital we fight back against that, god I wish that people in the US actually gave a crap about fighting to expand our arts programs...
TBH, yeah, I think it's going to take the AI market crashing for anyone to make anything actually good with AI, because the newness and hype/criti-hype is attracting hacks like flies to filth.
..I don't buy it, because you know which moral panics said "No, no, we're not like the other moral panics, this time our issue is real, we're punching up actually!" in response to their critcs? All of them.
Like, I remember people saying the same sort of "It's different, we swear!" in regards to violence in videogames, even directly using the argument that the differences in technology and the corporate scale of the medium legitimized their fears.
And it was bullshit. There were problems with games to be sure, certain reactionary movements show us that, but they weren't the ones those moral guardians were targeting, and it's the same here and now.
Forgive me for being dumb, but doesn't A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc specifically say that this kind of digitization for redistribution isn't transformative?
Like, it feels like that's the precedent being drawn on, even though it's garbage and monstrous, and I'm genuinely not sure what about the Archive's work might pre-empt that?
Either way, god I wish we could actually get some legislation passed to roll back copyright law instead of pushing it forward. But people're probably going to have to [REDACTED] a whole lot more lobbyists before that happens...
I mean, but hang on, because that's a good question.
Because, everything but Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was basically crushed in court as a violation of free speech, and this act seems to have a lot of the same problems via chilling of speech.
But on the other hand, the court system's gotten a lot more... unhinged as of late, so I wonder how plausible that is?
You think that telling senators as to why it's a bad idea might make it just that politically toxic enough to derail that process?
Cause, that's the strat I've been going with, and I hope y'all are calling your senators if they at least seem sane enough to listen.
...So the real question is, what do we do to stop this? I've made a post on Tumblr telling people to call their senators to nix this bill, and it's getting a lot of traction, but I'm terrified it won't be enough.
Because, god, I am sick of people in comments like these saying we're all doomed or that there's nothing we can do bluh bluh bluh, just shut your holes and actually help out for once in your miserable lives...
...Wait, how could a search engine work without invoking the sort of "bias" that would require Section 230 to keep them in the legal clear? Like, I only vaguely know how they work, but wouldn't a functioning search engine require some variety of curation?
Please elaborate, I am intrigued, in case we have to rebuild parts of the open Net if the "split the baby" decision goes through.
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I feel like the open models" part isn't being emphasized enough, given that like, I'd feel like one could put the same "This is meant to make you dependent on megacorps" argument for; say; word processing or art programs if we didn't have stuff like Libreoffice for the former or Krita and GIMP for the latter. I feel like a lot of fears regarding this are a sublimated way of talking about how angry people are with "software as service" taking over everything and fearing AI's another step in that by changing the paradigm so that we ditch the other open source tools for a closed ecosystem, kinda like how smartphones did to the internet in hindsight. Now, I don't think that's inherent to the tech, but I feel like that needs to be addressed way more in pushing back there.
Saaaaaaame. Like, I actually think Imagegen has a lot of potential as a multimedia tool. Keyword being multimedia tool, Trent Troop/TheRobotMonster/Deepdreamnights shows what someone trained in actual art can do with it. And it doesn't have to be such an energy hog, Giovanh did some good articles on why the energy/water stuff is due to industry incompetence not inherent properties of the tech, and that was written before Deepseek proved them right! And I do think that imagegen is going to survive the crash, if only because of all those open models and also Midjourney being one of the few things actually making a profit, I just hope it could actually finally have a chance at becoming a harmonious part of the creative ecosystem rather than an existential threat by way of Flooding The Zone With Shit...
My hypothesis: It's because they're terrified it'll be used to deny them the ability to work in the way they're accustomed to because the way they're accustomed to will be deemed "obsolete" and the mass use of it will be used to justify starving the resources from how they prefer it, so refusing to concede any use is a defense mechanism to take away the weapon that would destroy how they work. Like how the mass-adoption of CGI pushed out practical effects, or the way the internet got gentrified by things like mass-adoption of smartphones; the death of Flash; the move away from independent forums to mega-sites and the way said mega-sites penalized external links in the name of "spam prevention," the way it got way worse and more hostile to be an artist online after everyone moved from Tumblr to Twitter, or the way those of us who hate non-chronological feeds and infinite scroll had them shoved down our throats in a way where we can't opt out. There's been one forced disruption after another, hell algorithmic feeds that prioritize speed over quality are practically designed to push out craft for slop, and it's been sold as an inevitable result of the popular will and increased efficiency, so it makes perfect sense people would try to fight back with "Actually, it's not something people wanted," yanno? Like, I agree with you there's a lot of uses for them, but a lot of anti-anti-AI stuff is tone-deaf on that, and I feel like that's what needs to be addressed. Even the implorations that we need a labor response rather than a copyright one, while I agree with the principle, feel tone-deaf, because the average trans 20-something barely scraping by on commission money unable to work other jobs due to chronic pain (A very common demographic I see in anti-AI-imagegen circles) doesn't feel like labor works for them; it works for people who have Real Jobs, and I think there needs to be a push from the tech side of things to make an actual labor response that does work for them. I suppose my point is, that seemingly irrational behavior denying the possibility of progress makes more sense when you think of how "progress" can look more like a threat to destroy than a promise to those under the steamroller, and it's the obligation of those of us who believe in actual progress to make the first move to make sure they aren't flattened into paving material for the road to tomorrow, yanno?
My problem with that argument is, most of the copyright "reforms" people are suggesting are for the benefit of the corpos rather than the artists. Like, the copyright alliance people were cheering on the anti-Internet-Archive lawsuit, especially ex-RIAA ghoul Neil Turkewitz, who has overtly stated that the anti-IA lawsuits are a "dry run" for anti-AI lawsuits. Now note how the Wayback Machine is being screwed over by news sites over fears of scraping "rights" and you can begin to connect the dots. It's an astroturf for big copyright, and everyone is falling for it because they don't think the leopards will eat their face. The law is a blunt instrument, it doesn't care if you hate copyright overreach and AI, it is what it is designed to do, and I see where that design is going and it scares me!
...I'm gonna play devil's advocate for the moment and say that the issue is if they're just using it for function rather than the love of the art, it's going to suck ass. Like, there are people I've seen who do good work with those tools to get around their physical illnesses, but to them it's a form they focus on not a means to an end, because the latter produces art that doesn't get anyone interested anyway. The concern I think is valid is that these sorts of small jobs are the increasingly vanishingly rare entry-level work for illustrators who've already been squeezed thin as an industry, but I think the solution is to hit at the core problem rather than using AI as a proxy war. Because again, entry-level jobs were already being screwed over well before AI, and I think that it's vital we fight back against that, god I wish that people in the US actually gave a crap about fighting to expand our arts programs...
TBH, yeah, I think it's going to take the AI market crashing for anyone to make anything actually good with AI, because the newness and hype/criti-hype is attracting hacks like flies to filth.
..I don't buy it, because you know which moral panics said "No, no, we're not like the other moral panics, this time our issue is real, we're punching up actually!" in response to their critcs? All of them. Like, I remember people saying the same sort of "It's different, we swear!" in regards to violence in videogames, even directly using the argument that the differences in technology and the corporate scale of the medium legitimized their fears. And it was bullshit. There were problems with games to be sure, certain reactionary movements show us that, but they weren't the ones those moral guardians were targeting, and it's the same here and now.
How does the Napster case put a wrench in things?
Forgive me for being dumb, but doesn't A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc specifically say that this kind of digitization for redistribution isn't transformative? Like, it feels like that's the precedent being drawn on, even though it's garbage and monstrous, and I'm genuinely not sure what about the Archive's work might pre-empt that? Either way, god I wish we could actually get some legislation passed to roll back copyright law instead of pushing it forward. But people're probably going to have to [REDACTED] a whole lot more lobbyists before that happens...
I mean, but hang on, because that's a good question. Because, everything but Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was basically crushed in court as a violation of free speech, and this act seems to have a lot of the same problems via chilling of speech. But on the other hand, the court system's gotten a lot more... unhinged as of late, so I wonder how plausible that is?
You think that telling senators as to why it's a bad idea might make it just that politically toxic enough to derail that process? Cause, that's the strat I've been going with, and I hope y'all are calling your senators if they at least seem sane enough to listen.
...So the real question is, what do we do to stop this? I've made a post on Tumblr telling people to call their senators to nix this bill, and it's getting a lot of traction, but I'm terrified it won't be enough. Because, god, I am sick of people in comments like these saying we're all doomed or that there's nothing we can do bluh bluh bluh, just shut your holes and actually help out for once in your miserable lives...
...Wait, how could a search engine work without invoking the sort of "bias" that would require Section 230 to keep them in the legal clear? Like, I only vaguely know how they work, but wouldn't a functioning search engine require some variety of curation? Please elaborate, I am intrigued, in case we have to rebuild parts of the open Net if the "split the baby" decision goes through.