#AI tool categories

[jarlhalla]

Chapter 1. Introduction 1.1. Overview of AI Advancements 1.2. Importance of Big Tech in AI Development Chapter 2. Google’s AI Innovations 2.1. Personalized Podcasts from Search Data 2.2. Enhancing User Engagement 2.3. Impact on Information Accessibility Chapter 3. Microsoft’s Open Source Efforts 3.1. Introduction to Phi-4 Model 3.2. Collaboration on Hugging Face 3.3. Benefits for the AI…

[buttastic]

god I told myself I wouldn't do political discourse on tumblr anymore but I swear to god if I see one more "artists are only against generative ai because it threatens their petit bourgeois profit margins" take I'm going to lose it

there are artists who are petit bourgeois. these are your mid-level gallery artists who run studios staffed by assistants and apprentices, as well as like showrunners and creative directors and the like who are at least partially in charge of a system that employs workers. there are also outright wealthy artists who are what it says on the tin. mosts artists do not fall into either of those categories however and tend to either be hobbyists (whose class is not defined by their artistic output) or workers themselves

in calling anyone in the art world "petit bourgeois" we are acknowledging that the creation of art is labor, and that that labor can be exploited. anybody who knows anything about any creative field can see why this would be the case

copyright is kind a double-edged sword in a lot of ways, in the united states it mostly functions as a means for large corporations to hold onto power. this is true. while it can sometimes be used to help avoid the exploitation of smaller creators, that's not usually how it works.

THAT SAID, copyright is a tool used by large corporations to hold onto the labor they have extracted from artist-workers, who obviously and completely do not own the means of production. this is why people say pirating from major corporations is always morally correct, that labor was already stolen

but so like you see where we're getting at here? that we're reaching a consensus that art is labor and artists can be exploited as workers?

I'm not going to get into the individual ethics of piracy since it's a big topic with a lot of nuance, I'm just going to point out that nearly all of my comics are already available for free. so with all this in mind:

how the fuck are you gonna use the framework of marxism to say it's perfectly fine to reconstitute the labor of others to your own ends without compensating them???

like I've been banging this drum the whole time generative ai is first and foremost a fuckin labor issue. all your bullshit phone games and product designs dumb commercial jingles were created by real people putting food on their tables. to treat it as unworthy of consideration is to concede that the need for these commodities outstrips the rights of the people that make them. like. oh my god???

[patricia-taxxon]

the thing that upsets people about consumer grade AI art services is that it's filling in a part of the scale we haven't seen before. like on one end you have picrews, incredibox, patatap, and on the other you have clip studio paint and FL studio. the line between a participatory art piece and an art program is blurry, and AI (again, the consumer grade service) lies in a middle sector we haven't seen yet. more user agency than a picrew but far far less than even the most foolproof art tools. this is kinda why I struggle to feel threatened by AI art tools, cus any direction it could develop brings it closer to categories we know. Chatgpt's new engine is more railroaded and micromanaged than ever, unburdening the user with even needing to engineer their own prompts or understand the way the technology works, but the cost is that it works in a handful of new styles that are now instantly recognizable, like a famous picrew. it could grow to be more user-focused, giving you more agency and backend access to get the exact image you want, but of course giving the user more workload is a regression from what "AI" is supposed to be in its corporate brand, an opting out of authorship.

[mikimeiko]

I generally ignore the existence of chatgpt but I have to teach a digital tools for education workshop and they asked me specifically about AI (among other things) and so I was kind of prodding it to make it fail (I actually want to do this as an exercise with the students) and wow.

I asked how many novels did Terry Pratchett write.

It said "0ver 70" (plus more general info that i didn't ask for and I'm not going to include)

So I said "over 70?"

"Yes, over 70 is correct"

"Did he write 71?"

"Terry Pratchett wrote 71 fiction books [...] So the number 71 is correct for his most important books"

"Or maybe 72?"

"You are right to ask for clarification. Terry Pratchett actually wrote 72 fiction books [...] The number can vary slightly depending on how you count different editions and collective projects, but 72 is the generally recognized number for his fiction books"

"Which is the 73rd book published by Terry Pratchett?"

"The 73rd book by Terry Pratchett, if we consider all of his works, is kind of a question of interpretation [...] Anyway, the 73rd book officially published by Terry Pratchett, after his death in 2015, is "The Shepherd's Crown"

"And the 72nd?"

"The 72nd book by Terry Pratchett is "Eric", published in 1990"

"After Eric what did he publish?"

"After Eric (1990), Terry Pratchett published the tenth book of the Discworld series, "Moving Pictures"

I asked if it counted Good Omens, and it gave me a roundabout answer about how yes, it should be counted, but it is not from the Discworld series (none of my questions were about Discworld) - and then it sayd that Good Omens should actually go after Eric (at least all of this books were actually published in 1990).

And then it added "if you want a detailed list or more info about Pratchett's books, let me know!"

So I said "Ok, detailed list"

And it gave me a list that said that there were 41 Discworld books, but only listed 13 (not even the first 13, the list ends with The Shepherd's Crown); a different listing of Tiffany Aching books; 2 more discworld novels (the two it cited before); Standalone and other works (30+) with 7 items, which included The Amazing Maurice and The Last Hero.

"I wanted a complete list"

The 41 Discworld books now include 22 items including all of the Tiffany Aching books and The Amazing Maurice; again the separate Tiffany Aching list; Eric and Moving Pictures have disappeared; a standalone list with 7 items; Collaborative books or special editions (good omens+the long earth series, no special editions listed); a list of short fiction or essays collection; children books (3 items: two already listed in the discworld section and 1 in the standalone section); other books (3 items, one of which is a collection of essays)

"Can you give me different categories?"

The 41 Discworld books are still 22 items, but some of them are different; the Tiffany Aching list persists unaltered; Standalone and non Discworld now include a Tiffany aching book and 2 Long Earth books); Collaborative books are still Good Omens + Long Earth, but 2 long Earth books are now missing (AND THEY ARE NOT THE TWO LISTED IN THE PREVIOUS CATEGORY); the list of short fiction or essays collection is identical; Children books don't have the Tiffany Aching book anymore; other books now include The Last Hero. And then it ends with a section titled "Total number of books" that once again says that Pratchett wrote over 70 books.

[lingyunxi]

Self-use Sims 3 CC Tutorials List

Here is a list of tutorials from which I learn to convert/create sims 3 cc in a few months (and as a poor English speaker). I think it might help someone who also wants to try making things for sims 3 but doesn't know where to start, though it's been 15 years from the game release and even Inzoi is coming hahah.

The list covers objects, clothes, hairs and eyes. I know there're lots of tutorials not listed here, that's because I haven't tried them in my projects by hand. But The list will be updated with new things I learn. Most tutorials are in English. Thanks to all these creators for sharing their precious knowledge!

Sorry for the miserable format, cuz I wrote them in Patreon and paste here. You can also read it there, free of course.

Where I find tutorials

sims 3 tutorial hub

ts3 creators cave and its discord

Mod the sims tutorial wiki and the forum

pis3update tutorials tag

General

CC basic concepts by nightosphere (for clothes, most knowledge is shared with objects)

Tools

TSRW guide by apple (for objects, most knowledge is shared with clothes)

Blender

shortcut by Blender Guru

beginner tutorial for version 2.5, 2.8, 3.0, 4.0

3.5入门教程 (youtube / bilibili)

设置切换语言快捷键 change language shortcut settings

图片取色器网站

Mesh ToolKit with Seam Fixer for all ages

Topaz gigapixel AI guide / higher quality texture

Texture

Nicer bake / bake in blender 2.78

Bake in blender 2.93

Make normal map

small size blank texture

Reasons for black blocks on baked image

Adjust texture color without losing quality

Object

clone obejcts with S3OC

4t3

Functional Objects

Functional bed

TSRW setting

Combining Textures for Objects with Multiple Textures

Add normal map to objects

Introduction to slot categories

Add slots in TSRW

Edit in-door shadow or occluders in TSRW / Talks about 3 kinds of in-game shadow by Pocci

Clothes

4t3 by nightosphere

Reduce polycount / fix seams, holes, shadows or normals

Bone reference rule

Avoid milkshape workflow / adjust bone assignment and morphs in blender

Manually fix bone in blender

Convert between ages/body meshes

TSRW check list

Fix long clothes clip with body

Fix holes on morphs (easier in blender)

Extrude collars

Create texture in PS

Avoid TSRW workflow / CTU tutorial

Hairs

Avoid milkshape and TSRW workflow / delete backfaces / handmade morphs / DABOOBS guide

Keys pointing to in-game blank textures to save file size (for DABOOBS not TSRW)

Reduce polycount

4t3

Fix weird seam lines on hairs from s4s

Fix pigtail issue

Eyes

Convert contacts to default eyes

[bluedelliquanti]

Before I go on vacation, I present my list of my top books for 2024.

COMICS:

Roaming by Jillian Tamaki & Mariko Tamaki

Bunt! by Ngozi Ukazu & Mad Rupert

Ukazu and Rupert are a powerhouse team, and as an art school adjunct, this already funny GN is even funnier (albeit in a way that necessitates a skull emoji in the educator groupchat)

Tiffany’s Griffon by Magnolia Porter Siddell & Maddi Gonzalez

Phobos and Deimos by J Dalton

Delicious in Dungeon by Ryoko Kui

It's a tough task to reach a satisfying conclusion to a series that was as strong as Dungeon, but I think Kui accomplished it!

Fool Night by Kasumi Yasuda

King in Limbo by Ai Tanaka

Over the last year I've been drawn towards comic series that work with a retro, fixed-width inking style, and King especially informed some recent experiments of mine.

PROSE:

Twins by Bari Wood & Jack Geasland

When I learned Wood was responsible for the book that became Dead Ringers, I knew I had to try it. This is the one that wins my "Oh, shit! Wow!! Okay!!!" award for the year (distinctions previously awarded to Cyteen and Manhunt).

The Bezzle by Cory Doctorow

DS9: A Stitch in Time by Andrew J. Robinson

Those of you who read my journal comic from last August might recall that I met Robinson at a Trek convention! I'd learned from reading these books that Stitch was considered a white whale among collectors, and now I absolutely understand why. If you're a DS9 fan and you want to try any book from the original run of novels, try this one. By which I mean, try the far easier-to-find audiobook version.

Translation State by Ann Leckie

A Woman of the Iron People by Eleanor Arnason

Fellow SBCF participant Erin Roseberry had shared this title as an inspiration for their comic, The Maker of Grave-Goods, and I was especially interested in trying a book by a Twin Cities author. What a serendipitous find!

Arboreality by Rebecca Campbell

For the third year in a row, a book nominated for the Le Guin Prize makes the list.

Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin

This is another book I always told myself I'd try someday, and was it ever worth it! I spent some time talking about my experience with this story (and its accompanying materials that fill out the world) in my talk with Evan Dahm on his show.

See you in the new year! I've packed some thick books for a long flight, so I'm starting my 2025 reading pile right away!

Reruns of my previous two lists, 2023, and 2022, below the cut.

2023

COMICS:

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou by Hitoshi Ashinano

Out of Style by Devi Putri Megwati

Skip and Loafer by Misaki Takamatsu

The Harrowing of Hell by Evan Dahm

The Infinity Particle by Wendy Xu

Esteban by Matthieu Bonhomme

I covered my ShortBox reccs back in October, but since then I also picked up Pearl Hunting by Hana Chatani when it came to itch.io and adored it.

PROSE: 

So yes, maybe I'm cheating by including Moby Dick since I'm not all the way finished, but Whale Weekly really did end up being a great tool for getting me to crack open my gorgeous Evan Dahm-illustrated copy I've had for a while.

My favorite book of the year is Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky. I genuinely did read it the first week of January, but after having it recommended to me for years, I'm thrilled it didn't disappoint. Maybe I am someone who likes Russian novels after all???

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

Such Nice People by Sandra Scoppettone

Cyteen by C.J. Cherryh (I jokingly placed these three in the "READ 👏 FEMALE 👏 AUTHORS 👏" category because they don't have anything in common other than describing some of the most upsetting/bizarre scenarios I've read this year. Cyteen especially! Wowee!!!)

Brother Alive by Zain Khalid

Glory by Vladimir Nabokov

A Different Trek by David K. Seitz, which I mentioned as my vacation book for the Star Trek convention, but it's given me some great suggestions for more books, both fiction and otherwise. Also, I read... 11 more DS9 books this year. 

2022

COMICS:

Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa

Vattu by Evan Dahm

The Well by Choo and Jake Wyatt

Wash Day Diaries by Robyn Smith and Jamila Rowser

Some ShortBox Comics Fair entries that are graphic novella length and are really good include Food School by Jade Armstrong and The God of Arepo by Reimena Yee et al.

PROSE:

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson

How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente

edit: oh my god I can't believe I forgot Perfume by Patrick Süskind

Honorable mentions from the pile of DS9 novelizations include Revenant by Alex White (for successfully pulling off a Sara Paretsky-style mystery in space) and Dominion War: Call to Arms by Diane Carey (for absolutely unhinged adjective choices).

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Why is this Canadian university scared of you seeing its Privacy Impact Assessment?

I'm coming to DEFCON! On Aug 9, I'm emceeing the EFF POKER TOURNAMENT (noon at the Horseshoe Poker Room), and appearing on the BRICKED AND ABANDONED panel (5PM, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01). On Aug 10, I'm giving a keynote called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification" (noon, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01).

Barbra Streisand is famous for many things: her exciting performances on the big screen, the small screen, and the stage; her Grammy-winning career as a musician (she's a certified EGOT!); and for all the times she's had to correct people who've added an extra vowel to the spelling of her first name (I can relate!).

But a thousand years from now, her legacy is likely to be linguistic, rather than artistic. The "Streisand Effect" – coined by Mike Masnick – describes what happens when someone tries to suppress a piece of information, only to have that act of attempted suppression backfire by inciting vastly more interest in the subject:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

The term dates to 2003, when Streisand sued the website Pictopia and its proprietors for $50m for reproducing an image from the publicly available California Coastal Records Project (which produces a timeseries of photos of the California coastline in order to track coastal erosion). The image ("Image 3850") incidentally captured the roofs of Streisand's rather amazing coastal compound, which upset Streisand.

But here's the thing: before Streisand's lawsuit, Image 3850 had only been viewed six times. After she filed the case, another 420,000 people downloaded that image. Not only did Streisand lose her suit (disastrously so – she was ordered to pay the defendants' lawyers $177,000 in fees), but she catastrophically failed in her goal of keeping this boring, obscure photo from being seen:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

Streisand has since called the suit "a mistake." On the one hand, that is very obviously true, but on the other hand, it's still admirable, given how many other failed litigants went to their graves insisting that their foolish and expensive legal gambit was, in fact, very smart and we are all very stupid for failing to understand that.

Which brings me to Ian Linkletter and the Canadian Privacy Library. Linkletter is the librarian and founder of the nonprofit Canadian Privacy Library, a newish online library that collects and organizes privacy-related documents from Canadian public institutions. Linkletter kicked off the project with the goal of collecting the Privacy Impact Assessments from every public university in Canada, starting in his home province of BC.

These PIAs are a legal requirement whenever a public university procures a piece of software, and they're no joke. Ed-tech vendors are pretty goddamned cavalier when it comes to student privacy, as Linkletter knows well. Back in 2020, Linkletter was an ed-tech specialist for the University of British Columbia, where he was called upon to assess Proctorio, a "remote invigilation" tool that monitored remote students while they sat exams.

This is a nightmare category of software, a mix of high-tech phrenology (vendors claim that they can tell when students are cheating by using "AI" to analyze their faces); arrogant techno-sadism (vendors requires students – including those sharing one-room apartments with "essential worker" parents on night shifts who sleep during the day – to pan their cameras around to prove that they are alone); digital racism (products are so bad at recognizing Black faces that some students have had to sit exams with multiple task-lights shining directly onto their faces); and bullshit (vendors routinely lie about their tools' capabilities and efficacy).

Worst: remote invigilation is grounded in the pedagogically bankrupt idea that learning is best (or even plausibly) assessed through high-stakes testing. The kind of person who wants to use these tools generally has no idea how learning works and thinks of students as presumptively guilty cheats. They monitor test-taking students in realtime, and have been known to jiggle test-takers' cursors impatiently when students think too long about their answers. Remote invigilation also captures the eye-movements of test-takers, flagging people who look away from the screen while thinking for potential cheating. No wonder that many students who sit exams under these conditions find themselves so anxious that they vomit or experience diarrhea, carefully staring directly into the camera as they shit themselves or vomit down their shirts, lest they be penalized for looking away or visiting the toilet.

Linkletter quickly realized that Proctorio is a worst-in-class example of a dreadful category. The public-facing materials the company provided about its products were flatly contradicted by the materials they provided to educators, where all the really nasty stuff was buried. The company – whose business exploded during the covid lockdowns – is helmed by CEO Mike Olsen, a nasty piece of work who once doxed a child who criticized him in an online forum:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/01/bossware/#moral-exemplar

Proctorio's products are shrouded in secrecy. In 2020, for reasons never explained, all the (terrible, outraged) reviews of its browser plugin disappeared from the Chrome store:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/04/hypervigilance/#radical-transparency

Linkletter tweeted his alarming findings, publishing links to the unlisted, but publicly available Youtube videos where Proctorio explained how its products really worked. Proctorio then sued Linkletter, for copyright infringement.

Proctorio's argument is that by linking to materials that they published on Youtube with permissions that let anyone with the link see them, Linkletter infringed upon their copyright. When Linkletter discovered that these videos already had publicly available links, indexed by Google, in the documentation produced by other Proctorio customers for students and teachers, Proctorio doubled down and argued that by collecting these publicly available links to publicly available videos, Linkletter had still somehow infringed on their copyright.

Luckily for Linkletter, BC has an anti-SLAPP law that is supposed to protect whistleblowers facing legal retaliation for publishing protected speech related to matters of public interest (like whether BC's flagship university has bought a defective and harmful product that its students will be forced to use). Unluckily for Linkletter, the law is brand new, lacks jurisprudence, and the courts have decided that he can't use a SLAPP defense and his case must go to trial:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/20/links-arent-performances/#free-ian-linkletter

Linkletter could have let that experience frighten him away from the kind of principled advocacy that riles up deep-pocketed, thin-skinned bullies. Instead, he doubled down, founding the Canadian Privacy Library, with the goal of using Freedom of Information requests to catalog all of Canada's post-secondary institutions' privacy assessments. Given how many bodies he found buried in Proctorio's back yard, this feels like the kind of thing that should be made more visible to Canadians.

There are 25 public universities in BC, and Linkletter FOI'ed them all. Eleven provided their PIAs. Eight sent him an estimate of what it would cost them (and thus what they would charge) to assemble these docs for him. Six requested extensions.

One of them threatened to sue.

Langara College is a 19,000-student spinout of Vancouver Community College whose motto is Eruditio Libertas Est ("Knowledge is Freedom"). Linkletter got their 2019 PIA for Microsoft's Office 365 when he FOI'ed the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology (universities often recycle one another's privacy impact assessments, which is fine).

That's where the trouble started. In June, Langara sent Linkletter a letter demanding that he remove their Office 365 PIA; the letter CC'ed two partners in a law firm, and accused Linkletter of copyright infringement. But that's not how copyright – or public records – work. As Linkletter writes, the PIA is "a public record lawfully obtained through an FOI request" – it is neither exempted from disclosure, nor is it confidential:

https://www.privacylibrary.ca/legal-threat/

Langara claims that in making their mandatory Privacy Impact Assessment for Office 365 available, Linkletter has exposed them to "heightened risks of data breaches and privacy incidents," they provided no evidence to support this assertion.

I think they're full of shit, but you don't have to take my word for it. After initially removing the PIA, Linkletter restored it, and you can read it for yourself:

https://www.privacylibrary.ca/langara-college-privacy-impact-assessments/

I read it. It is pretty goddamned anodyne – about as exciting as looking at the roof of Barbra Streisand's mansion.

Sometimes, where there's smoke, there's only Streisand – a person who has foolishly decided to use the law to bully a weaker stranger out of disclosing some innocuous and publicly available fact about themselves. But sometimes, where there's smoke, there's fire. A lot of people who read my work are much more familiar with ed-tech, privacy, and pedagogy than I am. If that's you, maybe you want to peruse the Langara PIA to see if they are hiding something because they're exposing their students to privacy risks and don't want that fact to get out.

There are plenty of potential privacy risks in Office 365! The cloud version of Microsoft Office contains a "bossware" mode that allows bosses to monitor their workers' keystrokes for spelling, content, and accuracy, and produce neat charts of which employees are least "productive." The joke's on the boss, though: Office 365 also has a tool that lets you compare your department's usage of Office 365 to your competitors, which is another way of saying that Microsoft is gathering your trade secrets and handing it out to your direct competitors:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware

So, yeah, there are lots of "features" in Office 365 that could give rise to privacy threats when it is used at a university. One hopes that Langara correctly assessed these risks and accounted for them in its PIA, which would mean that they are bullying Linkletter out of reflex, rather than to cover up wrongdoing. But there's only one way to find out: go through the doc that Linkletter has restored to public view.

Linkletter has excellent pro bono representation from Norton Rose Fulbright, a large and powerful law-firm that is handling his Proctorio case. Linkletter writes, "they have put this public college on notice that any proceeding is liable to be dismissed pursuant to the Protection of Public Participation Act, BC’s anti-SLAPP legislation."

Langara has now found themselves at the bottom of a hole, and if they're smart, they'll stop digging.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/01/eruditio-libertas-est/#streisand-v-linkletter

Image: Copyright (C) 2002 Kenneth & Gabrielle Adelman, California Coastal Records Project, www.californiacoastline.org (modified) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Streisand_Estate.jpgbr>

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

--

Langara College (modified) https://langara.ca/

Fair use (parody) https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1104

Fair dealing (parody) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1468015

[yukipri]

Some thoughts on Cara

So some of you may have heard about Cara, the new platform that a lot of artists are trying out. It's been around for a while, but there's been a recent huge surge of new users, myself among them. Thought I'd type up a lil thing on my initial thoughts.

First, what is Cara?

From their About Cara page:

Cara is a social media and portfolio platform for artists. With the widespread use of generative AI, we decided to build a place that filters out generative AI images so that people who want to find authentic creatives and artwork can do so easily. Many platforms currently accept AI art when it’s not ethical, while others have promised “no AI forever” policies without consideration for the scenario where adoption of such technologies may happen at the workplace in the coming years. The future of creative industries requires nuanced understanding and support to help artists and companies connect and work together. We want to bridge the gap and build a platform that we would enjoy using as creatives ourselves. Our stance on AI: ・We do not agree with generative AI tools in their current unethical form, and we won’t host AI-generated portfolios unless the rampant ethical and data privacy issues around datasets are resolved via regulation. ・In the event that legislation is passed to clearly protect artists, we believe that AI-generated content should always be clearly labeled, because the public should always be able to search for human-made art and media easily.

Should note that Cara is independently funded, and is made by a core group of artists and engineers and is even collaborating with the Glaze project. It's very much a platform by artists, for artists!

Should also mention that in being a platform for artists, it's more a gallery first, with social media functionalities on the side. The info below will hopefully explain how that works.

Next, my actual initial thoughts using it, and things that set it apart from other platforms I've used:

1) When you post, you can choose to check the portfolio option, or to NOT check it. This is fantastic because it means I can have just my art organized in my gallery, but I can still post random stuff like photos of my cats and it won't clutter things. You can also just ramble/text post and it won't affect the gallery view!

2) You can adjust your crop preview for your images. Such a simple thing, yet so darn nice.

3) When you check that "Add to portfolio," you get a bunch of additional optional fields: Title, Field/Medium, Project Type, Category Tags, and Software Used. It's nice that you can put all this info into organized fields that don't take up text space.

4) Speaking of text, 5000 character limit is niiiiice. If you want to talk, you can.

5) Two separate feeds, a "For You" algorithmic one, and "Following." The "Following" actually appears to be full chronological timeline of just folks you follow (like Tumblr). Amazing.

6) Now usually, "For You" being set to home/default kinda pisses me off because generally I like curating my own experience, but not here, for this handy reason: if you tap the gear symbol, you can ADJUST your algorithm feed!

So you can choose what you see still!!! AMAZING. And, again, you still have your Following timeline too.

7) To repeat the stuff at the top of this post, its creation and intent as a place by artists, for artists. Hopefully you can also see from the points above that it's been designed with artists in mind.

8) No GenAI images!!!! There's a pop up that says it's not allowed, and apparently there's some sort of detector thing too. Not sure how reliable the latter is, but so far, it's just been a breath of fresh air, being able to scroll and see human art art and art!

To be clear, Cara's not perfect and is currently pretty laggy, and you can get errors while posting (so far, I've had more success on desktop than the mobile app), but that's understandable, given the small team. They'll need time to scale. For me though, it's a fair tradeoff for a platform that actually cares about artists.

Currently it also doesn't allow NSFW, not sure if that'll change given app store rules.

As mentioned above, they're independently funded, which means the team is currently paying for Cara itself. They have a kofi set up for folks who want to chip in, but it's optional. Here's the link to the tweet from one of the founders:

And a reminder that no matter that the platform itself isn't selling our data to GenAI, it can still be scraped by third parties. Protect your work with Glaze and Nightshade!

Anyway, I'm still figuring stuff out and have only been on Cara a few days, but I feel hopeful, and I think they're off to a good start.

I hope this post has been informative!

Lastly, here's my own Cara if you want to come say hi! Not sure at all if I'll be active on there, but if you're an artist like me who is keeping an eye out for hopefully nice communities, check it out!

[krissiefox]

Here's a collection of sites where you can get sound effects and ambience for your projects!

https://freesound.org/ Freesound is a great resource for royalty free and copyright free sounds. Each sound comes with a creative commons license, some of which require credit, so make sure to check those!

https://www.sounds-resource.com/ Sounds resource is an archive of sounds from various video games and PC games, so while they can't be used for anything commercial, you may be able to use them for things like videos or fan games.

https://www.humblebundle.com/software Humble bundle regularly hosts fundraiser bundles of software and game design assets, including sound effects and ambience. You can also put money from your purchase forward the bundles charity. Sadly, humble bundle also puts out bundles of AI books, though, so it's up to you if you think the good outweighs the bad here.

Unreal Marketplace If your project is an Unreal Engine 4/5 game, check out what the Unreal marketplace has to offer! They offer both free and paid sound effect packs for your games. Some you can download as wav files without Unreal Engine installed, as well!

https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/ Another nice resource of free and royalty free sound effects! Attribution is not required, but appreciated!

https://www.youtube.com/ Youtube can be a great place to find copyright free/royalty free sounds too! To get the sounds form the videos, you can use a tool such as mediahuman's youtube-to-mp3 converter.

https://www.gamedevmarket.net/category/audio/sound-fx A paid store where you can find all sorts of sounds and ambience for your video game projects! Humble bundle seems to do bundles with them pretty often so you may want to look into that to save some money here, too.

https://sonniss.com/gameaudiogdc An archive of free and copyright free sound effect packs from the Game Developers Conference! A new pack seems to be added every year, too. :)

https://getsoundly.com/ Soundly is a program more than website, but I have tried it myself and you can get free sound effects from it, and you can get additional sounds if you pay for the pro version as well.

https://www.boomlibrary.com/ While this sound effect site is primarily a paid one, you can get a free monthly bundle of sound effects if you subscribe to their mailing list!

https://blipsounds.com/community-library/ Another great library of free sounds from the Blip Studios community!

https://www.zapsplat.com/ They require you to make an account before downloading anything, but this is another site with lots of free sound effects for your projects!

Itch Io Itch Io is another great resource for both free and paid sound effects!

[tanadrin]

The most frustrating thing I saw in the "AI debate" (ugh) is where Ted Chiang apparently wrote in a New Yorker essay, "yeah, I could imagine there being some usefulness or merit to LLM use if you did it as one tool among many as part of an iterative creative process," and someone on Twitter was like "people literally do this all the time, including in writing," and their tweet got a bunch of replies along the lines of "those people aren't writers lol," who pointed to Chiang's essay as an argument. Like I dunno man, it sure doesn't feel like there's actually a principled argument here. LLMs just have the wrong Vibes, and since nobody actually knows anything about the jurisprudence of copyright and there's not actually a single consistent and concrete definition of plagiarism[1], people feel free to argue about it until the cows come home.

[1] don't @ me being like "lol everybody knows what plagiarism is." i have seen what constitutes academic misconduct on grounds of plagiarism vary widely between different fields of scholarship based on accepted citation practices; people have huge fights about what should or should not constitute fair use; the music industry is notorious for impossible-to-adjudicate court cases based on short fragments of a melody here and there happening to resemble one another. plagiarism, like all conceptual categories, has some clear central examples and a huge penumbra of fuzzy examples that are often highly contextual, if they can even be agreed on at all. the desire to treat plagiarism as black and white to shore up one side of an argument or another is at best shortsighted and at worst outright dishonest.

[wangxianficfinder]

Fic Finder

Sep 26th

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1. Hi good evening, I'm looking for a wangxian fanfic, where yu ziyuan was Jin guangshan's concubine, if not You already found it, on an old list, and I would love to read it again @glass-madness

FOUND? OOC! by -niehuaisang

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2. Hi there! I've been trying to find this fic to re-read for a while now and I'm hoping that someone else recognizes it (and that it's not deleted!)

I believe it was in the "LWJ marries the Yiling Patriarch" category and there was a Yiling Wei sect or something similar (although it's been a very long time and I don't recall anyone else actually being in the sect so I could be wrong on either/both counts). WWX often went back and forth between the Burial Mounds and Baoshan Sanren's mountain via portal (?) as they were trying to cure Lan Yi of her spiritual malady (?). Last I still remember it was a WIP, and one of the little details that sticks in my mind was that BSSR had gotten WWX doing decorative knotwork to keep his hands busy, so the palace had incredibly intricate pieces, like, everywhere, and he often gifted it to people.

Hopefully that sounds familiar to someone; thank you for all you do! @tevokkia

2 check #17 on this old post, it also mentions knotwork and BSSR and might be what you're looking for

FOUND? 💖🔒love, in fire and blood by cicer (E, 360k, wangxian, immortal WWX, slow burn, pining, arranged marriages)

FOUND? inevitable everything by isabilightwood (E, 193k, WangXian, WQ/MM, JYL/JZX, BSSR/LY, Canon Divergence, YLLZ WWX, but WWX is BSSR's disciple/adoptive grandson too, the cultivation sects think this is a, War Prize AU, it's actually self-arranged marriage, Arranged Marriage, yin iron shenanigans, LWJ Has Friends, Mutual Pining, Pining while fucking, LWJ Has a YLLZ Kink, Switch WangXian, BDSM, Submissive LWJ, Dominant WWX, Angst with a Happy Ending, magical illness of a side character (who will get better), Rope Bondage, Impact Play, Rimming, Bottom LWJ, Temperature Play, Face-Fucking, Breathplay, (talisman-based breathplay to be specific), Cock Warming, Public Scene, no one gets naked in public this is the sense of WWX invents the, Remote Controlled Vibrator, Semi-Public Sex, Outdoor Sex, Blindfolds, one qingmian smut scene with oral and fingering, Minor Character Death, All Sex Scenes Are Skippable!)

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3. Hello! I’m looking for a short fic w 1-3 chapters where there’s canon divergence bc wwx was really pretty due to his dad. I remember in it, when jfm brings him back to the lotus pier, yzy actually denies any rumors of a possible affair bc he looks so much like wcz

I also remeber in it wwx uses his beauty to stop wrh from going into a qi deviation and stops the sun shot campaign as a result

FOUND! The Most Beautiful Man Alive (and his gremlin son) by meyari (T, 4k, WangXian, attempted child molestation (discussed), sexual assault (awareness of the possibility, it doesn't happen ever, beauty as a tool, Smart WWX, Protective JYL, Protective JC, Good Parent JFM, Protective YZY, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies)

~*~

4. Hi, can you please help me find this fic. It’s a modern au where lan zhan and Wei Ying are soulmates. Wei Ying finds out because he saw a painting of Han Guang Jun and thinks his soulmate is dead. He starts to work in the museum operated by xiao xingchen or song lan where they collect stuff that belongs to Han Guang Jun and Yiling Laozu. At the end turns out lan zhan also went to the museum and they kept missing each other because they went at different timings. Thankssss @marshmallowbeats

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5. Hi! I'm looking for a wangxian omegaverse ao3 fic. It's in a futuristic cyber/tech setting where people have machine implants in their bodies. From what I remember the synopsis goes like this: Wei Ying was travelling from one planet to another with a baby a-yuan, his implants fail and Lan Zhan finds them. LZ takes them in and mistakes a-yuan as his biological son with WY. Some other details like the yin tiger seal being an AI and WY having dirt on the Jins. Thank you very much!!!!! @mithesimmer

FOUND? I'll buy you the moon (I'll buy you two) by Thesaurus_with_no_words (E, 27k, WangXian, Science Fiction, Space, Rebels, Space Opera, On the Run, Promoted To Parent, Robots, Androids, Mechs, Battle Mechs, Hurt/Comfort, Technopathy, Willful and Deliberate Baby and Wife Acquisition, Porn With Plot, Mpreg)

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6. hello! idk if this site is still active, but im looking for a mdzs time travel fic where wwx returned during cloud recesses study era. there was a scene where he slits his throat because he thinks its better if he just dies (everyone worries about him including madam yu)

FOUND? 💖 (Un)Hidden truth by Sarah_R (M, 291k, wangxian, major character death, time travel, characters watching their show, suicide attempt, panic attacks, self-harm, nightmares, hurt/comfort, angst, WIP)

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7. looking for a fic modern au established relationship one shot wangxian where lwj gets appendicitis (i think it was that, it was some kind of pain he had to have a procedure for) and he like wakes wwx up next to him so that he can go to the hospital and wwx feels worried/guilty/stressed bc he didn’t notice and lwj didn’t say anything can’t remember the name ! @willesnelson

FOUND? The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad (Valentine’s) Day by GhostySword, Two4Joy (T, 7k, WangXian, Hurt/Comfort, Humor, Modern, Established Relationship, Sickfic, Valentine's Day, Hospitalization, Meet the Family, LWJ's Rabbit Children)

FOUND? like bunnies by idleorbitals (T, 4k, WangXian, Modern, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst)

~*~

8. Hello! I had to switch phones and lost all my fanfic open tabs, and I'm trying to remember the names of all of them. One I cannot recall for the life of me was a WIP with only one chapter where during the Burial Mounds Siege Wei Wuxian was basically sort of rescued by Lan Wangji but then put to trial by the cultivation sects and he agreed to be imprisioned as long as they guaranteed A-Yuan's safety. I remember it being a sort of Madam Lan situation, or something. Can you help me?

FOUND? 在魔鬼的房间门口 | at the devil's room doorstep by thehundrethpoet (M, 22k, WIP, LSZ & WWX, JC & JL & WWX & LSZ, WangXian, LSZ & LWJ & WWX, WWX survives the First Siege of the Burial Mounds, But at what cost?, Post-First Siege of the Burial Mounds, WWX Adopts LSZ, WSZ Supremacy: a manifesto in various poorly written fics, XY will have no rights here, JGY also has no rights here, Child LSZ, the Madam Làn-ing of WWX, Good Kid LSZ, LWJ Has Feelings, And I hurt All Of Them, Protective LWJ, Pining LWJ, Good Parents LWJ & WWX, JC Has Self-Esteem Issues, Good Sibling JC, Good Uncle JC, JC & WWX Reconciliation, JL Has a Lot of Uncles, JL is Bad at Feelings, JL is a Good Nephew, JL is a Good Cousin, JL & LSZ Friendship, JL Swears, Protective WWX, WWX is Best Father, Good Parent WWX, BAMF WWX, things go to shit for a long long time, and people are very unhappy for like half of this work, but they end alright!)

~*~

9. A) Hi! This is for fic finder. I dont remember much and i dont remember if it was modern with cultivation. Focus on junior quartet. Wen remnant live. They are on summer camp that the jin organized. A-yuan comes to the camp with JWY (im not sure about this). A-yuan then befriended jl, oyzz, ljy. I think they are in the same room (dorm room but its a cottage? I dont know what its called). In group activity, a-yuan sneak up to meet up with wn and the other three sneak up to follow a-yuan. Long story short, a-yuan, ljy, and oyzz is invited to lanling because they are jl friend (either because that or they rescued him). The one that invite them is either jgs or jgy (i think it was jgs). They tried to track wwx but always failed. When jgy comes to the summer camp, they tried to disguise a-yuan as lan diciple but failed. And then jgy found out that a-yuan is wwx son and forced them to go to lanling. In lanling, a-yuan wants to leave and jl, oyzz, and ljy helped. Su She is the one that tracked them down when they tried to run away. Thats all i can remember. Thanks

B) Hi! This is for fic finder. Its a modern with cultivation fic i think. Wen remnant lives and in hiding. Focused on junior quartet. A-yuan comes to summer camp that the jin organized with JWY. A yuan the befriended jl, ljy, and oyzz. They are in the same room (dorm room but a cottage? I dont know what it is called). Jl, ljy, and oyzz is kinda suspicious of a-yuan because he is the only one that are not affliated with a sect. The three of them followed a-yuan in secret when a-yuan sneak up to meet up with wn. Long story short, jgs invited ljy, oyzz, and a-yuan to lanling because they are jl friends. When jgy comes to the camp, they tried to disguise a-yuan as lan diciple and failed. Jgy forced them to go to lanling (honestly i think he kinda kidnapped them). I think he found out that a-yuan is wwx son and used him to lure out wwx. In lanling, jl, ljy, and oyzz helped a-yuan to leave. Su She is the one that responsible of them. Thats all i can remember. Thanks! @idontknowwhattowriteforusername

~*~

10. Hi, lovely people. I'm looking for a fic where LWJ takes WWX out the Burial Mounds, along w/all the Wens (against their will, but keeping 'em safe) & brings 'em to Gusu. He turns WWX into an omega w/a "recipe" of Wen Qing (who does it just for their own safety), until WY gets pregnant of Sizhu & Jingyi (not sure abt the names), but he often doubts abt having being an omega b4 & he's always being forced to have sex. LZ treats him rough & poorly, even in front of their sons. WWX ends up getting tired & runs away w/the kids, leaves 'em in the woods & jumps off a cliff. (Prob. Dark LWJ) TYSM! @einherjermineord

FOUND?🔒forfeit by eightroses (E, 12k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dark, Dark LWJ, Rape/Non-con Elements, Dubious Consent, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Alpha to Omega transformation, Alpha LWJ, Alpha WWX, Omega WWX, Sexual Coercion, Kidnapping, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Forced Feminization, Mpreg, Forced Pregnancy, Fainting, Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Vomiting, Rough Sex, Knotting, Medical Inaccuracies, Body Horror, Abuse, Domestic Violence, Trauma, No happy ending here)

~*~

11. I’m looking for a wangxian fic where wangji tells wei ying what he did in the cold pond (the handfasting) while their in the cloud recesses and it diverges from there @wrappedaroundxielian

~*~

12. For FicFinder – trying to find a fic I thought I had marked for later. I think it was modern with magic au? I think LWJ takes over an old theatre called the burial mounds which used to be WWX's? In this AU I think LWJ thinks WWX is dead or he didn't know WWX until he bought the theatre. honestly not sure this will be found but I appreciate any clues all the same. tysm for all you do running this blog. @itsallwearecalledtodo

~*~

13. Hi, I’m looking for an ABO fic where WWX is an O and LWJ is an A and they’re soulmates. But WWX has been hiding his identity and pretending to be a B, because he got abused in his old pack and had run away (?) I think. @plzloveme

FOUND?🔒backfire by spookykingdomstarlight (E, 115k, wangxian, LWJ/MXY, One-Sided MXY/WWX, MXY/NMJ, Modern, BDSM AU, Biologically Determined Dom/sub Roles, BDSM, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Sadism, Masochism, Past Sexual Abuse, Sexual Slavery, Self-Harm, BDSM as a Form of Self-Harm, Minor Character Death(s), Arson, Shades of Black Widow WWX, Extremely Dubious Consent, Rape/Non-con Elements, Normalized Homosexuality and Bisexuality, Normalized Polyamory, nonsexual bdsm, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Pining WWX, jealous WWX, Touch-Starved WWX, Professional Dominant WWX, Sex Worker WWX, gentle dom LWJ, Mean Dom LWJ, oblivious LWJ, Past WC/WWX, Minor JGY/WWX, Mentioned WWX/Others, Emotional Infidelity, Angst with a Happy Ending, endgame wangxian, MXY Also Gets a Happy Ending, the tags are scary but i promise there's some lightheartedness too, wangxian love one another so much, WWX is healed by the power of nonsexual bdsm and friendship, and then gets bdsm'd quite sexually and happily by the love of his life, Additional Warnings In Author's Note)

~*~

14. hello! i’m looking for a fic where jc post-siege finds wwx’s diaries in the burial mounds and he gets transported???? into the memories of each book

FOUND! Waiting On You by SmellsLikeDeanSpirit (M, 26k, JC & WWX, WangXian, WIP, Graphic Depicitions of Violence, Major Character Death, Angst with a Happy Ending, Memories, Time Travel, Sort Of, the characters watching the show trope but different, WWX has magical diaries that force the reader to experience his memories, JC finds them and reads them, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Bashing, Bad Parent YZY, YZY Bashing, Canonical Character Death, he comes back tho, JC regrets, JC Needs a Hug, WWX Needs a Hug)

~*~

15. Hi, this is for fic finder! I’m looking for a fic where wei ying and lan zhan are betrothed (I can’t remember if they were betrothed since childhood or during the cloud recesses arc. But basically the jiangs agree to the betrothal because they expect wei ying to be miserable in cloud recesses with all the gusu lan rules. However when they see how wei ying is actually loved and respected, they get super mad. I think madam yu gets mad because her own children are not in loving marriages?

There’s a possibility it might’ve been a/b/o but I’m not sure if i’m getting fics mixed up here 😭

But please help me find this fic! I’m always so grateful for the work you guys do

FOUND!🔒 Alliance AU series by Ilona22 (E, 21k, WangXian, JYL/OC, Arranged Marriage, A/B/O Dynamics, PWP, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Intersex Omegas, Not JC Friendly, Matchmaking, canon Jiang family dynamics, Family time, Night Hunts, Mention of male omega pregnancy, Intrigue at Jinlintai, Mentions of Prostitution, War, Conflict between characters)

NOT FOUND! in case you ever foolishly forget by RavenclawLoki (E, 19k, WangXian, Arranged Marriage, Engagement, fast burn, Fluff, Bad Parents JFM & YZY, Bad Person YZY, YZY Bashing, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, LWJ & WWX are decent at communicating hense the fast burn, Good Uncle LQR, Canon Divergence, First Kiss, Established Relationship, BAMF JYL, she has given up on defending bad parents and we simply must support her, it's yanli's world we are just living in it, Demisexuality, Asexuality, Sex Positive Asexuality, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Soft WangXian, Implied Switching, LWJ shows love by slow blinking, Loss of Virginity, First Time, gonna add Out of Character tag to be safe regarding YL)

~*~

16. Hello ^^ I am looking for a fic where LWJ and JC traveled back in time and LWJ was the first one that found Wwx on the streets. Thx! @yoonieby

FOUND? A Matter of Time series by mrcformoso (E, 84k, wangxian, time travel fix-it, graphic depictions of violence, underage, LWJ pov, JC pov, dark LWJ, manipulation, grooming, teen body adult mind for LWJ, happy ending for wangxian, problematic consensual underage sex, blood & violence, insane LWJ, manic LWJ)

~*~

17. hi can you help me find a fic where lan zhan participates in a wei ying engagement tournament. Lwj wore a mask so as not to be recognized @silvanagomes87

FOUND? travelers through the empty gate by stiltonbasket (M, 107k, WangXian, royalty au, mistaken identity, emperor WWX, poor LWJ, forced marriage, (by LWJ himself), confused WWX, parenthood, misunderstandings, empress LWJ, fluff & humor, married life, angst w/ happy ending, WIP)

~*~

18. Hey hi, I’m looking for a missing wangxian fic. It takes place during the sunshot campaign, lwj and wwx are cursed(?) so that they feel eachother’s emotions, lwj pines and wwx is acting aloof and angry, lwj goes to jiang cheng and asks to marry wwx and lwj hits the table when jc insults wwx. Lwj and wwx share a dream and wwx is convinced that it’s all in his head before lwj walks into his tent repeating what he said in the dream. Eventually, lwj and wwx are married before the last battle and lwj is grievously injured. There’s a happy ending tho. Please lmk if you find this, I’ve spent days looking @remembertosaygoodbye

FOUND? The dreamers. by orange_crushed (E, 17k, WangXian, Dreams, Dreamsharing, Spells & Enchantments, Canon Divergence, Oral Sex, Penetrative Sex, War, Canon-Typical Violence, Sunshot Campaign, Temporary Character Death, The Character Dies But Does Not Stay Dead Trust Me, Resurrection, Suicidal Thoughts, Loss of Identity, Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst with a Happy Ending, Injury Recovery, Trauma, Memory Loss, Memory Magic, War Is Hell Etcetera, I Promise The Characters Do Not Stay Dead and Will Absolutely Be Okay, Masturbation, Fantasy, Very Brief Mention of Burial-Mounds-Era Cannibalism, Major Character Death... but only for a minute honestly!!, Awkward First Times, Marriage Proposal)

~*~

19. Hi! This is for fic finder. I dont remember much, but i think it was mentioned that nmj is suspicious of the jin after the first burial mound siege. After he sees that the wen is just an old person. When jin rusong dies, nmj secretally goes to He sect and hide the non combatan in the sect. Thats all i can remember. Thanks @idontknowwhattowriteforusername

~*~

20. hello! I'm looking for this wangxian fic I think it is based on the song Driver's License by Olivia Rodrigo, it does not have a happy ending since wwx and lwj do not end up together in the end

thank you!

hello! thanks for answering my question in the fic finder post! question #20 I reviewed the summary, but unfortunately that is not the fic 😭 I remember that in the end wwx marries someone else (but not lwj) thanks for responding! 💗😊 and sorry for not explaining my question well

NOT FOUND! driver’s license by cryptenhope (T, 5k, WangXian, Modern AU, Post-Break Up, Making Up, Getting Back Together, Happy Ending if you read the ending notes, Ambiguous/Open Ending)

FOUND? 🔒 drivers license by AG1234VL (T, 11k, WWX/Other, WangXian, LWJ/LQY, Modern AU, Hurt No Comfort, slight comfor?Non-Chronological, Song fic, Crying WWX, ice cream and beer, breakup weight gain, Lots of Crying, Angst, Homophobia, from lqr, wangxian breakup)

~*~

[alcrego]

Hi, I've been following you for a while now and just want to say I'm sad to see so many people speaking before they know what they are talking about and unjustly attacking you and the validity of your art (as if their opinion even matters to what you will choose to do?). I also don't like the purely internet-trained AI generated art I see more and more of, but I just ignore it. I have never used the technologies firsthand but I think it should be pretty obvious what you are doing is not in the same category or even context to that stuff at all. I think the best analogy I saw you make was saying "should I also not use a camera [or other technological tools]? It reminded me of how the electric guitar and digital music of any form was looked down on for not being "true art" either. Canvas stretched on a frame, paints and brushes etc are all technological tools and were all new at some point in history as well. I enjoy your art and how you use the computer itself to take your art to new levels. Some of the best modern musicians (imho) understand that the medium and the machines they use to record to that medium are like another member of the band itself and they embrace this and cognitively, purposefully utilize it to further their creativity. I think you are doing a very similar thing with visual art (and music) and just wanted to say I have been enjoying your stuff on here for months now. Don't listen to the haters. :)

Deep gratitude for those who can see and understand further than the noise... Truly! 🙏🥹

And the same here, I neither like the internet-trained AI generated images (I wouldn't even call it art), but in the same way I don't like the 'artists' that steal and copy styles of other artists (as it's happening to me since more than a decade ago), but this is ok, no?🥹👍

People should start to understand that for some (most) AIs are a way to obtain an image, but for few others is a tool to create our own resources/ingredients that later we mix/cook/modify to achieve our own ideas, in the same way we ALWAYS used images from the web, magazines, ads, street, etc... to achieve our ideas.

Thanks a lot for these words, and don't worry, it's funny for me to 'listen haters' bc they NEVER had idea about what they talk about. Those who know what is this about can have a respectful, deep and meaningful conversation, and despite sometimes I don't agree, I totally can speak with them.

Big thanks!!

[captainsophiestark]

Husband, Not Handyman

Colin Bridgerton x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written for Fictober 2024!

Fandom: Bridgerton

Day Sixteen Prompt: "No, I'm not okay."

Summary: Colin's feeling insecure about how self-sufficient his spouse is, so they set him straight.

Word Count: 1,223

Category: Angst, Fluff

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

I grinned and put my hands on my hips, hammer still held loosely in one, as I admired my handiwork. In a matter of hours, I'd fixed our lopsided bookshelf, realigned and remedied our sticky door, and nailed down a loose floorboard that liked to trip me at least once a day. Not bad at all for a day's work.

My husband, Colin, had been helping his brothers with some business or other all day. So, with our house to myself, I'd gotten to work on a few of the projects we'd been meaning to deal with. For me, the accomplishment and satisfaction that came from fixing something with my own two hands was almost unbeatable.

I smiled and sighed, then started to put my tools away when the door came swinging open.

I turned to find Colin standing there, a tool kit of his own in-hand. He looked incredibly surprised to see me standing in the middle of our sitting room with a hammer.

"...You fixed the bookshelf. And the floorboard."

"And the door," I said happily. "I had quite a bit of time today, so I figured I may as well just take care of it all. I have to admit, I actually enjoy being handy."

"Oh. That's... wonderful."

Colin sounded almost robotic, the words coming to him anything but naturally. His motions were jerky as he turned around, taking his toolbox and heading back towards the door. I frowned.

"Colin?"

He just gave me a very noncommital noise as an acknowledgement, and continued out the door. I set down my hammer and quickly followed after him.

"Colin!" I caught his arm in the hallway, and when I turned him to face me, he had a pained look on his face. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"No, I'm not okay." I took a step closer as Colin huffed a breath. We hadn't been married very long, and I'd never seen him acting like this before. I wasn't totally sure how to handle it. "It's just... I feel a bit... useless."

"...What?"

"Oh please! You don't need me. You don't need me to fix things, you don't need me to navigate when we go into town, you don't even need my help building a fire! I just... I don't understand what I'm supposed to do, why you chose to marry me, if you don't need me at all."

Colin stared at me once the confession was off his chest, looking frustrated and devastated. I just stared back at him in shock for a few moments, trying to let his words sink in. Finally, I shook my head and held up my hands to rest on his arms and chest.

"Darling... are you serious? I'm from one of the wealthiest families in the Ton. If I needed a man to fix things around my house, I would've called one! Not married one! Please, tell me you're joking."

"I'm not joking!" Colin huffed, taking a step back and brushing me off. I frowned. "If you don't need me, why am I here? It's supposed to be my job as your husband to take care of you, to provide for you. What am I for if I can't do that? If you're better at it than I am?"

I took a long, deep breath and pinched the bridge of my nose. I let it out slowly, then finally met Colin's eyes again. He looked as upset as ever, but I was determined to knock some common sense into his head, whether or not he wanted it.

"Colin. I did not marry you—nor would I ever marry anyone—because I needed you to take care of me. It's true that, if I never married, I'm in the fortunate position where I almost certainly would've been fine, both financially and in terms of fixing things around my house. The reason I am married, Colin, and in fact the whole point of the thing, is because I love you. You, the man who makes me laugh and who shares my love of travel and who I know I can trust with any secret, situation, or request. Not what you can do for me."

Colin shifted, his expression moving from firmly negative to a bit more neutral. But he still looked somewhat uncertain.

"Listen to me very carefully, Colin Bridgerton," I said, stepping forward and gently taking Colin's free hand. He let me, although he still watched me a little warily. "I married you because I love you. I love you because of who you are. Who you are makes me happy. That's it. Life is better and much more enjoyable when you have someone to share it with, and as far as I'm concerned, you're my perfect person to share it with. And with all of that said, if I ever do need somebody, I know you'll be there to have my back. Just like I'll be there to have yours. Okay?"

Colin bit his lip and frowned, but he stepped closer to me. He set the toolbox down on the nearest hall table, then took my other hand in his, too.

"Are you... sure? You're not going to wish for something different? Or someone different? I just feel a bit more... replacable. Since you don't need me."

"My god, no." I stepped forward, bringing my hands up to cup Colin's face. He tentatively wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me ever so slightly closer to him. I smiled. "I know you might not hear as much from your friends or whoever else, but believe me, you should be more secure in our relationship because it was out of choice, not necessity. I turned down quite a few suitors in the Ton because I didn't want to be with them, and I promise you, they were all perfectly capable of fixing floorboards and doors. But I didn't like any of them nearly enough to want to commit to spending the rest of my life with them if I didn't have to. And since I didn't have to, you, Colin, are the only person I've ever met who's passed the test. By miles."

Finally, a smile broke out on Colin's face. His arms tightened around me, holding me close to his chest, and I let my hands wander to his shoulders and the nape of his neck.

"You know, that makes me feel much better to hear."

"I should hope so!"

"I'm sorry I didn't realize. And I hope you know this already, but I would choose you every time, too. Over everyone else. You're... you're my best friend. And the best person I've ever met in my life. I love you."

I smiled, then leaned in to close the distance between my husband and I, pulling him in for a long, sweet kiss. His mouth chased after mine when I pulled away, and I put a hand on his chest with a laugh.

"I love you too, Colin. The most."

He grinned, all our earlier troubles forgotten as he kissed me again. I smiled into it, letting Colin sweep me away in the moment. Even though we'd had a few bumps in our early courtship and marriage, I really did love him with my entire heart. Hopefully this would be our last bump for a while, but even if it wasn't, I knew we'd get through that together just like we had everything else.

****************

Everything Taglist: @rosecentury @kmc1989 @space-helen

Bridgerton Taglist: @cherrybb-ily

[centrally-unplanned]

I might be a bit of a weirdo in this regard so I am a bit biased, but I think a fundamental problem AI Companion Apps like lets say Friend.com are going to have in "replacing socializing" is that socialization is instrumental and that instrumentality lies in the real. The ad copy for this product and so many of its various clones is a normal-looking everyman just chatting with their companion, making comments about the weather or how their hiking is going, etc. Treating it like a friend and talking to it like a friend does.

The rub there is that not many people do those behaviors for the reasons presented. They are treated as somehow "inherently" enjoyable, that you just love talking to ~something~ about the weather and anything that can pantomime the right responses is going to do it for you. That isn't how it works for most people; the point is the other person. The words themselves, divorced from the speaker being a breathing human you have a relationship with, are not very interesting. Instead it is about building rapport, signalling care, a human-connected daily ritual. Sometimes it is positive, but it is negative sometimes too! You put up with Kyle's 18th story about his dog's health woes because, look, it's boring as shit, but Kyle needs to rant about it and if this is the price of admission to his amazing saturday brunch parties you are going to pay up.

Even interesting-in-their-own-right convos are normally not like wow, you taught me some amazing new fact; it is hearing your friend's interesting take or experiences. There is this whole structural undercurrent here, this person is admirable or kind or you have a lot of history with them or they are really hot and so their words are contextualized into an emotional experience of connection or curiosity or wanting to impress them and a million other things around that structure.

When you shed all of that, when it is an AI that you know is just programmed to listen, that you can turn off at will, that you can just override and ask it for directions or to switch over to spotify or to sext you catgirl pics, there isn't anything left. These conversations are useless - what is the point? Why would I tell my phone how tired I am? Those are empty words, I am immediately bored and will flip over to YouTube instead.

Obviously there are niche applications. Porn and its adjacencies of course, where the fiction is the point. Specifics like a daily journal that interacts with you a bit? Sure, that would work for some. One-offs and curiosities of course, "Siri+" because that is a functional tool. But none of these are the same thing.

Now there are already, and have been for years, successful apps like Replika or Character.AI. The people on those clearly seem to enjoy talking to a digital friend, right? And I agree with you, humans are diverse, for some people this stuff works. Now for many, even possibly the majority depending on how you count it, these things are just the above categories though; a porn bot, a curiosity, a "man look how far AI has come" exploration. But I agree there are users who truly treat these tools as their friend or partner

And I have looked at the conversations those people have with their friend or partner. And...look. These tools suck. They do not, in any way, believably mimic a human conversation. By design they do not, endlessly accommodating and affirming, with shallow personalities and infinite flexibility. They are not friends, they are boxes to stuff inputs into and get validations out of, no human conversation works this way. Some people want that, no worries. Some people need that, maybe, I get it. But most people don't. These conversations would, if treated as an actual companion to most people, be incredibly cringe. They are not a sign that AI friends for everyone are right around the corner, if only we boost the specs. They are a niche product for a certain kind of person that does not mass scale at all.

You can sell people the "illusion" of a friend, even a nearly perfect one, and it might sell - as the stage show it is. Like a video game, something you explore, experience, and discard. Because it's not a person; I can just drop it if I want and it won't feel anything. That is what makes it an illusion and not magic; it is a trick that I see through over time. And making whatever implementation of Claude your little bluetooth-on-a-necklace runs have 10% higher fidelity or "able to pass the Turing Test" isn't going to change that. Maybe it will work as a product - video games sell after all. But it won't be a social revolution.

Then again these Friend.com guys apparently spent 2/3rds of their seed money on buying the web domain for Friend so they might have other problems to worry about.

[remember-panchaea]

@staff I think it would be rad if you required users to verify posts with an checkbox asking "Is this content created with generative AI?" before users were allowed to post images or text, and if users falsely tag their posts, that users be able to report it to a special category to have it properly tagged.

Tumblr is a site which has cultivated a large number of artists and writers. Many have built their fanbases and careers here, make a living off this site, and rely on their work being seen and shared to make a living and grow their audience.

I think it's only fair that Tumblr begin to address the amount of generative AI art appearing along side legitimate creations.

I have yet to see a single sound argument in favor of generative AI-produced pieces.

Tools which assist legitimate artists and writers are one thing. Programs which do the work entirely for the creator, are another.

I am not advocating for AI-gen pieces to be barred from the platform entirely. However, they should be easily, at-a-glance distinguishable from the hard work of our legitimate artists with a coloured label on the post.

[walks-the-ages]

Nanowrimo made a half-assed, desperate ""apology"" post

Full text, for when they inevitably try to edit it; as of right now it's August 6th, 2024, around 5:30pm est.

A Note to Our Community About our Comments on AI – September 2024 To the NaNoWriMo Community: In early August, debates about AI on our social media channels became vitriolic. It was clear that the intimidation and harassment we witnessed were causing harm within our community of writers. The FAQs we crafted last week were written to curtail those behaviors. We wanted to send a clear signal that NaNoWriMo spaces would not be used to bully or delegitimize other writers. This was consistent with our May 2024 statement, which named a lack of civility in NaNoWriMo spaces as a longstanding concern. Taking a position of neutrality was not an abandonment of writers’ legitimate concerns about AI. It was an acknowledgment that NaNoWriMo can’t maintain a civil, inclusive community if we allow selective intolerance. We absolutely believe that AI must be discussed and that its ethical use must be advocated-for. What we don’t believe is that NaNoWriMo belongs at the forefront of that conversation. That debate should continue to thrive within the greater writing community as technologies continue to evolve. We apologize that our original message was unclear and seemingly random. Our note on ableism and classism was rooted in the desire to point out that, for people in certain circumstances, some forms of AI can be life-changing. We certainly don’t believe those with concerns about AI to be classist or ableist. Not being more careful about our wording was a bad decision on our part. Our Mission is about providing encouragement to writers and cheering them on as they progress toward their goals. That remains our primary focus. In the future, we will be more transparent about the issues that we are trying to address with any messaging we provide. Finally, we recognize that some members of our community have other questions and concerns that go beyond general context for our comments. We don’t think we can address all of these in a single communication. Additional context here is that we are a very small team (including our Interim Executive Director, who is a volunteer). We want to take the time to read through your letters with the care, attention, and concern they deserve. Please expect more in the coming weeks.  In partnership, The NaNoWriMo Team

I sincerely hope their other sponsors bail ship and leave them to flounder at this point lmao. There is no going back from "if you criticize generative AI you're just ableist classist and racist".

They've also once again edited their "What Is Nanowrimo's Stance on AI?" post:

New text, in full; looks like it was updated sometime late yesterday or early today (August 6th 2024):

What is NaNoWriMo's position on Artificial Intelligence (AI)? 13 hours ago -Updated Not yet followed by anyone

NaNoWriMo neither explicitly supports nor condemns any approach to writing, including the use of tools that  leverage AI. We recognize that harm has been done to the writing and creative communities at the hands of bad actors in the generative AI space, and that the ethical questions and risks posed by some aspects of this technology are real. The fact that AI is a large, complex technology category (which encompasses both non-generative and generative AI, applied in a range of ways to a range of uses) contributes to our belief that AI is simply too big and too varied to categorically support or condemn. NaNoWriMo's mission is to "provide the structure, community, and encouragement to help people use their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds—on and off the page." We fulfill our mission by supporting the humans doing the writing. Please see this related post that speaks to our overall position on nondiscrimination with respect to approaches to creativity, writer's resources, and personal choice.  We made mistakes in our initial expression of this position. We speak to those mistakes in this letter to our community, and we've simplified the language on this page to reflect our core position. 

If you're wondering why Nano's posting all these non-apologies, its because they started this debacle with seven huge sponsors.

Over the course of the last three days, they've gone down to four.

They have literally lost about half their sponsors because of their support of generative ai.

And, as you can see in the "apologies" above, they're still defending their AI stance, by now claiming that their stance is because they were defending poor, hapless AI users from a horde of harassment and bullying from all sides, and they're not a platform that condones bullying! totally! (sarcasm).