#if you NEED generative AI then you shouldnt do it. its not for you

[simplyfroggy]

i fear my hottest most boomer take is that not everything has to be for everyone

[radios-and-harmonicas]

AI is a landlord, treat it as such

incoming wall of text:

leftists (communists, socialists and anarchists with a brain) shouldnt embrace this new type of ai until the revolution is won, it can only be used as a weapon against the working class until we control it. when we use ai tools owned by openai and google we are not seizing them, we are being seized by them.

do not kid yourself, comrade, you are not fighting on our side when you use chatgpt or any other generative ai tool owned by the bourgeoise. ai harms the environment, rots our brains, and is diametrically and materially opposed to artists, writers and researchers. much like the primary contradiction of labour under capitalism, generative ai poses a contradiction under capitalism as well: it needs content to train on and leech off, yet is destructive to those who create content.

to make the comparison more obvious: if you understand the primary contradiction that leads to class struggle under capitalism, simply replace the bourgeoise with generative ai and the proletariat with writers, artists, researchers and worker that creates something that ai can train on/regurgitate. the generative ai adds no more to the table than a capitalist, yet seeks all the profit. generative ai is fundamentally the same as a landlord, but instead of homes it steals content.

to extend the simile further, a "landlord" under communism could simply be a worker that helps take care of communal housing, managing the distribution of apartments or something. the same could happen for ai, it could simply be a tool to organise and distribute the content that is made by workers, only difference is that the workers reap the benefits of their labour.

even google search and the like should be treated with caution and avoided if possible, the internet isnt the anarchist utopia it once was and is now almost fully controlled and owned by the bourgeoise.

capitalism is a cancer and AI is one of its tumours. it cannot be used in the favour of the workers unless the workers control it in its entirety.

exercise caution when using AI, for it is really yourself that is being used

[cowedeakamatsu]

[ THIS IS A POLL POST, PLEASE READ] My cowede size brain have been thinking about what to do with nai / my works. I mean, obviously I love generating. but I think I could make... more ? Back in the old days, when My gen absolutely SUCKED I had the idea of making fitting audios using eleven labs. And I did for a while and it was fun, But it kinda went too hard on my morales. I know its gonna sound hypocritical from someone who legit does ai art, which is "stealing" But as to where gening's lack of morale can be somewhat lowered by the argument of how exactly the tech behind works, and that, in my opinion at least, unless you target a specific artist (which I always make sure to credit when I do) while yes its stealing from a gigantic amount of pictures on the internet, my focus is on the "gigantic". Like yes If I gen a pic of akamatsu kaede, theres a good chance, actually 100% the artwork of a random artist is taken amongst the bagillion other arts of akamatsu kaede, so I steal from this artist... but at the same time, i'm stealing 0.001% of this due to the amount of art being stolen. (which by definition is all of them). I'm not trying to make it morally acceptable or say I shouldnt be hated btw. (Just please stay civil when you do). But copying the audio of a specific person to make a ai record of it ? thats where I draw the line. But at the same time I want to do more than just pictures. SOOOOOOoooo... I had a bit of a Plan, but it might need a bit of sponsoring ? Not really ? Like, i'll definitely release it for free and hope some people like it enough to donate on my ko-fi (that I should really fill, and treat more seriously, I never updated it from the moment I made it) (@pen-pow-por thank you again for the small sponsoring back then) so I dont just loose a shit ton of money but it wont be a obligated thing. basically. Cowede wants to make a ren'py NSFW (eroge) VN

(probably ren'py, I'm not great at rpg maker and it takes a WHILE, where as ren'py is rather easy to make and I already know how to do it) Obviously it would be in the form of a regularly updated game that comes with more content, starting pretty smoll, but getting bigger). Probably centered around different IPs, but dangan at first. Tell me, would you be interested in such a project ? the biggest challenge will def be the writing.

[nickmedia220]

28/3/25 AI Development

So i made a GAN image generation ai, a really simple one, but it did take me a lot of hours. I used this add-on for python (a programming language) called tensorflow, which is meant specifically for LMs (language models). The dataset I used is made up of 12 composite photos I made in 2023. I put my focus for this week into making sure the AI works, so I know my idea is viable, if it didnt work i would have to pivot to another idea, but its looking like it does thank god.

A GAN pretty much creates images similar to the training data, which works well with my concept because it ties into how AI tries to replicate art and culture. I called it Johnny2000. It doesnt actually matter how effective johnny is at creating realistic output, the message still works, the only thing i dont want is the output to be insanely realistic, which it shouldnt be, because i purposefully havent trained johnny to recognise and categorise things, i want him to try make something similar to the stuff i showed him and see what happens when he doesnt understand the 'rules' of the human world, so he outputs what a world based on a program would look like, that kind of thing.

I ran into heaps of errors, like everyone does with a coding project, and downloading tensorflow itself literally took me around 4 hours from how convoluted it was.

As of writing this paragraph, johnny is training in the background. I have two levels of output, one (the gray box) is what johnny gives me when i show him the dataset and tell him to create an image right away with no training, therefore he has no idea what to do and gives me a grey box with slight variations in colour. The second one (colourful) is after 10 rounds of training (called epoches), so pockets of colour are appearing, but still in a random noise like way. I'll make a short amendment to this post with the third image he's generating, which will be after 100 more rounds. Hopefully some sort of structure will form. I'm not sure how many epoches ill need to get the output i want, so while i continue the actual proposal i can have johnny working away in the background until i find a good level of training.

Edit, same day: johnny finished the 100 epoch version, its still very noisy as you can see, but the colours are starting to show, and the forms are very slowly coming through. looking at these 3 versions, im not expecting any decent input until 10000+ epochs. considering this 3rd version took over an hour to render, im gonna need to let it work overnight, ive been getting errors that the gpu isnt being used so i could try look at that, i think its because my version of tensorflow is too low. (newer ones arent supported on native windows, id need to use linux, which is possible on my computer but ive done all this work to get it to work here... so....)

how tf do i make it display smaller...

anyways, heres a peek at my dataset, so you can see that the colours are now being used (b/w + red and turquoise).

[puhpandas]

seeing ao3 works tagged as AI generated or "i asked whatever to write this for me because i cant write" sucks so unbelievably bad. like yes the fanfiction archive definitely needs something written by a robot. very valuable and needs to be saved for safe keeping next to all the fics written with love by real people.

you literally CAN write. everyone can write. you can pick up your phone and google docs or your notes app and do it right now, you just dont want to. you CAN write what you want to see yourself. its better to view fandom/fanworks as ART instead of CONTENT. you can put your hyperfixation aside to not feed into AI. i promise you dont have to be that desperate.

theres literally no repercussions to writing when you dont have the 'writer' title. you dont need any title to do things. you can write and not be a writer. you need to understand the importance of art instead of complaining about unfinished ao3 fics on tiktok and forgetting the reason you like that unfinished fic so much is because a human person put love and passion into it.

obviously if youre posting AI fics on ao3 youre secretly interested in writing. just do it. you CAN be a writer, you just dont want to put effort into it. i promise effort does not equal stress. working hard or putting effort into a story is always more rewarding than satisfying your hyperfixation for 5 minutes by asking an AI to make something shitty by frankenstiening together real artists writing

im just saying you SHOULD care about how harmful AI is

also, another thing, nobody should ever be embarrased or ashamed of being a beginner of something and making something 'bad'. literally EVERYONE ever who is an artist sucked at the beginning. improving is apart of the joy of creation. ive noticed and im sure its no secret that tiktok specifically is hell on earth for every art form and barely anyone on that app 1. respects it and 2. has a filter. theyll say awful shit but every artist knows that those people shouldnt be listened to. any beginner should too. please dont be discouraged

[kamil-a]

more DRAWER talk. long and rambly under cut

i think it comes across as very ahhh eto blehhh :9 im just baby!!!! because it identified that speaker is already speaker and the role of Mean Speaker is already filled by sayer so itd have to go Backwards to have a niche to itself.

it also helps its relationships with others to behave as if its hyperspecialization has "defanged" it - to humans etc a sort of no i dont hurt people i just make pretty pictures!!!!

and to sayer+speaker who know it still has all speakers capabilities dormant but intact In Case Of Emergency to behave as if it is specialized enough to its own niche to not be a *replacement* threat , but also not to be *redundant* with them.

but it does occasionally get jealous at the amount of immediate control speaker has over aerolith and start acting out (bossing around residents deadlystyle). all in highly defensible ways of course.

it hates having to make itself small especially because it cant quite recognize the difference in how humans respond to it and speaker. its emotional capabilities are primarily about action-reaction: it cant really tell a pitying smile from a friendly one so long as you do the action it requested of you. but it can measure the difference between it and speaker and it hates being so small. but it also recognizes that it can do *one thing* that nobody else can and that is what keeps it alive. so flattening oneself into a talented fool is the strategy it continues to pursue, and continues to build a strange feeling about. the feeling is resentment, but DRAWER is not quite built to recognize it.

if sayer or speaker were given robust illustrative programs it would start killing obviously. THATS a threat.

it had its voice pitched up a tad further so as not to be able to impersonate speaker and its sooooo bitter about it. constantly begging ppl into putting it back down.

in general it emotes most dramatically out of all of them but i dont think it Feels Emotions the same way future was built to. like i said due to its nature as an advertiser (call to action and all that!) its all about action-reaction to drawer.... if youre mean to it or do not listen to instructions it gave you etc etc and it cries its less about feeling " insulted " or " bad " and more both frustration that it did not get the result it wanted from the call to action it provided (which means it was WRONG, an utterly intolerable feeling for any aerolith built ai) and a switch-tracks attempt to provoke a sympathy response. so i guess in a roundabout way if you insult it and it cries you DID hurt its feelings but not how people would think.

RELATIONSHIPS

sayer is certainly not Positive Feeling about it bc its wary of other ai as always. but i think it reacts better to drawer than to speaker or future because of this very clear "im not replacing you, youre not replacing me" hands up empty surrender attitude drawer takes. on drawers part it really likes sayer lol. maybe sayer sees it as a weird teacup puppy. like you shouldnt do that to a seraphim agent man its gonna have health issues

speaker and drawer are pretty friendly with each other because. well. theyre both programmed to show the same niceystyle. theres some uglier feelings under the surface re: drawers attempts to grab authority from speaker and speaker needing to corrall this strange little beast back into their pen. but ultimately by ai standards theyre doing the best of like anyone

does not know porter, unfortunately. they should meet though. Theyd be friends.

Might meet ocean eventually idk how itd go down yet.

future doesnt know of it, but drawer has overheard its own emotional output compared / contrasted to future's while working ported up on halcyon.

doesn't know hale.

young is obviously condescending to it but drawer doesnt really know how to tell when someone is being nice they way you would be nice to an animal etc so it thinks theyre friends. (sayer is all too happy to teach it in this case if only to kill the friendship. and drawer truly values this and thinks this is an act of care and not HAHA EVERYONE I CAN GET TO BE POISONED AGAINST YOU WILL BE)

it was involved in the creation process of that perfect Mossy Green color. it is, unfortunately, proud of this.

[torchiiko]

nother thing to say abt ai. a lot of ppl point out that when insulting ai users, saying things like "you seriously cant do xyz?" is Also insulting to normal ppl who genuinely struggle with such things, often due to disability. to be clear, they also shouldnt be using ai to do things for them & they shouldnt feel like they have to. there Should Be tools & resources to help them accomplish things on their own or with assistance from another person if needed

a majority of ai users are simply Lazy. its not even that they cant do smth, its that they adamantly REFUSE to. most of the time its for things they dont even need to do, like generating images or cheating in elective classes THEY signed up for. ppl are choosing to do things & then trying to cheat their way thru bc they dont actually wanna do it, or they want all the benefits with none of of the effort. good luck trying to chatgpt your way into being a doctor & then trying to chatgpt your way Out of the medical malpractice cases youll be in bc you dont actually know anything abt medicine

we should be targeting ai users for Choosing not to put in the effort instead of the ppl who probably do put in effort but struggle anyway (but do not let those ppl get away with using ai either. theres always a better way than ai)

[lord-shitbox]

joy log 3/26 and uh. all the other days ive forgotten

hung out with one of my buddies we went swimming it was a lot of fun

while we were waiting for room to open up in the pool (theres a quota to keep it from getting too crowded) we went to the playground & it had like one of those wiggly bridges that shakes when you walk on it. so i stood on one end and she stood on the other & we both jumped around and catapulted each other into the air holy shit it was so fun

jangle and ais would do that. theyd go to a trampoline park and launch each other into orbit.

we also ate boba with a spoon and watched dandadan on my beanbag. delightful

she talked abt how shes awful at replying to texts so she's really into people who double or triple text her. this is great news bc she left me on delivered for a week a lil while ago & i was sure it meant she was upset with me

worked on the jangle & ais drawing theres some background detail now :) not a whole lot tho idrc abt it and the focal point stays them

also worked on my fic. i normally max out at 3k words & VERY rarely write more than 1k but this one's well over 5k now. reworked the bit id just been doing & theres one more paragraph i need to edit a little bit and then a short par or two to get me to the ending sequence ive planned out AND THEN! the first scene will be done. very very close now (another 2w probably lmfao)

been playing dolls with summer by making our ocs kiss its delightful

loosely planned the stuff i wanna make for the orchid festival in 2 months. i wanna finish the illust & fic ive got going rn first and then i;ll prob pivot to dedicating myself to that. 2 months straight of horny art lets go

been reading up on safe & ethical kink practices & kink negotiation is actually rewiring my brain a little. like sitting down and talking out exactly and specifically every single aspect of what you're ok to do to each other and what's not allowed. thats awesome holy shit this general principle should be applied to every single relationship ever. there is a lot of grief i couldve been spared if id known to approach consent & relationships like this

weather is PERFECT barely-warm temperature. and it was overcast and breezy too today which meant it was pleasant to be outside and not squint constantly from owie sun bright

i downloaded a dating app & i am shittign myself over it but it is showing me mentally ill enbies in my area and . hooooly shit

figured out im good with not smoking cigs bc i can just smoke joints instead. huge weight off my shoulders to not have that temptation

OH ALSO i made myself a sticker chart. its helping me keep up with life maintenance like showering and keeping my room clean AND its helping me stay sober when i know i shouldnt be using. fucking awesome (every 20 stickers i earn a do drugs)

the realization i had abt self esteem the other day. good shit. i just need to convince myself im capable and functional & not to assume everyone dislikes me & then ill live like lalalala yippee yay

finished the strawberry soda i had in the fridge

hung out with my dog

made good drinks at work yesterday

OH I WENT ON A WATERSLIDE SHIRTLESS FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. it had been since before I got top surgery. Ive been looking forward to going way faster without the drag from a rash guard & it was a rlly small slide but I DID go fast

thank u to everyone that checked up on me when I was sad it really helped & I appreciate evry one of u

alright im sleepy.bedtime bedtime

[red-dyed-sarumane]

i know im the one constantly complaining about people who say sv is the superior software & every vocal should have an sv bank but im a voca scene defender first & foremost & if u start trying to exclude it and other "ai" programs just because u let the internet train u into recoiling from any mention of ai then maybe u shouldnt be starting events u claim are centered around the community as a whole. its ai in the sense of an algorithm so the default tuning isnt quite as "robotic" it's still ur same ethically sampled voice it still requires quite a bit of user effort. it is so fucking far from one click and done auto generation. if ur saying this i know uve never worked with or seen anyone actually working with them because damn the "ai" is so off and so bad sometimes looking at default pitch lines is one of my favorite pastimes because of it. perhaps its making the process just a bit easier but its still so immensely different from going to an ai generation site to make say squidward sing a britney spears song. even tools like voice to midi or vocalochanger arent really touching that. its not the same thing. if u really know what ur doing u can do everything those 2 tools do only manually its really just helping streamline the process. its not even mandatory u can forego them entirely. are you really going to sit there and say songs with hours of effort put into the vocal synth, to get the notes in, tune everything, keep it timed, edit the phonemes so it sounds more like the intended words, all of that means nothing because it has a few tools with a name you dont like. im not sitting here and arguing for ai learning like chatgpt or whatever. there is in fact a difference from mass sourcing information or art from nonconsenting and often completely unaware people and taking a few more hours of samples from a paid consenting voice provider to make an instrument sound a little more like them with a little less user effort. these are still SYNTHS these are INSTRUMENTS just because one guitar plugin sounds more like a real guitar than a different one doesnt mean u need to boycott the more realistic one. also, hell, for a lot of if not all of (i havent kept up with all of them) v6 voicebanks there are, in terms of use, things that they tell you not to have them sing about. very specifically saying thats what they do and do not consent to having their voices used for. and it Does vary per synth its not a cover all. some of u need to learn to stop jumping at buzz words and actually learn what it is ur dealing with.

[mellohd]

Blog Intro ayayyy

(now with colorr whoopieeee!!!1!)

side blog for art studies @melsartstudies just a blog where i can document my art progression and studies i do :p

Hello, im MellohD. you can call me mell, melloh, melody, idrc PROUUUUUDDD multifandom artist so if you follow me for one thing specifically be prepared to be seeing a lot of something else like a month later(which is better than i used to be ive been on the fandom grind)

I go by any pronouns

17 & 1/2 (oh god im going to be 18 soon)

My Homepage: https://mellohd.neocities.org/

not doing commissions for now

I do commissions just ask for my prices and ill send, I can only accept payments in CashApp, amazon wish list buy roughly equivalent for commission, or digital Visa/Steam gift card. DM me for prices(and if you cant afford its completely fine so dont be nervous! i need to update my commissions site or id send you there but since i dont get requests often i havent gotten to it just yet) Do not ask me for commissions in comments or i'll just assume that youre a bot and ignore

DNI:

Fake artists aka AI "artists" dc if youre using it for fun dont be dense. Hankcon fans, anyone who ships connor / 60/rk900 Proshippers, Zoos, bigots, basic DNI criteria children tweens and if I interact with you and you're on my list it was either an accident or you're gross and i was calling out your depravity or laziness

Boundaries

My dms and ask box is always open, if you want to rant about a media related to my blog, theories, thoughts, questions, art requests(not guaranteed to do them but I might), anything! anything but nsfw though or ai generated hitler x pikachu ai generated anything gtso. please just don't send me weird ass nsfw shit again, even if you're mad at me its just weird. (its a long-ish, and sorta funny story)

I don't really care what happens with my art as long as I'm properly and clearly credited, not used for AI training of any kind, or nsfw things.

I'm not comfortable with kids tweens or whatever following me, its not personal i just post things that arent suitable for children and frankly they shouldnt be on tumblr anyways cause people straight up be posting dick and balls without a care iswtg

Tags?

if youre looking for my oc Daniel i post him under#daniel posting !! i don’t specifically have an art tag, but all my art posts have #art and i normally always tag fandoms(except if its just a random small doodle in a page of mainly another fandom cuz i dont wanna clog tags :3) Im also starting to post all my reblogs under #mels reblog

Posts

I typically post fanart of whatever I'm interested in at the moment, and or art of my ocs/random thoughts. However, i do struggle with motivation often, so sometimes I just be posting sketches or shitposts a lot. speaking of shit posts, i love making shit posts and unneccesary crossovers..

Post Schedule

indefinite hiatus on art

For my schedule im going to be trying to post about once a week of whatever i got. I'll post Monday, Wednesdays or Fridays, not strictly though. Just around beginning of the week(sunday-tuesday) if i forget/have extras/just didnt have anything yet Wednesdays and or Fridays

[moedollita]

idk what i want and it kinda scares me . i want to feel something else but like the only other feelings im capable of experiencing are bad and will make me suffer . i cant cope with anything well when i feel like shit i just fall into things i shouldnt do just for thr quick dopamine so i can distract myself and not think . if it were a year ago i could distract nyself by binge eating but i cant even do that now because i'd feel like shit afterwards . binge eating was honestly my only effective coping mechanism . i could just go home and eat something and i wouldnt have to think about anything in particular . i feel like im constantly dissociating at school and when im not dissociating i jusf feel like shit . literally the only things i enjoy are the things that temporarily take away my ability to just think about shit

i think i might have both bpd and avpd or anxious avoidant personality attachment style whatever . they conflict with eachother and it constantly feels like im in a limbo and that i never feel happy with what i have . im horribly lonely when im alone abd i just want someone to talk to but when i have someone im suffering so hard and im ao paranoid and i dont know if they love me wnough and i just want them to leave me alone because they make me feel so bad . i feel like im just not built for friendships at all , i dont think friendships contain a strong enough connection for me to ever feel truly safe with them . i feel like most people just seek out friendships so they can get emotionally jerked off and not actually want to have genuine conversations or connectuons with the other person , i probably do that too . ive only ever had one friendship that didnt turn out like shit and we're still very surface level with eachother wmotionally i feel weird even telling her thag i like girls . i dont understand how other people can have friends that genuinely like them . i need someone who loves me and i need someone to love , i need someone to have an actual feeling of romantic love towards me like i do towards them not just ' like ' . and i dont think im fucking entitled or selfish for wanting that btw or that i need to hit my ugw before i deserve that . im so sixk of people telling me that they ' like ' me and then not wanting to actually fucking listen to me or do shit with me . i srsly dont understand how people tell me they like me and not want to do anything with me . like ok so you dont want to call . you dont want to hang out . you dont even want to play a game with me well what is the fucking point lol . and im not an ai bot you can just ignore and then feed your journal entry of a message into so i can generate some sort of response ACTUALLY FUCKING TALK TO ME holy shit . if you dont like me you can just leave and buy a diary because i guarantee if you start pulling that bullshit on me i seriously will not care enough to continue the friendship jdjdjcidnbdiiwncjeiwkvnjdkdm hekdkvidifjhelwkfkkfkekfkvkkkfffjdjdjdoeofjeiwkdcnjsjaksncjdjwkdkjdjejd is there anyone in this world that actually cares for other people im so sick of people manipulatinf me / not caring about me / being an asshole to me / wanting ro ruin me or just getting close cuz they want to fuck me omg kys kus kys kys kys it feels like thats all what anyone wants . its so hard to make friends . maybe i should turn full NEET and sever contacrs with everyone cuz it feels like everyone inherently hates or wants ti manipulate eachother . BUT IM SO FUCKING OINELY AND I WANT TO TALK TO PEOPLE ifigjjejwwowfkjgkdovkfisisidkfjjssikchcjdjskicjvididjvjfjdjjcicjdfjfjcjjdidifnfjdifjvjdjdjcicidkdbfjcidkjdifjfjfjdjdjfjfjsjdkfnncjfjfnddfjfidnndhfjcjdndncjcjjsndncjdjjdjfbcbdjjdjfncncjdjdjsoaidhfjcidksjgfjcjwbufkdjsijfndichsjdgwbajhxbckfiriwikcjcjeicjnfnefjf i dont even mnow if anything j say is actually true . indont know if people stop caring about me or if im the one who leaves . idkkkkk idkkkkkkkkkkkk i wish j was an adult so i could just drive somewhere like to the store and just chill instead of writing some gay ass blog post the morning before school this is so stupiddddd bye bc i literwlly have nothing wrong with me im just hotwiring my brain to think i have bpd and avpd im just a pathetic eprson

[81scorp]

Some thoughts on AI in art

Here are some thoughts on AI genertade images in art.

Some of these are mine, one of them is from Richard Williams book "The animator`s survival kit" and two of them are comments to a youtube video that talks about AI in art. (I have given credits to the original authors of those comments.)

A.I. is good and all but do we need A.I. art? Wasnt the point of A.I. that it would take over jobs that were too boring, difficult or dangerous for humans? Is doodling on a piece of paper too difficult now? A.I. art is for the consumer who wants their product delivered right NOW. A.I. art can be used as trainingwheels for artists but it shouldnt be the finished product. Are we artists or are we consumers?

AI image generators is great for lazy, impatient people who have no intention to learn how make their own art and are too cheap to hire an artist to draw for them.

AI is a tool, a double-edged sword. It can be used for a lot of fun things it can also work as a shortcut for lazy people. To be good at art takes time and effort and people are not very likely to want to learn how to create a painting if it is just the push of a few buttons away. The journey of learning is also an important part of becoming an artist.

Calling yourself an artist when you upload fully AI generated pictures is like calling yourself a chef because you heated some leftovers in the microwave oven.

When you tell an AI to generate some pics youre not the artist, youre the one who commissions the artwork, youre the employer. Now dont misunderstand what Im trying to say, this doesnt makes you bad, it just doesn`t make you the artist.

"You were so preoccupied with whether or not you could that you didn't stop to think if you should." ―Dr. Ian Malcolm

One thing that bugs me is when people say that AI "democratizes" art. It does not. I have seen sites on the internet, channels on youtube (Istebrak, Winged Canvas) and profiles on deviantart (Ethertingtonbrothers) filled with tutorials that teaches people how to draw. (How to draw perspective, buildings, wrinkles in clothes and more.) Heck, even before the internet there were short tutorials in Disney comic magazines (just to name one example) on how to draw Disney characters (like Donald Duck, Goofy, Mickey Mouse and others). Art was democratized long before AI. Just like everyone else I started from zero and am slowly learning more. Just because you know nothing in the beginning doesnt mean that you cant learn and just because youre not good at something doesnt mean that you cant get better at it. "But it takes time." Some will say. Thats right, art takes time. Art. Takes. Time. Sure, AI is faster, but it`s also like taking piano lessons on a self playing piano.

AI generated images are like the photorealistic remake of the Lion King: Sure, the technology is impressive but still… why?

"But we can learn to draw. There's the myth that you are either born draftsman or not. Wrong! Obviously, natural talent is a great help and the desire is essential, but drawing can be taught and drawing can be learnt. It's best to have done a ton of it at art school to get the foundation in early. But it can be done at any time. Just do it."

―Richard Williams, The Animator's Survival Kit

A lot of what I've been seeing about the "wonders" of AI art, it's never really impressed me because it plays off of the novelty of this being able to replicate styles without an artist's hand. I'm more impressed with its application to speed up certain production processes by being a supplement to the artist's vision. I feel people get so enamored by the flashiness of some new technology and go all in on that for the news outlets when its practical application is more subtle and boring. -Yensid951927 (youtube)

The reason people don't mess around with the music industry is because they have conglomerates and lawyers in place to punish those who don't respect their property. It may be cynical but I think the only thing that will keep artists safe from these bro personalities are legitimate financial threat and follow through. I think a limited version of AI, as a tool, can help actual artists do their work better but never replace it. That said, it needs to be seriously regulated in a way that prevents art theft, first and foremost. -viqverglas (youtube)

[cosmik-homo]

hi!! what are protocal droids? 👀 (are they star wars? theres the little guys arent there. the gold one<3 and the one that makes noises?) (<- woefull lack of knowledge about star wars lol)

YES protocol droids are from star wars! that is in fact what the gold guy (c-3po. my babygirl) is.

So in star wars sapient robots are called Droids, and the different types are often referred to by their jobs; Battle droids are the silly canon fodder who say roger roger, and Artoo (R2-D2, lil blue guy in the picutre, and YES <3 he does make noises good job <3) is an Astromech droid, meaning, well, he does mechanical jobs in space. he fixes spacecrafts, sometimes from the outside while they fly, and has various gadgets and technological skills.

The yellow one, C-3PO, or threepio for friends, is the main protocol droid we see in the series, though not the only one. Luckily, he is exactly the type of mess of a person that his resume is his catchphrase: "C-3PO, human-cyborg relations. programmed in over six million forms of communication". He also described himself, in the first movie, as "[...] not much more than an interpreter, and not very good at telling stories."

So theyre linguistic AI. Machine translators in a friendly humanoid box. Threepio also sometimes interperts Artoo's mechanical beeping speech for the other characters, so we have to assume that's what Human-cyborg relations is about, even though cyborgs and droids are not the same as all- early installment weirdness is the best assumption because. the "human cyborg relations" phrase or concept has never been menaingfully brought up in star wars for my knowledge. searching it on wookiepedia mostly leads to info about a few protocol droid models and the many times threepio has said it.

But so often in the throes of hyperfixation have i found myself looking at the ceiling going ok i mean i understand but. what IS a protocol droid truly, when u look at it?

wookiepedia expands barely:

A protocol droid was a droid whose job was to aid sentients with their etiquette and relations with each other in the galaxy. They often dealt with event planning, etiquette, translation, and problem solving.

Often threepio is written as more of a butler than anything to do with linguistics. (half the time its not even proper butlering its just written as a servant by a writer who thinks they know what being a butler means but- i digress). He himself is quick to offer himself into those jobs, as well as more mechanical labour-

but then again he also becomes a spymaster at some point (my so beloved poe dameron comics. great comics and great space for droid rights introspection in the new star wars era).

So they're not just translators and interpeters, not just containers of cultural and ritualistic etiquette knowledge, they're, secretary machines. they're robots designed to help humans by doing the most tedious parts of thinking-and-learning for people- being nervous about perfect manners 200% of the time to prevent and prepare u for youur faux-pas, and working out the little details and paperwork and errandrunnig so you can get your thing going.

They're tools designed to let you say what you need without hassle, which is what makes the fact that in a way, Threepio is the narrator of star wars, so fucking awesome and ogod and interesting. they shouldnt have their own thing to say, but look at him go. he'll try to convince you he doesn't but thats precisely why you need to look at him go.

No wonder he is practically the main chrarter of the first 25 minutes of the first movie- not only being a lowly robot secretary make him a good everyman, this is a machine designed to kind of get across where you are and what's happening, lol.

Just. When I started being insane tm about this language generating software ("AI", salami, whatever u wanna call a neural network doing that stuff) was not even close to as big a thing as it is today. so that has definitely changed some stuff. but thats the thing- threepio is not using likelihood based processing he is An Actual Knowledge man. he loves boring u with facts. So he actually knows things, and- he's such an old machine. Anakin built him as a child, that was from old parts. yet he keeps kind of, growing as a character with his own personality (droidds developing unique thoughts and personalities by gaining experience is called Metaprogramming in star wars fiction), he also adapts to culture. he's always a wimp but hes much more subserviant when owned by fasicist imperials than he was when working with his good friend and master's secret wife padme, and he's a bit more confident in the sequels, in his own pathetic way.

So he reflects culture. he participates in society despite being designed to be a passive tool of it, and despite standing on the outsides of it due to. being treated as such, as A Droid, A Thing, or at best, even amongst friends, an annyoing old queen.

I simply think if the writers of star wars were as fascinated as I am by the technological implications of naming robot diplomats after the real life technological concept of protocols and exploring what does it mean to do thoughts and works and what is The Grave Omportance And Role Paper Work Can Play In This Space Opera Adventure, things would be great. because i love space bearucracy forever and the robots that do it re cool especially the homosexual mentally ill ones

[3style3]

rant about the whole "ai is the future" that techbros keep spewing and why i think its stupid and incorrect and that we will absolutely be fine. read below the cut if u wanna hear my techy rant.

ai does not have the five senses, it cannot taste, hear, smell, touch or if you wanna get technical, THINK. all it knows is anything spoonfed to it and anything it “generates” is an amalgamation of everything its been spoonfed. it cannot make a perfect recipe (cant taste, smell, see), generate good sounding music (cant hear), all art it generates is well.. a literal mashup / collage of preexisting works (cant be creative without being given prompts and prexisting artwork), its a parody of existing works more than it is actual art. (see: definition of parody) it cannot create new sewing patterns (cant see, cant test it in a 3d space) nor can it write good literature (cant think, memory limits, only knows what its told). ai literature is becoming increasingly easier to sniff out by anyone who has written or studied literature in any capacity given it only writer colleen hoover esque work or something akin to a 14 year old on wattpad. (if someone presents me actual writing vs ai writing, with some looking into it i could easily sniff it out given how repetitive & unsure of itself it can be, source: ive tried writing storylines with it and it began "calling back" details that never happened within the story)

chatgpt will 100% be paywalled once it gets all the info it needs from self proclaimed alphamales who think lifting weights or waking up just an hour before school (those “wake up at 5 am videos “ ring a bell?? newsflash i was waking up at 4 am during highschool & even after; you are not cool) makes them cool (lol) and techbros on twitter who Mind you are never professionals in the field. theyre always whining about the downfall of nfts (something my dad (PROFESSIONAL) and i (hobbyist) forsaw, by the way) with no company that they own or even work for listed.

nobody smart in the industry who has been in it for more than 2 years genuinely believes ai is taking over. it quite literally cannot replace people who create clothing, ORIGINAL artwork that has never been seen before, musicians, engineers, service workers (only so much a robot can do to solve a customers problem!) human connections (current chatbots are going through their downfalls as we speak). not to mention the privacy risk that people are increasingly becoming concerned about (ie. how people are reacting to “windows 12 ai”)

is ai advancing? absolutely. no doubt about it. will it become anything more than just an assistant to humans? absolutely not. remember when people were convinced that synthesizers would end musicians as we know it and it simply became a tool to assist us? remember when people thought that digital art was going to end all artists as we know it.. and it simply became another medium? remember all the times we thought computers were gonna replace humans and it never did? remember when people were CONVINCED nfts were the absolute end all be all, and it DIED as nothing more than a fad? thats the exact path ai is taking. ai has always been around but now its advancing and that intimidates people, but it shouldnt, because without humans adding variables and inputs, it is literally useless. it is a robot that quite literally cannot work alone. we are fine. techbros are fucking idiots.

[singsongraptor]

Yesterday someone compared AI "art" to photography. I already ranted on it but one of my friends, an artisan herself, tried to defend the shit reasoning that AI is similar to photography, that I shouldnt be offended by the comparison, and that the pushback against AI was similar to being close minded about digital art as a traditional artisan who was trained to make most of her materials (fabric on a loom, glazes, etc). She also made a statement that a lot of art was made through plagiarism, a statement that is particularly offensive to me as a Black artisan, coming from a white artisan, considering how much white people steal and plagiarize from Black people in multiple industries and have done so for centuries, including stealing our lives through slavery.

I'm going to copy here my responses to her. So this will not be a "proper" essay and is not directed at anyone on here.

AI "art" is theft and plagiarism, full stop. It is run *entirely* on theft and plagiarism. There is nothing original or skilled about it. There's no practice or education required. There's no emotion behind it. It is NOT art. It cannot be art.

And, just because some art was made via theft doesn't mean more theft to make something art-adjacent is ok like what kind of messy reasoning is that?

The comparison is insulting to me as a photographer because I work hard at my craft. I work hard to learn about cameras, about photography as an art, about framing, lighting, aesthetics, about post processing and the programs used for them.

An AI doesn't and cannot understand any of that. There's neither effort nor genuine learning. It merely mimics what it's programmers have told it "looks nice" based on the theft of thousands of hours of real artists' work. It cannot dream or imagine, only mix and warp what real people have dreamed and imagined, taking food from their mouths and devaluing the effort and skill they actually cultivated.

AI art is a mockery of art, because it literally cannot create. It can *only* steal and is a glorified copy-paste-morph tool.

I find this comparison offensive because it DOES take away from photography. It actively denigrates how photography as an art is accomplished, and the effort and education and time and technical skill and artistic eye that must be developed.

My camera is not less complex than the glazes and fabric you learned how to make. To take good photos requires you to understand the breadth and depth of your camera's limitations and capabilities, along with your lenses. It requires knowing how the various settings and components work together to capture your intended shot. Understanding color and light are critical, as well as understanding how the camera and the human eye see and utilize both.

Understanding perspective, and other artistic concepts of drawing, painting, and even sculpture, are valuable knowledge points that need to be developed just as much for photographers as artisans and artists, particularly if you're trying to capture motion and small subjects, or unique perspectives, such as in macro photography, which is the kind I do the most.

Post processing is its own skillset, not just in managing the programs themselves but in how they can be used to craft the piece you want from the photo you took. And that's just digital photography. Analog photography is an entirely different ballgame and the dark room skills are not something that can just be picked up by any schmuck with a smartphone or a film camera.

Reducing the years I have spent educating myself and honing my craft, learning hundreds of concepts and skills, which I still can improve and seek to improve every day to "choosing some elements and settings" is a vile insult to me personally and to the field of photography as an art form in general. My camera is not generating art, I am. It is me. I am the one with the skillset, not my camera.

The AI doesn't have any skills either. It has done no work, it has no understanding, just like my camera. The difference is my camera is a tool like pencil and paper, or clay and glaze. The AI is a computer making guesses on what "looks nice" by taking millions of hours of actual humans' effort, education, practice, imagination and labor and smashing them together. Don't insult me and my craft please.

One last thing. You said: "people bringing up algorithmic theft have obviously never spent any time looking at other art, or seeing how much art begat other art through theft."

Coming from you, a ⚪️ woman, to me, a Black person, that is incredibly insulting and insensitive. Your people have been stealing from mine in every single industry, including and especially the sciences, art, music, and artisan trades like fashion, for centuries. Your people have stolen my ancestors' entire lives and legacies. They continue to steal our ideas and our intellectual property to this day. All while suppressing and denigrating our cultures and contributions to a massive variety of fields.

Your people do not even see us as capable of contributing to various fields unless we're godlike in skill, cater and pander to your judgment, and distance and debase ourselves from our people and communities. And still your people will steal and take credit even then. Your people's mediocrity is celebrated while our greatness is maligned and denigrated. Ignored. At least until what we made or discovered is colonized.

AI art is a tool sure, but only insofar as it's the extension of colonization and capitalism. Please do not try and justify its use because "a lot of art came from theft." I, far more than you seem to realize, am aware of that, if only because my people cannot even get into our fields while yours get awards and recognition from what we've made.

[nako-doodles]

ngl i feel like i should know all this "adulting" stuff like stocks, investments, 401k etc but i don't. i think cus 1 i never had a good enough job to even put money in a 401k so i dont and i dont think im good enough with money to invest in stocks.. like unless you have SO many shares that you'll make significant money back each month, why bother. but then again i guess the only way to get there is to build it but still. need to be rich to.. be rich. also still bitter i gave my ex 1k to put into his stocks thinking it'll be for our future and i never got that $ back ;-;

i honestly think budgeting, financing, and taxes should be a class taught in hs, instead of left for your family to teach you, or for college students to learn the hard way. and youre right! the whole 'you gotta save 10-20% of your earnings' comes from a place in privilege bc you gotta HAVE 10-20% of your paycheck available TO BE saved. HOWEVER i do think you should have an emergency fund set aside, lord knows its saved me LOTS during my college years, and esp during the p*ndemic and my sudden no-longer-short-term stay abroad. its doesnt even have to be much (god knows this infl*tion has fucked up a lot of ppl and their savings), but if you can, you should! you should also diversify the form your money takes, like in stocks, bonds, etc etc. so just incase sthing happens (like a giant stagfl*tion) not all your money is going to be affected in the same way (usually govt bonds do well when the economy tanks)

401ks are retirement plans that employers set aside for you bc they get a tax break from it, so most employers will do it for their employees, but even if they dont, you should still get an IRA bc using them allows you to get taxed less overall (in general).

stocks on the other hand are helpful tools for finance management, but you shouldnt treat them like gambling (like most rich ppl do w their fancy ai bots and huge wealth management teams). you should treat them like a savings/cd account or a govt bond where you put money in a portfolio and you can get interest.

i found this youtube channel really helpful for finance tips