#Generative AI

[victusinveritas]

[steveandthesea]

Yet more reason to be pissed off that Google are forcing these AI results on us by including them in searches and offering no option to turn them off. I sit here telling people "don't use ChatGPT to get answers on things, Google it" but clearly that's not an option now either. Not that many people even knew how to properly Google things in the first place. Generative AI is being implemented while probably the majority of people still don't know how to properly critically analyse information and it's only going to speed up and information illiteracy crisis.

It's also just another example of capitalist idea of "progress" in a "free market" where something is seen as a popular choice because everyone uses it when there's literally no other choice. Google can say we all want to use AI because it's so popular, even though you can't turn it off. Phone manufacturers will say phones with AI were a popular choice this year, while again there was no alternative. They force you to use the thing then act like it shows that we want it because we carried on using the service. Implanting AI hasn't reduced people's use of Google, so clearly it's a good choice!

We're fucked. We're actually fucked.

people are really fucking clueless about generative ai huh? you should absolutely not be using it for any sort of fact checking no matter how convenient. it does not operate in a way that guarantees factual information. its goal is not to deliver you the truth but deliver something coherent based on a given data set which may or may not include factual information. both the idolization of ai and fearmongering of it seem lost on what it is actually capable of doing

[low-poly-kitty]

So as I'm sure many of you are aware, this post is making the rounds, and I just wanted to voice my thoughts about the whole thing because, frankly, this is the only place I can.

Joker Out is/was a band that sparked a truly amazing amount of creativity within its fandom: art of all sorts (most famously bracelet making, what happened to that?), fanfic, meme-y text posts, .gifs, and more. Now, an international mass of fans will ultimately have more creativity than a band and their team. It's just a numbers and time thing, really: someone like me, who isn't running a band/business 24/7, will ultimately have more time to think about creative ideas to show my appreciation for a band/artist or piece of media. Therefore, we cannot always expect an artist/band to be as creative as its entire fandom. This, I feel, is not controversial.

However.

The members of Joker Out cannot hide behind their "overgrown children" persona to slap a band-aid on something like this. This is a band that once employed real, human artists to animate one of their music videos, as well as design their stage background and artwork for a single. So as you probably surmised by now, I'm more than disappointed, I'm hurt.

While one cannot always expect a band to be as creative as its fandom, one should be able to trust it to give them something real, be it a song or a tour poster, every time. Because that's what bands are for: to project your vision of (usually) musical creativity onto the world. So, even though it was a piece of promotional material, (and not necessarily something as serious as a song, album art, or a tour poster), the fact remains that generative AI was involved in the process. This ultimately prompts the question: where is Joker Out's line in the sand? As we now know, it's certainly not with their OpenStage updates.

I could just be old and out of touch, and maybe tons of bands/artists are using AI for stuff. But, in my opinion, this is the kind of thing that breaks fans' trust in a band. Because, again, where is the line in the sand? Because if you can't be arsed to be creative and original, then what's the point?

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TEDTalk. Have a great day.

[luccorvus]

The Monster Wears Your Face

Written by @joles.bsky.social‬ on Bluesky

[that-was-a-bit-stupid-of-you]

asking this cuz I've been seeing diff takes on this, and for context, I'd like to say I'm very much anti-AI but I wanna hear more on the use of AI in this scenario before forming an opinion

[coolmaycroft]

Some people call it theft, and get very technical with the definition. Even if there was no theft per se, the models are trained on images/audio/video from existing artists, with no respect to consent on their part. That´s at least taking advantage.

And like, not to cheer on it, but at some point, some big corpo was going to put a lawsuit against generative models. Not to mention there were already several demands in process from other individuals and groups.

The scary part is that this is fucking disney, they have shaped copyright and trademark to their favor. So we're yet to see how this changes the landscape

i deploy this phrase quite often but i cannot emphasize enough how much i truly mean this: anyone who is cheerleading the universal and disney lawsuit is an enemy of art and everything that's valuable about it

[elexuscal]

"what did students do before chatgpt?" well one time i forgot i had a history essay due at my 10am class the morning of so over the course of my 30 minute bus ride to school i awkwardly used by backpack as a desk, sped wrote the essay, and got an A on it.

six months later i re-read the essay prior to the final exam, went 'ohhhh yeah i remember this', got a question on that topic, and aced it.

point being that actually doing the work is how you learn the material and internalize it. ChatGPT can give you a short cut but it won't build you the the muscles.

[prokopetz]

A couple of years ago we were all terribly concerned about the fact that a lot of American high schools are assigning such crushing homework loads that some kids literally don't have enough time to eat or sleep (and all this in spite of the fact that there's no good evidence that assigning homework actually improves academic outcomes at the pre-university level), but now we're hearing stories about those same schools struggling to stop kids from using ChatGPT to write their essays and suddenly It's The Children Who Are Wrong. Like, do you think maybe there's a certain level of cause and effect in play here?

[leidensygdom]

So, Discord has added a feature that lets other people "enhance" or "edit" your images with different AI apps. It looks like this:

Currently, you can't opt out from this at all. But here's few things you can do as a protest.

FOR SERVERS YOU ARE AN ADMIN IN

Go to Roles -> @/everyone roles -> Scroll all the way down to External Apps, and disable it. This won't delete the option, but it will make people receive a private message instead when they use it, protecting your users:

You should also make it a bannable offense to edit other user's images with AI. Here's how I worded it in my server, feel free to copypaste:

Do not modify other people's images with AI under ANY circumstances, such as with the Discord "enhancement" features, amidst others. This is a bannable offense.

COMPLAIN TO DISCORD

There's few ways to go around this. First, you can go to https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/requests/new , select Help and Support -> Feedback/New Feature Request, and write your message, as seen in the screenshot below.

For the message, here's some points you can bring up:

Concerns about harassment (such as people using this feature to bully others)

Concerns about privacy (concerns on how External Apps may break privacy or handle the data in the images, and how it may break some legislations, such as GDPR)

Concerns about how this may impact minors (these features could be used with pictures of irl minors shared in servers, for deeply nefarious purposes)

BE VERY CLEAR about "I will refuse to buy Nitro and will cancel my subscription if this feature remains as it is", since they only care about fucking money

Word them as you'd like, add onto them as you need. They sometimes filter messages that are copypasted templates, so finding ways to word them on your own is helpful.

ADDING: You WILL NEED to reply to the mail you receive afterwards for the message to get sent to an actual human! Otherwise it won't reach anyone

UNSUSCRIBE FROM NITRO

This is what they care about the most. Unsuscribe from Nitro. Tell them why you unsuscribed on the way out. DO NOT GIVE THEM MONEY. They're a company. They take actions for profit. If these actions do not get them profit, they will need to backtrack. Mass-unsuscribing from WOTC's DnD beyond forced them to back down with the OGL, this works.

LEAVE A ONE-STAR REVIEW ON THE APP

This impacts their visibility on the App store. Write why are you leaving the one-star review too.

_

Regardless of your stance on AI, I think we can agree that having no way for users to opt out of these pictures is deeply concerning, specially when Discord is often used to share selfies. It's also a good time to remember internet privacy and safety- Maybe don't post your photos in big open public servers, if you don't want to risk people doing edits or modifications of them with AI (or any other way). Once it's posted, it's out of your control.

Anyways, please reblog for visibility- This is a deeply concerning topic!

[cynicalclassicist]

I loved that story!

Lmao.

[rubyjones]

Too many writers are using generative 'AI' to make their book covers, so I've written a guide on how to make your own cover for free or cheap without turning to a machine.

If you can't afford to pay an artist, you CAN make your own!

I hope this is a helpful overview that covers the basics and points to some free resources.

[Edit:] this is getting well outside this account's usual reach and a few people in the notes are making not so great comments about the fact I write weird erotica. So, for full disclosure: yes, I am an erotica writer. And the book covers include those for tentacle erotica and robot erotic romance. But you cannot see anything NSFW. All of these covers were approved by Amazon. Frankly, the cover of the most NSFW story, Oviposition, is downright tame! And to those complaining about the word 'Oviposition', that is a scientific word for a naturally occurring phenomenon - it's only naughty if you know the content of the story, which is only alluded to as 'sexy'.

I also do not believe that shirtless men require a warning, but yeah, two of the covers have shirtless men. The cover with a tasteful nude drawing (showing a bum, but not a weenor) has already been censored.

I can't do anything about the version of this post that got rb'd by a popular person, but for those who are concerned, consider this your content warning.

[prismagic]

Discord has added generative AI features to servers.

Here are THREE THINGS you need to do today.

1️⃣ YOUR SERVER

Go into server settings -> roles -> Default permissions

Search for "external apps" and disable it

2️⃣ YOUR FEEDBACK

Access Discord support -> https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

Go into Help & Support > Feedback/New Feature Request

Denounce generative AI and request the feature be removed. Bring up privacy concerns for yourself, your data, and for minors.

You will get an automatic reply to this request- PLEASE REPLY TO THE EMAIL TO PUSH IT TO THE TEAM or else it will get discarded.

3️⃣ ON MOBILE

Access your app store

Leave a 1 star review and publicly denounce generative AI and Discord's use of it

Reblog this to spread the word, I'm tired of the enshittification of the things I use in my day to day life.

[victusinveritas]

[withbroombefore]

My job is primarily to support faculty in authoring open access textbooks. It is not unusual for someone to ask if they can just have chatGPT write it for them. Recently I watched a webinar by the authors of a set of nursing textbooks; they mentioned offhand "we tried to use chatGPT but the material was bad so we had to do it ourselves :("

(These authors were also so proud that, when people complained that all the videos and photos were of white actors, they "fixed" it by using Midjourney to "diversify" the materials by adding fake images of people of color. They responded poorly when the audience pointed out that this was not a solution and in fact amounted to digital blackface, on top of the fact that they paid the white actors but did not hire anyone else.)

had a long discussion at our compliance committee meeting this morning about the growing use of AI "resources" like chatGPT in medicine and medical documentation, and may I just say, from the bottom of my heart ... yikes

[dicklessthewonderclown]

ai has no fucking place in fandom. none whatsoever. even if you’re “just using it for feedback” or “just using it for prompts” or “just using it to help with writer’s block.” and if you’re using it for research? why on god’s green earth would you use the Lying Machine to do research???

all art, whether written work, paintings, drawings, anything, is a fundamentally human creation, and by using ai to create “art,” you are stripping the humanity from something inherently, intrinsically human

fanfiction and fanart and any kind of fan creation are borne out of a love of the original media and a passion for creation. there is no reason or need to supplement that passion and creation with gibberish from the Plagiarizing Machine

nobody expects perfection. it is the imperfections that make it beautiful, that make it raw and rich with humanity. this is a community that exists because of a shared love for something.it is built upon our own creations. ai generated content threatens its very foundations