the most frustrating thing about AI Art from a Discourse perspective is that the actual violation involved is pretty nebulous
like, the guys "laundering" specific artists' styles through AI models to mimic them for profit know exactly what they're doing, and it's extremely gross
but we cannot establish "my work was scraped from the public internet and used as part of a dataset for teaching a program what a painting of a tree looks like, without anyone asking or paying me" as, legally, Theft with a capital T. not only is this DMCA Logic which would be a nightmare for 99% of artists if enforced to its conclusion, it's not the right word for what's happening
the actual Violation here is that previously, "I can post my artwork to share with others for free, with minimal risk" was a safe assumption, which created a pretty generous culture of sharing artwork online. most (noteworthy) potential abuses of this digital commons were straightforwardly plagiarism in a way anyone could understand
but the way that generative AI uses its training data is significantly more complicated - there is a clear violation of trust involved, and often malicious intent, but most of the common arguments used to describe this fall short and end up in worse territory
by which I mean, it's hard to put forward an actual moral/legal solution unless you're willing to argue:
Potential sales "lost" count as Theft (so you should in fact stop sharing your Netflix password)
No amount of alteration makes it acceptable to use someone else's art in the production of other art without permission and/or compensation (this would kill entire artistic mediums and benefit nobody but Disney)
Art Styles should be considered Intellectual Property in an enforceable way (impossibly bad, are you kidding me)
it's extremely annoying to talk about, because you'll see people straight up gloating about their Intent To Plagiarize, but it's hard to stick them with any specific crime beyond Generally Scummy Behavior unless you want to create some truly horrible precedents and usher in The Thousand Year Reign of Intellectual Property Law
okay so a ceasefire will happen soon, inshallah, but i just know the second it does, most of y'all will pack it up and go home. the world has proven time and time again that the second the violence "stops", then everyone forgets about us and then we just go back to suffering under the israeli occupation. you guys need to promise us, promise every single palestinian child in the world right now, that you will not stop fighting. that you will continue boycotting, you will continue protesting, you will continue disrupting the world until palestine is free. and then we'll do it again. and again and again and again and again. for sudan, for the congo, for everyone who is suffering right now.
you guys cant keep leaving us and forgetting about us once you've done "your part". it always happens, and we always go back to suffering. you need to stand with us until palestine is completely free. until we have our land back, until we can rebuild our homes, until we can drink clean water and breathe clean air, until our children grow up never having to face a horror like the nakba ever again. you need to stay fighting until we are all free forever.
my negative rizz loser boy who you’d think was combatting the sirens’ song by completely killing the vibe but was actually just trying to sing along with them because he’s a ✨fanboy✨
to any americans who feel "paralyzed" and "dont know what to do" to help with gaza:
reading a fucking book. i beg of you.
in a time of knowledge suppression is it your duty to arm yourself with knowledge.
read about americas occupations in the middle east.
read about 9/11 from outside of america and see how they inflicted senseless harm and violence to countless amounts of people and have been suppressing your rights for the past 2 fucking decades.
read about any of the countless wars from the past 30 years. especially from a civilian's. and the victims and survivors' perspective. listen to the horror stories and do not plug your fucking ears as to what your country is doing.
and read about fucking gaza and palestine and keep up with what is happening no matter how "sad" or "uncountable" you might get.
dont look away from this.
you dont have the right to be comfortable during countless active genocides.
if you're knowledgeable, you're powerful, and our current state doesnt fucking want that.
you have the power to change things if you open your eyes and scream to the world.
wake the fuck up.
Edit: please check the reblogs there are readings and ways to help
Shocked how many people think you can just turn on a computer and leave it on for weeks or months or years and never turn it off and it'll be fine. Computers need their sleep, and sleep mode does not count