AI art steals from the poor and has no place in modern society

In a post-scarcity solarpunk future, I could imagine some reasonable uses, but that’s not the world we’re living in yet.


AI art has already poisoned the creative environment. I commissioned an artist for my latest solarpunk novel, and they used AI without telling me. I had to scrap that illustration. Then the next person I tried to hire claimed they could do the work without AI but in fact they could not.

All that is to say, fuck generative AI and fuck capitalism!

Drewelite ,

So AI is invalidating capitalism because it's showing that people's value shouldn't be tied to what they can produce... And you're mad at that too? It's so weird to me to see people mad that AI is not allowing them to participate in capitalism when they themselves have a dislike for capitalism. Like... I understand the immediate problem is because of AI... but it's highlighting so beautifully the main problem of capitalism. Which is the real problem.

AI is like the climate change of the economy. We all knew automation was coming and would be the death knell for capitalism. But now that it's one or the other, people are choosing capitalism because it's what they know. Even people that are still outspoken anti-capitalist! What we should be fighting for is more open sourced models and AI projects.

stabby_cicada ,

To be fair, people are choosing capitalism because they have to make money, buy food, and pay rent.

Graphic designer, writer, commissioned artist, were jobs people could do entirely online. And a lot of highly online people did one or the other, or have friends who did one or the other, and they see AI as the existential threat to their livelihoods that it, in fact, is.

And I feel for them. I really do. If you bought food and paid rent by making art online - especially if you're neurodivergent or disabled or trapped in an abusive relationship and couldn't hold a normal job - AI tools have destroyed your career. And it sucks. There's no getting around that.

But the core of the problem is not AI. The core of the problem is the lack of a safety net. Some of the enormous profits from the AI boom should be funneled back into society to support the people who are put out of business by the AI boom. But they won't. Because capitalism.

blind3rdeye ,

I largely agree, but I will say that it isn't only about a financial safety net. AI corporations are using huge trawling nets to pull in the work of everyone in the world, and then resell it in a convenient box. The fact that the profits will be unevenly distributed is only one negative side effect. Because just like ocean trawling, the other side effect is that it will leave the ecosystem damaged and diminished.

Note that the comic in this case is Penny Arcade. Those guys are part of the first original wave of web-comics. They are pioneers and veterans. Their regular blog posts are a level-headed contemporary commentary of the state of the internet and of games. The website is amusing, but it is also a good historical document. And although their huge success is largely due to luck of their timing, and perseverance; they have used their success to make great contributions well beyond just the comics. (I'm thinking mostly of their charity "Child's play", and the various PAX gaming expos.) So that's the kind of value we risk losing, even if AI profits are shared 'fairly'.

In the comic, (and in a couple of recent blog posts), they are basically concerned that their work is being used without their permission to train AI to mimic their work, and the work of other artists. Partially this is about money, but it is also about clarity of communication. The comics, and their blog have always been a way of communicating their thoughts and chronicling history. And a flood of low-effort AI replicas can dilute this to a level of pointlessness.

And its a similar situation with all artists, with some artists being far more vulnerable than others. Artists generally are not simply drawing stuff to get paid. They are trying to communicate something about the world. So this isn't only about getting paid for art. It's about being able to contribute meaning. With AI being produced at a rate far far higher than human art, the signal-to-noise ratio will drop sharply.

Drewelite ,

One of the key features of capitalism is that it keeps the masses in service. When we're working to make the CEOs rich we don't have time to rally against them. They make us complicit in the system. It's why they try and pay talent as little as possible. Sometimes the same amount as someone who slacks off all day. Because the longer it takes us to retire the longer we'll be in service to them. Once there's nothing for us to do anymore, my hope is that people will realize that the rich and powerful don't deserve to hold the keys to society. My fear is that corps will slowly transition everyone into mindless drones hitting a "Do my job, AI" button all day and nothing will change.

Drewelite ,

Wholeheartedly agree! I would love for us to seamlessly transition into a society with automated surplus where people never have to worry about how they'll feed themselves. But I have a feeling that the transition will be a lot more rough than that unfortunately. And we're starting to see that now.

ArmokGoB ,

especially if you’re neurodivergent or disabled or trapped in an abusive relationship and couldn’t hold a normal job

I was all three and AI would have let me get the capital to escape one of those things. Too bad people were too busy frothing at the mouth over it when it would have helped me the most.

AVincentInSpace ,

Okay, so the talk show host is supposed to be the comic author. Who is the woman supposed to be?

oatscoop , (edited )
@oatscoop@midwest.social avatar

My guess is the CTO of Chat GPT: Mira Murati. based on a mix of how she's appeared in interviews, including this one with the WSJ.

AngryCommieKender , (edited )

Also that is who she is tagged as in the comic in question.

https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2024/07/01/jobophage

ssj2marx ,

Penny Arcade is still being made

wow.

AngryCommieKender ,

In one of their recent-ish comics they made a jab about it taking on a life of its own and refusing to die.

https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2024/04/05/retromancy

blind3rdeye ,

AI is a lot like plastic:

It is versatile and easy to use. There are some cases for which it is the highest quality product for the job; but for most cases it is just a far cheaper alternative, with bit of a quality reduction.

So what we end up with is plastic being used a lot, to reduce costs and maximise profits; but mostly the products it is used for are worse than they would otherwise be. They look worse. They degrade faster. They produce mountains of waste that end up contaminating every food source of every animal in the world. As a species, we want to use it less; but individual companies and people continue to use it for everything because it is cheap and convenient.

I think AI will be the same. It is relatively cheap and convenient. It can be used for a very wide range of things, and does a pretty good job. But in most cases it is not quite as good as what we were doing before. In any case, AI output will dominate everything we consume because of how cheap and easy it is. News, reviews, social media comments, web searches, all sorts of products... a huge proportion will be AI created - and although we'll wish they weren't (because of the unreliable quality), it will be almost impossible to avoid; because its easier to produce 1000 articles with AI than a single one by a human. So people will churn junk and hope to get lucky rather than putting in work to insure high quality.

For individual people creating stuff, the AI makes it easier and faster and cheaper; and can create good results. But for the world as a whole, we'll end up choking on a mountain of rubbish, as we now have to wade through vastly more low-quality works to find what we're looking for. It will contaminate everything we consume, and we won't be able to get rid of it.

Taleya ,

It's not even the fact it's cheap and easy, it's just a bunch of idiots overinvested and now they're desperately trying to make it A Thing so they can recoup losses.

Mcdonalds tried to shoehorn it into drive thru orders. The place that popularised a set menu you select a a controlled list of items from. Wtaf.

orcrist ,

You come across as anti-tech out of spite. Yes, generative AI is snake oil, but that is a question of scope and power and speculation, not utility of easy to create pictures.

I am so happy with the vast amount of free art available these days. As a blogger, it's easier than ever to find a free topical picture.

DangedIfYouDid ,

"hooray convenience, fuck your livelihood."

Skates ,

"hooray convenience, fuck your livelihood."

This is literally how everyone behaved when bank tellers were replaced by ATMs, when coal diggers were replaced by drills, when daily laborers were replaced by tractors, when Morse code operators were replaced by the telephone, when travel agents were replaced by websites, when warehouses and factories started delivering you your Amazon package in 1 day instead of 5 because they replaced humans with machines...

And now that technology is coming for artists instead of all the other jobs it replaced so far, now you wanna go back to the way things were?

Get with the times. I don't wish this situation upon anyone, it's devastating to see your profession reduced to a few clicks, but it's silly to say "nah, THIS change is crossing the line". Hundreds of millions of people before you lost their job to new tech. Let me know when you hire a town crier instead of whipping out your phone and searching for the news, and I'll hire you for a painting instead of getting AI to apply some paint-like filters on a photo. Until then, I'm sorry but your job is in the process of being rendered obsolete, like so many others before it.

pirrrrrrrr ,

Thing is, without art to train on Gen AI is useless.
So it steals training data, from artists.
Then it steals work from the same artists by using the stolen data.

Tell me, where will the new training data come from when artists are not publishing because they aren't getting work?

If you use Gen AI, it is obvious and makes you look like a no-tallent hack, and a grifter.

AVincentInSpace ,

Yes, generative AI is snake oil, but that is a question of scope and power and speculation, not utility of easy to create pictures.

"Sure, AI can't fully replace human artists, but that's just because the technology hasn't advanced far enough yet."

mojofrododojo ,

I am so happy with the vast amount of free art available these days. As a blogger, it’s easier than ever to find a free topical picture.

dirtbag

Glytch ,

As a blogger

You realize you're next on the AI chopping block, right?

tinkling4938 , (edited )

Most are crap ad mills anyways trying to game SEO. Only interesting ones I've read in the past couple years are technical deep dives where the creators don't even care to put ads on it.

Glytch ,

You're absolutely right, which is why Orcrist here shouldn't be encouraging the use of AI.

orcrist ,

I think that day has long since passed. Blogs don't show up on search results anymore unless you're amazing and lucky, which I'm not. Meh. :-)

Prandom_returns , (edited )

People are still confusing art with output...
Even if llms could generate a 1:1 replica of the Mona Lisa, do people think it's going to have the same value and be held in the same regard?

Generated output is a gimmick that will be used by people who have no intention of making art.

Edited: typos

stabby_cicada ,

Generated output is a gimmick that will be used by people who have no intention of making art.

Without getting into the definition of "art", yes, people will use generated output for purposes other than "art". And that's not a gimmick. That's a valuable tool.

Rally organizers can use AI to create pamphlets and notices for protests. Community organizers can illustrate broadsheets and zines. People can add imagery and interest to all sorts of written material that they wouldn't have the time or money to illustrate with traditional graphic design. AI can make an ad for a yard sale or bake sale look as slick and professional as any big name company's ads.

AI tools will make the world a more artistic place, they will let people put graphic art in all sorts of places they wouldn't have the time or money or skill to do so before, and that's a good thing.

Prandom_returns , (edited )

Sure, my auntie will use a generator instead of paint for her yard sale poster. But we're assuming Llms are going stay free and accessible to all at zero cost. That's just not a reality we live in.

But comparing the current garbage that comes out of llms with "big name company's ads" is purposeful misinformation from a person, who is likely never done graphics design professionally.

"AI" tools will not make the world a more artistic place. Art has never been limited by tools.

I could agree that the generated stuff could make the world slightly more pleasing visually, at the cost of environment.

But easily accessible graphics weren't even the limiting factor. There are many tools online that can help you mock things up in seconds without "AI". Canva, mockups, simple websites that generate decent templates.

It's people's willingness to put in the effort, and comprehension of aesthetics, and IT literacy that are the limiting factors.

Ookami38 ,

Art has always been limited by access. Either to the tools, or to the ability to learn and practice. AI, at least in its current form, with open source models readily available, is only allowing more people to create who never could before. Getting into any art is expensive, both in money and time. Anyone with a half decent rig can get something set up and add a touch of art to their world, and begin to express themselves in SOME way.

Prandom_returns ,

Art has always been limited by access. Either to the tools, or to the ability to learn and practice.

Hard disagree.

AI, at least in its current form, with open source models readily available, is only allowing more people to create who never could before.

So are poeple are doing the creating or the machine? Because even the techbros are saying that it's the machine.

Getting into any art is expensive, both in money and time.

Tell that to the poeple who did cave-paintings

Anyone with a half decent rig can get something set up and add a touch of art to their world, and begin to express themselves in SOME way.

Google "Mona Lisa" and print it out. That's about the same amount of art as entering a prompt and receiving an output.

Ookami38 ,

AI generated art is fundamentally different from printing a reproduction of something that exists 1:1. I'm not interested in going on depth on a technical discussion on AI, anyway. I'd rather discuss the philosophy.

As far as the role of man versus machine, using AI as a tool is more like being a director or composer. You determine the composition. The setting. The subject. The style. Let the machine do the labor of simply outputting, and then you tell it what you don't like about this output.back and forth, until you arrive at whatever finished is. It's as much art as a conductor in a symphony, or a director on a set, simply giving direction to a machine.

The issue that people have, or should have, with AI isn't with AI art, it's with it being shoe horned into everything that can make a buck. Open source generative AI running on my own machine has allowed me to express myself in ways I never could before. The point of art is expression, and regardless of the tools used to create, that output is still an expression of me. More people should have access to tools to express themselves, in whatever way they can.

Prandom_returns ,

As far as the role of man versus machine, using AI as a tool is more like being a director or composer. You determine the composition. The setting. The subject. The style. Let the machine do the labor of simply outputting, and then you tell it what you don't like about this output.back and forth, until you arrive at whatever finished is. It's as much art as a conductor in a symphony, or a director on a set, simply giving direction to a machine.

Now replace "AI" with an artist, and yourself with any mouth-breathing supervisor, that micro-manages artists.

You are employing something to do the art for you.

Amd my fucking god, comparing entering a prompt to a conductor. Techbros really are high on their own farts.

Ookami38 ,

The fact that you think the only thing you're doing is entering a prompt says enough. There's faaaaaaaar more to the process than simply prompting. You clearly don't want to engage with anything other than the strawman you have in your head, so you have fun with that.

cmdr_nova ,
@cmdr_nova@mkultra.monster avatar

@Prandom_returns @Ookami38 The "I use AI as a tool" people are coping the hardest

ArmokGoB ,

If AI tools were more advanced, they would free up resources from small artists that want to make multidisciplinary works, like movies and games. The issue is with capitalism requiring artists to sell their art to put food on their table instead of making art for the craft itself. Point your pitchforks and torches at people supporting capitalism, not the people developing tools that make creation easier.

Prandom_returns ,

Well, they aren't.
Until they are, let's keep the conversation to what they are.

petrol_sniff_king ,

That's great! What's your plan exactly to take down capitalism? I have a month, I bet we could knock this out.

ArmokGoB ,

It's probably pretty similar to your plan to take down "AI."

petrol_sniff_king ,

If there is no plan to take down capitalism, why would I waste any time being upset about it when LLMs are already ruining my news feed.

Maybe I would listen to you if you actually cared about anything you were saying.

ArmokGoB ,

MLMs are coming whether you want them to or not. Only time will tell if they're able to consistently get better. Might as well look at what they can do for people, since they're not going anywhere in the immediate future.

petrol_sniff_king ,

One thing they can do for me is get out of my news feed.
Because I don't want to see this shit.

princessnorah ,
@princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Multi-level marketing?

atrielienz ,

Machine Learning Models, I believe. But yeah. Very confusing use of an acronym there.

probableprotogen ,

Great! Can't wait for all the directionless cashgrabs on steam and AAA Hollywood brainrot to come out faster at the cost of people's jobs!

ArmokGoB ,

Game engines were a mistake because they allow people to make content faster. Back in the 90s people would have had to learn assembly to make a game. Think of all the programmers that lost their jobs.

Big, fat /s

mojofrododojo ,

will be used by people who have no intention of making art.

I think you mean 'people who have no intention of paying for art.'

LainTrain ,

Simmer down Ted Kazynski, AI is good and actually helps the poor and hurts the rich that's why megacorps like the RIAA want to ban it. Open source non profit models run locally that trvialize violating IP and remove gatekeeping from the art industry is the closest thung to socialism we'll ever see.

explodicle ,

Call me an optimist but I think the closest thing to socialism we'll ever see is socialism, not a cool new app.

uriel238 , (edited )
@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Yeah the art community hated desktop publishing too. People who spent decades working with moveable type were made obsolete.

The problem is not that creativity is easier, the problem is our industrialist masters are all too eager to replace us from the artist to the driver to the lawyer to the task laborer to the engineer.

This isn't a new problem. The reason Disney only does CGI and live action movies now is because the cell animators unionized.

It's not the technology. It's the system that lets you die but for the grace of profit-minded industrialists.

With the US on the brink of autocratic rule, it's really time to take seriously the notion of communist revolution.

explodicle ,

IMHO what makes it more appealing now than 20 years ago is the bonkers inequality. We could do a really bad job at socialism and still be better off than we are today. We're just flushing trillions of dollars worth of value down the toilet on pointless nonsense that only like 100 people want.

uriel238 ,
@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

So during the Great Depression (about a century ago) the industrialists were totally happy, and Hoover was on board with them. The people were seriously thinking about doing that thing Lenin was trying over in the Soviet Union, because really anything was better than eating flour paste and living in cardboard and stacked paint cans.

According to Behind the Bastards in their two parter How The Rich Ate Christianity, FDR's New Deal was in order to give capitalism another chance since it really was doing the people wrong, and Hoover and his industrialist pals really hated it.

(Christianity at the time was also on team-pinko, except they believed it was the responsibility of wealth and industry to just be relentlessly charitable, so at the time the industrialists had no allies in the Church. The current right wing guns-and-money Christian Nationalism is the product of a decades long propaganda campaign to turn the faith into a pro-wealth, pro-capitalism ideology. And the Catholic Church and Protestant ministries alike bought into it.)

LainTrain ,

App? Is that really how you lot see tech? Apps on a phone spoonfed you by a corporation? No wonder you fucking hate it lol I would too, it's just sad. I don't use apps or corporate products as I can, that's why I like GenAI, it's pure expression of the socialist politics of open source software.

explodicle ,

No, just the impression I got from what you said. Emphasis on the socialism, not on the computer program.

LainTrain ,

We practice it where we can. Right now IRL is bust, but the internet has been a bustling hive of communal activity for the betterment of all humanity, open source GenAI included.

GenderNeutralBro ,

What happens when AI advances to the point where it can do everything it does today (and more) without using copyrighted training material?

This is inevitable (and in fact some models already use only licensed training data), so I think it's a bad idea to focus so much on this angle. If what you're really worried about is the economic impact, then this is a dead-end argument. By the time any laws pass, it will likely be irrelevant because nobody will be doing that anyway. Or only the big corporations who own the copyrights to a bajillion properties (e.g. Disney) will do it in-house and everyone else will be locked out. That's the exact opposite of what we should be fighting for.

The concept of "art" changes based on technology. I remember when I first starting fiddling with simple paint programs, just scribbling a little shape and using the paint-bucket tool to fill in a gradient blew my mind. Making in image like that 100 years prior would have been a real achievement. Instead of took me a minute of idle experimentation.

Same thing happened with CGI, synthesizers, etc. Is sampling music "art"? Depends what you do with it. AI should be treated the same way. What is the (human) artist actually contributing to the work? This can be quantified.

Typing "cat wearing sunglasses" into Dall-E will give you an image that would have been art if it were made 100 years ago. But any artistry now is limited to the prompt. I can't copyright the concept of a cat wearing sunglasses, so I have no claim to such an image generated from such a simple prompt.

I_Has_A_Hat , (edited )

Every artist complaining about AI art is like John Henry.

If AI is stealing because it's using art in it's learning algorithm, then so is every artist who has studied other artists for inspiration. AI just happens to do it a hell of a lot faster, kind of like how all technology does when it replaces any other form of labor. And while AI art can't compete with the top 0.1% of artists, it can certainly compete with the bottom 99.9%, and it can produce thousands of images in the time it takes an artist to produce 1, which is plenty good enough for most applications.

No. AI art isn't going anywhere. It's too convenient and we're not going to reverse course just to save jobs, something we have never done in the advancement of technology. No one stopped the steam engine driving railroad spikes because they wanted John Henry to keep his job. No one stopped the printing press because they were concerned about scribes. No one stopped the DVD because they were worried about what VRC repair men would do afterwards.

AI art is a tool, and it's here to stay. Adapt or fall victim to the progress of technology. "AI art is sTEaLiNg" is some desperate nonsense that I think even those making it know deep down is BS. It's the only argument being made because all the technical ones about quality, speed, and availability have quickly fallen flat. AI art is higher quality, faster, and more accessible to users than regular art and it's not even a question. So all they have left is "it's theft!" while conveninetly ignoring that it's the same fucking thing they did to learn art, just in a much faster, more optimized way.

"If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; if you have the law on your side, pound the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table." Artists are firmly in the table pounding stage.

stabby_cicada ,

I agree. Times change. Putting people out of work is not inherently a bad thing. How many oil workers and coal miners will be out of work when we ban fossil fuels? How many jobs emptying chamber pots and hauling dung were lost when cities installed sewer systems? Hell, how many taxi drivers were put out of work by Uber, and how many Uber drivers are about to be put out of work by self-driving vehicles? When specialized labor is replaced by technology that can do it faster and cheaper, that's good for society as a whole.

The problem is, society also needs better support for people whose jobs are replaced by technology, and that's something we don't have. The logic of capitalism requires unemployed people to suffer, so workers fear losing their jobs and don't oppose their bosses. OP's comic shouldn't be read as an attack on AI, but as an attack on capitalism.

A_Very_Big_Fan ,

If only we'd replace Uber drivers and taxis with trains and busses -_-

SlothMama ,

You said this very well. It's no more stealing than you looking at a piece of art and remembering details, and producing output from that input no more immoral.

It's clearly necessary to have the broadest possible training data in order to be useful at all. If it isn't familiar with Spider-Man it can't create art depicting an accurate representation of him.

If anything I'm proud of the pioneers ignoring the legal implications and pushing forward, instead of letting copyright limit what AI understands.

Every single picture on the Internet, ever created, unless specifically licensed Creative Commons or equivalent via licensing has an implicit copyright. AI art is impossible under international copyright framework at written, so thank God they ignored the insanity of intellectual property fuckery the US has imposed on the world.

ClamDrinker , (edited )

Yeah I can't look at artists with zero nuance for AI as anything but being hypocritical. Most artists I know from the industry understand that legally they have no case against these companies because they use the same fundamental freedoms and ideas extracted from the collective human creativity they themselves used to get where they are. And art and creative studies explicitly teach you this. You will spend a lot of time analyzing great works to see what makes them so special, and replicating those ideas as practice.

It's how it's been since forever, and many great artists in history are on record as having directly studied, imitated, or producing homages of other great artists. The Mona Lisa is the best example, it has uncountable derivative works, but nobody questions the ethics of that because we accept even works directly based on another have room for creative input that can make it distinct. And nobody is claiming to have made the original, just their own version.

Hiding or downplaying those facts about the creative industry so you can call AI theft without being a hypocrite is very questionable behaviour, especially since it's often used to convince people that don't know much about the creative process and can't properly realize their ignorance is being taken advantage of to condition them these aren't just a normal part of becoming a better artist. And if pressed on that, the response is usually "but it's okay if a human does it.", admitting that the point was intentionally misrepresented to not hint people in on the fact the AI is doing the same as the human, and not explicit copyright infringement akin to real theft.

You can still not like AI or argue to provide better protections for people displaced by AI, I honestly partially agree. The technology needs to remain something in the hands of the working people that contribute to the collective, not gated behind proprietary services built to extort you. But arguing against AI on a level of theft or plagiarism (barring situations where the person using the AI intends to do exactly that) is just incredibly disingenuous and makes allies not want to associate with you because you're just spouting falsehoods for personal gain. Even if I think you deserve all the help in the world, you're asking me to accept and propagate a lie to support you, I will not do that.

And there's the flipside. Limiting those freedoms in a way that AI would be outlawed or constrained would most likely cause unintentional side effects that can blow up in artist's faces, limiting not only their freedoms but also the freedoms of artists that embrace AI and use it as the tool it's meant to be. And you bet your ass that companies like Disney are just salivating at the idea of amending copyright law once more.

Nelots ,
@Nelots@lemm.ee avatar

AI art has a very real place in current society. It's very useful, and is absolutely going to get better and become a normal part of the future. We're not going to avoid it, so we should work on making AI less morally fucked. The technology isn't the problem, the people behind it are. Rather than stealing art, the multi-million/billion-dollar companies behind these models need to pay artists for every single piece of art they use in their models.

Reddfugee42 ,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/9502fa5b-c7c9-4b52-be4a-7236dfc37d8a.jpeg

TheReturnOfPEB ,

That guy was a fucking asshole and horrible person.

But yeah he draw good; let him lead.

Reddfugee42 ,

I only take artistic advice from perfect humans myself

errer ,

Is this what Penny Arcade looks like nowadays? Man I really dislike the shift in art style…Tycho looks grotesque

Devcatdan ,

Haven't seen a penny arcade comics in like 15 years. Gotta say, the art style has suffered. Tycho looks like he has hydrocephaly

stabby_cicada ,

It may have suffered, but it's distinctive.

The webcomic space is flooded with generic "good art". If you want to stand out and build or maintain your brand - you need a unique look. Artists want their audience to be able to look at a character and instantly know they drew it.

(The best example of this is perhaps the worst human being in webcomics today. You can recognize his style in the first three lines of a face.)

I think PA was in kind of a bad place, because they were popular so early in the webcomic boom and so many people copied their style that their original art became generic. What's going to attract a new teenage reader to PA if it looks just like every other crappy "two guys on a couch playing video games" webcomic they've seen?

So PA had to change their style. And say what you will about it, there's no doubt who drew (or had an AI tool draw) those characters.

pantyhosewimp ,

I stopped reading this comic back in the mid 00s because they didn’t read the Wikipedia editing guidelines, and they got scolded when they edited things incorrectly, so they tried turning their audience into getting revenge on Wikipedia somehow.

Duamerthrax ,

I feel like I could cut glass with his chins. I stopped reading ages ago as well, so when I found myself back on their site for some reason, it was pretty shocking.

ex_06 Mod , (edited )
@ex_06@slrpnk.net avatar

the first rule of the server is to be constructive, you may want to keep that in mind when posting

control of ai by capital is bad, we all know that on this server; what are the next steps then? this is what solarpunks should ask themselves (first of all they -artists- prob need to unionize their workplace, for those not freelance, to ensure their jobs)

also those artists who used ai without telling you just want to get by their lives and are costrained by the system as you and as me

ICastFist ,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

-artists- prob need to unionize their workplace

You'll have an easier time unionizing programmers. I don't mean that as snark, because most visual art can be very easily outsourced, whether it's 2D or 3D. People with audio arts are even more fucked, thanks in no small part to record labels.

I wish I had an idea to start fixing this

ex_06 Mod ,
@ex_06@slrpnk.net avatar

You'll have an easier time unionizing programmers

Ye I’ve been since the start until some months ago in the Italian chapter of tech workers coalition because of this :P

I wish I had an idea to start fixing this

I do have ideas but the thing is that almost no one can fully save other people. Like the unionizing thing: we tried to unionize from outside but just doesn’t work if people inside don’t hammer everyday. We can think about cooperative models but even if we start a coop people will have to jump in your ship they can’t just keep the comfort of the status quo

It’s hard but my protip is that everyone should first acknowledge every kind of own power in their own life. Then think how to use it. For example I don’t have much but I happen to have some rural land. I’ll probably make a community space out of it but first I need to ensure myself some other basic survival power lol (basically, I want to go back to studying to then have a useful job for the society I envision)

aaaaace ,

Tax all AI companies to fund UBI.

If we had representation...

explodicle ,

"Ummm then we're not an AI company"

Land Value Taxes are better for this in literally every way.

aaaaace ,

I like my idea because it will discourage greedy wasteful destructive nonsense and at least get something for public benefit.

Unlike extraction enterprises.

Money is what they listen to and worship. That's where it hurts.

explodicle , (edited )

If we want to address all of those, then we'll need higher pollution taxes too. Going after only one abstract category of greed will encourage them to bullshit it into another category.

uriel238 ,
@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

You know it is curious that the common folk bear the tax burden while getting no representation and thr ownership class gets allnthe representation but evades taxes.

This echoes something I learned in history way back when we were occupied and had to contend with monarchs. Funny Numbers Or Fight!, Better Dead Than Red! Fuck Off With Your Stompy Jackboots! and such.

ArmokGoB ,

Tax all AI companies to fund UBI.

FTFY

SleezyDizasta ,

Andrew Yang should've been president

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