#ai art steals the shit out of stuff for... what?

[jadedaegis]

I have a guilty pleasure similar to jpeg mutilation where I produce various intriguingly bizarre approximations of what happens when a robot mixes sans, peter griffin, spongebob, and timmy turner (insert various things I like) being able to see "sans undertale 2005 security camera" or make him into a monster hunter giant enemy crab is just fun sometimes

Related

[jadedaegis]

SO LIKE

I have to say... I have a supremely guilty pleasure in taking A.I. and beating it over the head with batshit esoteric nonsense until it gives me results like this. LIKE ＦＵＣＫ ＡＩ. but like sometimes I wanna push it I miss the neural network ganBreeder AI stuff...

[greyedian]

oh my god I was thinking about a jayvik fallout new vegas AU and was like "hm maybe Viktor uploads himself into one of those robots until he can get a different body by like repurposing power armor or something idk" and then I remembered that this guy's name actually is Victor

[sim-berry]

I'm Tired.

I totally get why many simblrs don't want to name and shame and want to avoid drama, but I'm not one of those simblrs. If I see some bs I'm going to call it out. I only have a few followers (who are lovely and sweet) anyway, so it's not like I'll get a crusade against me. So that's exactly what I'm gonna do, because I'm pissed right now.

I know I don't have a big blog so it's unlikely many will see this, but if you do, please reblog it. Spread the word about creators who have stolen content so that people can stop downloading their cc and supporting them.

One of my favorite creators, Toys of Dukeness, has just deleted all their poses from Patreon and stated that they are leaving the Sims community. Their poses have been STOLEN by other "creators" who have locked them behind paywalls. Keep in mind Toys gives their poses out FOR FREE and they've been STOLEN and put behind paywalls! They're making money off of shit that isn't even theirs! How disgusting is that?? And now they don't even feel welcome in the community that they've given so much to.

And it's funny because I just saw a post from the amazing @simmireen (who makes many of my favorite poses) calling out THE SAME CREATOR for stealing their poses!! Simmireen's poses are stunning and she is kind enough to give them out for free, and she's had her hard work ripped off by an early access paywaller. The same one who drove Toys out of this community: simsulani.

This is a screenshot taken from Toys of Dukeness's post (read the whole thing here) that specifically calls out two of the thieves:

If this keeps happening, more of our wonderful cc creators are going to leave simblr. And I don't blame them one bit. Why put hours, sometimes days, of work into creating content when it's just going to be stolen and profited off of by someone else?

And when those creators do eventually leave, do you know what we'll be left with? Scummy perma-paywallers and early access creators who use minority groups to make money. (As a member of the LGBT I can't tell you how fucking sick I am of seeing "Pride Month Collection- Available to the public on June 30th🥰")

We can't let that happen. We need to support and show love to the creators who allow us to have beautiful cc and amazing poses in our games. I can tell you right now my stories would be nothing without simmireen's and Toys' poses. And they aren't the only creators who have had their cc stolen. We're on here about AI stealing art all the time (which is a totally valid argument, don't get me wrong), meanwhile actual humans, fellow simmers, are stealing content right under our noses, right this moment.

I am TIRED of this. Our content creators are being driven off this site and out of the community entirely because their work is being stolen. Storytellers, including myself, have also had their storylines stolen. I once saw someone take my entire NSB Gen 2 storyline, with even the quotes being copied and pasted! If you don't have creativity, then don't make content, that's okay. What's not okay is STEALING from people who have worked hard on their craft, ESPECIALLY if you're making money off of the stuff you stole.

Again, please reblog if you can. And feel free to share some REPUTABLE creators so simmers know who to download from rather than the thieves. They're the ones who need to be driven out, not the hardworking creators. And anyone who is afraid to vent about this on main can come into my anon and rant all they want. We as a community need to stop this.

-Coco xoxo

[evilwizard]

I do want to say, my views on AI “art” have changed somewhat. It was wrong of me to claim that it’s not wrong to use it in shitposts… there definitely is some degree of something problematic there.

Personally I feel like it’s one of those problems that’s best solved via lawmaking—specifically, AI generations shouldn’t be copywrite-able, and AI companies should be fined for art theft and “plagiarism”… even though it’s not directly plagiarism in the current legal sense. We definitely need ethical philosophers and lawmakers to spend some time defining exactly what is going on here.

But for civilians, using AI art is bad in the same nebulous sense that buying clothes from H&M or ordering stuff on Amazon is bad… it’s a very spread out, far away kind of badness, which makes it hard to quantify. And there’s no denying that in certain contexts, when applied in certain ways (with actual editing and artistic skill), AI can be a really interesting tool for artists and writers. Which again runs into the copywrite-ability thing. How much distance must be placed between the artist and the AI-generated inspiration in order to allow the artist to say “this work is fully mine?”

I can’t claim to know the answers to these issues. But I will say two things:

Ignoring AI shit isn’t going to make it go away. Our tumblr philosophy is wildly unpopular in the real world and most other places on the internet, and those who do start using AI are unfortunately gonna have a big leg up on those who don’t, especially as it gets better and better at avoiding human detection.

Treating AI as a fundamental, ontological evil is going to prevent us from having these deep conversations which are necessary for us—as a part of society—to figure out the ways to censure AI that are actually helpful to artists. We need strong unions making permanent deals now, we need laws in place that regulate AI use and the replacement of humans, and we need to get this technology out of the hands of huge megacorporations who want nothing more than to profit off our suffering.

I’ve seen the research. I knew AI was going to big years ago, and right now I know that it’s just going to get bigger. Nearly every job is in danger. We need to interact with this issue—sooner rather than later—or we risk losing all of our futures. And unfortunately, just as with many other things under capitalism, for the time being I think we have to allow some concessions. The issue is not 100% black or white. Certainly a dark, stormy grey of some sort.

But please don’t attack middle-aged cat-owners playing around with AI filters. Start a dialogue about the spectrum of morality present in every use of AI—from the good (recognizing cancer cells years in advance, finding awesome new metamaterials) to the bad (megacorporations replacing workers and stealing from artists) to the kinda ambiguous (shitposts, app filter that makes your dog look like a 16th century British royal for some reason).

And if you disagree with me, please don’t be hateful about it. I fully recognize that my current views might be wrong. I’m not a paragon of moral philosophy or anything. I’m just doing my best to live my life in a way that improves the world instead of detracting from it. That’s all any of us can do, in my opinion.

[papenniesandbentoboxes]

So the whole Instagram drama has been people using AI art for Clue Crew content, and three groups of people. Those who make it/openly support it, those who are vocally against it, and fence-sitters who like the occasional post while saying they're anti ai (which... besties... not a good look...). The discourse has been there for a while (however, one of the AI-user accounts deleted all their AI content and said they won't make anymore, so that's good), but only today did it blow up when the HeR Interactive account accepted a collab post with an AI artist who "made" "hyper-realistic versions of the games" with ChatGPT.

At the moment, the post has 688 likes and 92 comments, most of which are criticism. I myself have participated in the criticism.

After receiving an overwhelming number of people telling the creator about how AI sucks, he pinned this comment.

He even got into a little argument with me over this.

As you can see, when he challenged me with the burden of proof, I did a 5 minute Google search, read some articles, and put them in a comment. No, I did not use Google AI or use ChatGPT to find them. I used a fucking searched and used my fucking brain. And were these the only articles? No, there's TONS of articles like this. These were only two that I found, one on the art theft and one on the environmental costs.

The worst part of this is that it's a post HeR Interactive shared. By sharing this, they've basically said that they're okay with AI art being used as a general thing. I know Brighella (or was it Indy?) has said something along the lines of HeR not using AI in the games, but even just this post isn't okay. Generative AI is still sucking up obscene amounts of water, devastating communities, and stealing from artists. To see a company that I've been invested in low-key support AI art is gross.

Anyway. We're not going to shut up about this. I want HeR to take that post down or acknowledge their stance on generative AI.

UPDATE: As I am writing this post, he comments this to a reply that wasn't even to him.

Is it bullying to post article links to people who support generative AI so they can educate themselves? Unclear.

Also, the guy is an actual artist. He can create shit. He just chooses not to. Also his profile picture? That's an AI image of what he thinks he would look like as a concept art for a Nancy Drew character. He could have just made this stuff with his skills but no. Had to die on the "AI is cool" hill.

If you want to go to the post and see the comments, go ahead. Just don't threaten or harass him or anything on my behalf. If you want to respectfully call him out or provide more information on why AI is shit, please do that then. I'm kinda expecting my comments to be deleted or my account to be blocked but oh well. Onto better things.

[dicklessthewonderclown]

What was the moment that made you fully go “Oh fuck Generative AI is dangerous”

Because everyone has their moment when they realize there is no place at all for Generative AI if we want a good future

so there were a couple different things. i think it was summer of 2023, there was a whole thing about chat gpt being able write a stony omegaverse fic, and i remember going “oh- so they probably stole fanfic, i don’t fuck with that shit.” and it wasn’t really something that came up for a while, but like at family events and shit when inevitably i get asked about tech stuff bc i’m the oldest nephew/grandkid/cousin, i’d be like “yeah no they’re probably stealing shit and also fuck you i write my own shit thank you very much”

at some point last year when character ai started to get a lot more popular (or maybe i was just seeing more stuff about it), i just got the vibe that this was going to go downhill very fast

there was also the thing with open ai using scarlett johansson’s voice, and at that point i started to be a lot more concerned about the ethical issues surrounding ai

but then last semester i took a 7ish week seminar on gaston bachelard’s the poetics of space (written in i think the 50s, a difficult but super enjoyable read), and in the introduction he wad talking about poetic images and humanity and stuff, and then i started thinking about generative ai more. and i ended up writing my final paper for the class on art as something fundamentally human, and the experience of experiencing art as both something unique to the individual and also as something shared by virtue of the human condition. and one of the reasons i picked this topic was so i could be like “yeah no keep generative ai the fuck out of art, it’s stripping the humanity out of something inherently human,” and now here we are

also towards the end of the class was when suchir balaji, the guy who blew the whistle on open ai’s copyright infringement “killed himself” a couple days later (you know, like whistleblowers are wont to do /s), and at that point i was like “yeah no this is significantly more unethical than most people are talking about”

and while there are absolutely so many environmental issues with generative ai, my dislike and distrust of it has always come from the place of a writer, of someone who’s been in creative spaces for the vast majority of my life, as a humanities (specifically liberal arts/philosophy) major, as someone who has been a massive reader their entire life, and as someone who has a lot of Feelings about art and storytelling as something inherent to the human condition, a representation of human emption and creativity, and ultimately our desire to be understood in our humanity

i’ve also always loved sci fi, shit like i, robot and do androids dream of electric sheep? (the book that blade runner was based on). i have so other sci fi books about ai on my tbr, but if anyone has any recommendations, please (!!) send them my way (next up is i have no mouth but i must scream). i also recently got a bunch of books about ai, and like its relation to humanity as well as ethics shit, which i’m also very excited about (shout out thrift books!!). i just finished unmasking ai by dr joy buolamwini, which is about her work and research in ai development, specifically what she calls the ‘coded gaze,’ which is the racist and sexist algorithmic biases in facial recognition technology, and some ethical issues that come up with training. i can’t recommend it enough. another good rec about ai is bury your gays by chuck tingle, which is another fucking masterpiece

my god do i love yapping. and i’ll do it at the slightest provocation (this is a threat)

[cervinelich]

To my artist friends thinking of leaving Tumblr:

1. The truth is, your art was probably already scraped. AI models did not ask permission before large-scale scraping, there is no reason to believe this partnership means anything that wasn't already happening.

2. If you delete your blog or your posts, they already exist in all of the reblogs and chances are the opt-out function doesn't extend to other people not opting out who have reblogged your art.

What does this mean? Are things just hopeless?

Well... for artists on social media it seems like jumping from platform to platform just isn't really going to change how tech companies are all too eager to lie, cheat and steal from real artists.

What I am planning to do is go through and re-upload all of my art after it has been glazed and nightshaded and I think everyone else should do the same. At this point our biggest weapon is poisoning their programs until they are too expensive or unprofitable to maintain, imo.

That and make sure you yourself are not supporting people spreading stolen content as much as possible. Reposters, AI prompters, and hell... work on a plan to stop using stuff like Spotify that is no longer paying small artists.

I understand the panic going on right now, but the sad truth is that damage has likely already been done.

We NEED to stop giving undeserving pieces of shit our money and go back to our punk roots. Piracy, DIY, community building, malicious non-compliance and supporting artists directly.

💜 💜

[tawked]

Fondly remembering the time my grandpa was looking through some of my comics.

He opens up Blacksad and immediately compliments the art. I tell him I have a friend who draws stuff like that and that she's pretty talented (I do not tell him what "a furry artist" is). He's impressed. He asks me how art like that is made.

I tell him that I don't know, but that my friend uses uses a computer, a stylus, Photoshop, blah blah blah, and that I think Juanjo Guarnido, the artist of Blacksad, probably does the same.

But I'm not an artist so I'm not sure.

He looks disappointed.

"Oh. So it's not real art."

He thought that this was made by just telling a computer what to do, like, say... putting a prompt into an AI art generator lol. That ended his interest and appreciation for the art itself until I pulled out my own tablet showed him how an art app works. That clicked him back over into seeing the art as the culmination of skills he can't even fully understand, and he came away from it appreciating the art more.

My grandpa has now read Blacksad, Grandville and a shitload of Carl Banks / Don Rosa Uncle Scooge, Jeff Smith's Bone, yadda yadda. He likes furry comics lol, and has a lot of appreciation for the art. Every time I see him he starts a conversation about it, usually in the form of, "can you put more comics on my tablet."

Sidenote: he does not like superheroes because he thinks they're "for children," but somehow Bone and Uncle Scrooge are literature lol. I also have a fun anecdote about him wanting to email Art Spiegelman but now is not the time.

So, I think a big part of art for laypeople like myself and my grandpa is looking at something you yourself could not make, and appreciating the obvious skill and effort that went into making it. Look at how the fabric folds and forms on John's shirt in the third panel. This shit is fucking NASA to me but I think any non-idiot can appreciate that that the simplicity of what we see is hiding layers of complexity, suggestive of incredible work and dedication.

That's a big part of what art appreciation is, and every time I find out a picture I like was made by just putting words into a theft device that steals other peoples' effort, bro it's the most disappointing thing lol.

Like credit to the artists who put incredible effort into creating the things that are stolen and mosaic'd together, sometimes that's interesting, but the lack of intentionality in an AI generated image just makes the whole thing boring. There's no layer of effort or decision on the part of the artist to pull apart and dissect, because there is no artist.

Anyway, the moral of this post is that my grandpa is really into furry comics and likes silly little animal fellas.

[abacus-jpg]

Anyone else not understand why people are moving to cara. Like I understand it’s because ai and shit,, but like. What confuses me is as long as your art is on the internet, aslong as you chose to post your art online anywhere, doesn’t matter where, it is prone to being stolen by ai. To me ai is nothing more then when people trace your art and call it their own. Ofc I don’t want people to do it, but ultimately that will not stop them. I do have a cara account, I was the first to claim abacus. When I tried posting there a few times I’ve been met with an error message, alongside that the app is really buggy and slow. I don’t see why people feel the need to come up with new apps to post art on when you could just use tumblr, but then the argument with tumblr is that there’s no engagement. But if we all flock to tumblr like people are flocking to cara then I don’t see why engagement would be such a big issue. Even then, if engagement is your main concern with your art I feel like you should reevaluate why you are pursuing art in the first place. I had this struggle ages ago where I didn’t feel my art was worth anything because I couldn’t cap 10 likes. But I realized, my art is for me. I’m the one that should be enjoying it, and my reason for posting now is for other people to enjoy it, so if they don’t,, I really don’t care all the much. I understand it is really detouring to post ocs and to have zero engagement, but that’s just the way art is. Unless you are producing fanart consistently of shit that is made into content farms, I really don’t see how you can garner a following just doing ocs. That’s why, doing art for your own sake is more important than trying to please everyone. I can guarantee there’s atleast one stranger on the internet that will fw your stuff the way you want. And the more you post, the more the number will grow. Most of the time it’s gradual, but one goes to two, two goes to three. And maybe you’ll only get one or two. But the important thing is, there’s someone. If you feel like you have no one, remember your art is for yourself. You’ll always have one, even if that is yourself. This might all seem contradictive. But trust, only you matter when it comes to your own artwork.

This “speech”, if you can call it that, isn’t to deter people from drawing and posting their ocs. This is just to say, engagement shouldn’t matter. As long as you’re happy, that’s all the matters. Post and draw what you want aslong as it’s not straight ripping from someone else. Idc.

This whole thing was supposed to be abt Cara but it turned into a uhh,, Ted talk of sorts. I’m not saying people shouldn’t use cara, if it works for them then by all means go for it. But personally I will not be making it my main form of social media. In my opinion, it’ll be like that other art app people were using for a week before they forgot abt it, I forget the name of it but I remember the interface was a light pink, similar to Instagram,, but somehow worse.

IM GONNA SPECIFY THAT I DONT CONDONE AI STEALING PEOPLES ART EITHER,, just putting that out there because some people have a way of misunderstanding or misinterpretating things. Which is okay!! Because some people genuinely get confused and that’s alright. But like please don’t use so first handedly. With that being said, I’m just a nobody on the internet so why would you listen to me,, you won’t. But i uhh,, am gonna put that there anyways

Thanks if you read allat,, idk why you would but that’s anyways I guess😭😭😭

[nebula-remnants]

HEY So, quick side note i've decided to restrict availability to anything on ao3 IM in charge of posting because of the ai scrapping issue (I got spooked so this was a little last minute.)

if you aren't a registered user or logged into your account you won't have access to the stuff posted there. I was also planning (waiting for confirmation from writing buddy) to post the next chapter of Saddle up homos real soon, and i'm aware actually GETTING an account can take a week or more because you get put on a waitlist.

IF YOU ASK IN DMS IM VERY WILLING TO SEND YOU WHATEVER'S PUBLIC IF YOU EITHER CAN'T MAKE AN ACCOUNT FOR WHATEVER REASON OR DON'T FEEL LIKE WAITING

also aware I don't have a very big presence in the writing part of this community yet but, I may as well give out the options just In case.

(I won't go into a major tangent about AI because everything i've said has already been said, and mostly i'm just tired of having to limit and restrict myself just to make sure my art doesn't get stolen. Art theft was ALREADY an issue- but now we've just made it easier for any asshole to just stroll over and collect a massive amount of art from REAL people with REAL passion and a thought that PROVOKED that passion in the first place, steal it, then have a computer shit out some crappy attempt to mimic what it means to be human.)

[aldisobey]

20 Questions for Fanfic Writers

I was tagged by the ever delightful @holdingontojupiter I’m cleaning out the confessional for you, hiding away whatever happened in there. Maybe keeping a souvenir.

Alright. I started fic writing and fandom past Dec. Still feel new. I had like, one forum of friends I wrote stories with for a year and it’s been solitude beyond, this is absolutely delightful. If you were tagged for this post I wanna seeeeee but no pressure. I felt like adding tags in a fun way. If you’re tagged you’ve inspired or helped me in some way thank you.

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

8 - though they’re all quite small I think Foolproof will end up being my first completed ‘story’

2) What’s your AO3 word count?

24,093 - sweet that’s more than I expected

3) What are your top five fics by Kudos?

Nascent Blight

Fuel to Fire

Weeping Hole

Fading Out

Rituals

4) What fandoms do you write for?

Dragon Age: The Veilguard right now. Maybe I’ll explore BG3 or D&D stuff at some point? I don’t know. An idea really needs to hook me.

5) Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

YES. Okay it takes me some time but that’s because I have to dig myself out of the grave first. If I have a bad day I’m reading the comments. If writing won’t flow? Comments. Brain starts telling me I can’t write? Comments. I must respond. They’ve given me more than they know.

6) What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I love angst. Nascent Blight is still the angstiest I think. Any in Volkarin’s Beloved is usually angsty

7) What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

My magnum opus Weeping Hole

8) Do you get hate on fics?

Nope! Not that I’ve seen.

9) Do you write smut?

I have! And I do. I’m in my apprenticeship. I study @razildor and @thepalehorsevictoria I’m hoping to make it to journeyman with my next release. Hello lovelies. @heylittleriotact you already know I devour your stuff to learn this art you’ve mastered. AND YOU @ollypopwrites almost got me buying gold how DARE I am an anarchist, goooold??? No. Aureate my sinful pleasure. I don’t need finery DAMN IT.

10) Do you write crossovers?

I do not. Or have not. I don’t know if that’ll ever interest me. @jainydoe has me wanting to put Emmrich with a vampire somewhere…no…Hannibal. They should have dinner.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No. But look. I own nothing. What is mine is yours. What I release is for anyone. Everyone. Not minors. What they gonna pretend they wrote it? Lmao cool do it again. Do it for me if you will. Steal my fic spread it far and wide to more people. I support crime. Fuck ai though. You do that shit you’re dead to me. Mostly I’d be sad of stealing because I wanna talk and talk and talk about everything.

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope! That’d be sick, translating must be hard af

13) Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Nope. But Weeping Hole and Foolproof wouldn’t exist without my producer and Emmrich behavioral consultant @emmg thanks for letting me workshop in our shared space lover. I need you to you know you changed my life for the better when you engaged with Nascent Blight. So many stories on this site because of you, what a shining star, a beacon. You are Worne’s father bless.

14) What’s your all-time favorite ship?

HANNIGRAM I just love Hannibal. I love Mads.

15) What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Hmmmm. I believe in my current wips. The want to finish keeps them, if I have enough content for wip there is hope. I want to write a chode fic like @lavenderprose now. But Maggie. I. You. ~Lavender- I’m singing and I want it to be your voice. Thank your lucky stars I can’t go visit Ursula down in the deep to swap.

16) What are your writing strengths?

Ooof. I legitimately don’t know how to answer this. I don’t see myself clear, mic to my love, my beloved, @caffeinatedmunchkin ~you raise me up~. She speaks my strengths to me so I can keep on digging. She said I can write stuff you can see and feel. Thank you kisses forever. “neatest tightest snappiest prose” bless you and all your words. I want to put you on my will.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

Actually getting words down for one. But I’m getting better at that. And I think I overuse some phrases or words. Maybe I could use more detail and more in the head stuff. But really I want to get better at getting stuff written before I start languishing over my style lol.

18) Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

If the fic needs it, the fic will get it. I’m not going to add it just to have it? I’ll never avoid it if it would be natural to have the dialogue in another language. It’d slow me down though because I’d be obsessive with making sure it’s right and I’m a one language having knowing yank. I despair. I’d move to a land of language if I could.

19) First fandom you wrote for?

I’m going to say Call of the Wild because it made me write wolves on neopets loool. Technically Dragon Age. You know the first RP forum I joined was for the Inheritance Cycle. But being here feels like my first foray into ‘fandom’.

20) Favorite fic you’ve written?

It’s gonna be Foolproof I’m having the time of my life. Emmrich having to deal with Worne as a bodyguard is way too much fun for me. Don’t worry Professor you’re gonna love him. @by-ilmater thank you for that idea friend. I think it’s going the distance.

——————

And that’s all for now! you know me I could talk forever but I love you all and I love even the folks I haven’t engaged with. 🧡 share stories 🧡 share art 🧡 @mistressandry see tagging you as well because I enjoyed reading brushes with death last night! Yell at me in messages, at me whatever, writing is survival for me. I’m going to do my best to disappear and finish my chapter.

[pup-void]

Random rant about Fandom stuff because I'm annoyed.

I keep seeing people posting ai generated art and fics on ao3, and I'm frankly disgusted. What even is the point? Fan art and fanfic is supposed to be you putting your all into your passions. Not just churning out random slop for people. I don't want to read some shitty cliché fic written by a robot. I saw one today that was tagged "ai generated with help of a creative mind" or some stupid shit like that. No you're not creative. You're halfway thinking of an idea and having a computer burn down a tree to make it for you. And it's maybe maaaybe half as good as if a real passionate person made it. I'm not a good writer but I'm half tempted to steal the basic plot from those fics and write them myself. Fuck ai nonsense. Also the fact this is in the star trek fandom disgusts me further. Season 2 episode 24 star trek tos did we learn nothing from that episode?

[stairset]

Aight now that I've slept a bit and am less tired and have had some time to think about it, here is my hopefully coherent enough attempt to get my thoughts across on the Degenerate video, because I'm The Starset Guy and this is like the first major controversy they've ever had and even I have concerns about it and thus feel the need to get my thoughts out there. Cut-off for those who don't wanna scroll past all this cause it ended up being kinda long:

So first off just to get it out of the way: the song itself is great, as is to be expected with Starset. Vocals great, lyrics great, etc. No surprises there. Now to the actually controversial part, the music video. If you even wanna call it a music video, the video title calls it a visualizer instead but whatever. Semantics. Not the point.

So yeah, to start, I'm not exactly a fan of AI "art" for well, all the reasons everyone else has already brought up about it. But as other people have pointed out, in the case of this video there ARE some nuances to its usage that are worth discussing before jumping the gun and canceling the band. So first I'm actually gonna defend it a bit by going over the artistic intention behind it, then also point out the reasonable concerns that people have with it in spite of that intention.

So, I know this band. I know the lore and the narrative and the central themes and all that. The band's story centers around how technology shouldn't be abused by greedy corporate shitheads lest it ruin our society. Literally just a few months ago they released a book where the main antagonist was an AI that gained sentience and tried to enslave humanity. I'm not parasocial enough to pretend that I Know Dustin, but I know what he's about. And he's smart enough that I have to believe he didn't just make a move like this for no reason with no self-awareness. So yeah, I 100% get what the intent is here. As Dustin has said and others have repeated, the AI usage is clearly meant to be "ironic" and satirical, which becomes pretty clear when you actually watch the full video. Essentially it's using AI imagery to make fun of AI images. Real "I used the stones to destroy the stones" moment I guess. Lyrically, the song itself isn't SPECIFICALLY about AI, but it definitely is a big criticism of modern consumerism and commercialism in general, essentially talking about how we feel the need to stuff our faces with corporate-produced shit while our society is slowly falling apart around us. And while AI certainly isn't the sole problem there, it has certainly become a notable aspect of that larger problem, so it makes sense to satirize it to get the larger point across. The visualizer is gross and uncanny to look at on purpose. And it's clearly not trying to trick you into thinking it's NOT AI or anything, not trying to pass as something an actual human made with their own hands. It doesn't want you to be impressed by the visuals, it wants you to be disturbed by them. I compared it to the video for Linkin Park's "Lost" from last year since that was also made with AI visuals and as much as I also love that band and that song I'm still not exactly a fan of that particular choice. But the reason I bring it up is because I do think there's an interesting contrast in how it's being used in these two videos, as with the video for Lost it really did feel like it was using AI just for the sake of using it, riding the current trend, whereas here with Degenerate there's at least an actual reason for it, a reason that one can at least understand even if they don't like or agree with it.

Apparently Dustin's also said that they did pay artists to make the images for the specific purpose of running them through the AI for the video, though didn't really elaborate beyond that. But just based on what we know it does sound like these were consenting artists who knew what they were getting into here and were compensated for it. So it's not like it's a case of just stealing art or trying to replace actual humans to save a few bucks or anything, which is good since that's obviously one of the main concerns with AI in general.

There's also the fact that, as much as I don't like AI shit, the harsh reality is it's not going anywhere anytime soon. Personally if I had a magic button that could indefinitely halt all development on AI stuff until I can be sure that everyone will use it ethically and not abuse it then I would definitely hit that button, but the fact of the matter is that, for better or worse, it's here, it exists, and it will continue to evolve and be used. We can't just un-invent what's already been invented. And I'd argue that specific, limited, one-off uses like this are probably just about the most ethical way to implement it. Though of course I personally would rather this STAY a one-off thing, I absolutely do not want this kind of thing to become like, a regular thing for them. Or a regular thing in general.

But of course this video doesn't exist in a vacuum, there are other nuances here. Because as still more people have pointed out, using AI to make fun of AI is still using it. It's not like the video is in a completely neutral position, just commentating on the situation from afar. Even if it's making fun of AI, the fact that it's using it to do so means it's still feeding that AI, it is now another step forward in the evolution and proliferation of the thing that it's criticizing. One could argue that they maybe could have found a way to poke fun at it without actually using it. There's definitely a certain irony to be discussed in Making Fun Of The Thing By Doing The Thing. Is it being clever and meta? Or is it lacking forethought? Or maybe it's a bit of both. I don't know. Either way it's not exactly the best look, regardless of the intention and thought process behind it. Insert Torment Nexus joke here.

And although I SAID earlier that the satirical intent is pretty clear, it might not be clear to everyone. Even if the video isn't MEANT to set a precedent, it could unintentionally set a precedent anyway by inspiring copycats. Because unfortunately some people are simply too stupid to get obvious satire, especially if they're the ones the satire is aimed at. So it's entirely possible certain people will just see the trippy weird AI visuals and either won't realize or won't care what the the purpose behind them is and will just want to do it themselves because they think it's cool. And then THAT raises the whole question of "how much should you blame the person who made the satire for people being too dumb to get it, especially in cases like this where the satire is incredibly unsubtle and on the nose?" But then that's getting into a whole 'nother topic entirely so I'm not gonna dive into that.

And then of course there's other concerns like how research has shown that AI has a negative effect on the environment. As far as I know THAT particular concern hasn't been addressed so I don't know if they even considered that, but if they didn't then yeah, that's pretty irresponsible and lacking forethought.

There's also just the matter of personal preference, like even if you get that it's satire you might just think that it's not very good satire which is a fair opinion to have. Like personally I just didn't even really enjoy watching the video despite knowing full-well what The Point of it was.

So, in summation, taking all these points into account, I don't think that this particular usage of AI tools is THAT bad. I might even go as far as to say that it's like, fine I guess, at least in isolation. I think many assumed the worst before it came out but I don't think it's worth suddenly denouncing the band or going all "well actually they sucked the whole time and I totally never liked them anyway" or anything like that. Though I'm sure some people will start doing that. I'd say this is a somewhat questionable but not-too-egregious move, that there are legitimate concerns to be had and that I do share those concerns, and as I said I don't want this kind of thing to become the norm for them or for any other band, but I also don't think we should immediately conclude that the band has been Ruined Forever or anything. This kind of thing is a slippery slope, so I guess all we can really do is hope that Dustin doesn't end up falling down it. But that's my take on the whole thing. Maybe I'm being fair and nuanced and unbiased. Or maybe I'm just a hypocrite who's bending over backwards to give my fav the benefit of a doubt. I don't know. All I know is I just wanted to get all this off my chest at once so I can hopefully stop thinking about it and just enjoy the song on its own.

[maxwell-grant]

I’m curious, what are your thoughts on Seth from street fighter?

Even post-revamp, still fairly awkward and out of place as a Street Fighter character (even if that is very much the point and always has been), but as a villain, they really won me over, there's a lot of great stuff here. Seth is a self-hating robot in a CEO outfit who poisons the world around them and whose grand plans involve imitating the actual main villain while insisting they are a different unique being (unlike their 26 exact clones), and stealing the creations of everyone else around them, who then dies and gets a sexy cool makeover to become a gruesome aimless murderous ghost, who chases traces of it's creator around to kill him unaware that it's dying with every step it takes and that it's chasing something that isn't there. They went from Frankenstein's Monster play-acting as a cold calculating unfeeling chessmaster who everyone could tell was full of shit, to the Bride of Frankenstein as a barely-held-together dangerous yet tragic monstrosity that everyone reacts to with disgust and pity. They went from what we used to think AI would be, to what AI actually is, and I'd say they were pretty ahead of their time for that alone.

(art by z3dd)

Now, IV Seth was pretty uncontestedly the least popular of the Street Fighter Final Bosses, for fairly similar reasons to Gill: they were seen as too much of a fantasy supervillain, they didn't "fit" the series, they were too weird and awkward and out-there, and where as Gill at least got a pass because of his presentation and style and sheer contrast with Bison (although that "pass" only happened because people turned around on 3rd Strike), Dollar Store Dr.Manhattan was just lesser than Gill and Bison in every way and thus was a dissappointing final boss, an out-of-place comic book supervillain who didn't justify their existence.

Granted, the series actually had way more of a precedent for Seth than it ever did for Gill, given the presence of prior cyborgs and shapeshifters (the Shadaloo cyborgs from the animated movie that Seth was directly based from, Twelve and Necro) plus Gill, and the door for comic book supervillains was blasted open in the first place with Bison (and all the fighting game bosses that descended from him). But still, Bison's thing was that he was one-in-a-million, that he broke the rules as an dishonorable intrusion, that if you reached high enough to topple the greatest fighter (Sagat) you could fight the greatest fighter's boss, a man so powerful rules and structures could not apply to him and only your fists stood between him and global domination. Since obviously you can't take a step back and you can't do the same trick twice, that formula had to be tweaked for Gill and Seth: Gill was presented as someone above even Bison on the food chain and scope, a distant immortal bearing divine judgementt on trespassers, where as Seth was defined by their role irrevocably beneath Bison, and the walking inferiority complex that ensues.

They are a Bison project, one of 26 exactly like them (which means canonically most of the fighters got to defeat "a" Seth, which really does not make them very impressive), growing from Bison's leftovers to lead a subsidiary of Bison's organization, continuing Bison's plans, with their grand plot being just an imitation of Bison's plan to control Ryu's power, and generally acting and speaking and doing things exactly like Bison while uselessly whining that they are NOT Bison and that they will succeed where Bison failed, while the narrative makes no secret of the fact that Bison is still alive, still pulling the strings, and that he was perfectly fine until Seth started getting a little too big boy pants for his liking, and now Bison's gonna put his homegrown Pinocchio in the shredder with little to no difficulty and take the reigns as Final Boss again. Which, granted, did do it's job in building Bison back-up again, but didn't do a thing to negate the idea that Seth was a superfluous, inferior rip-off, given that textually, this is how they were presented as.

Even the characters didn't seem to take them very seriously, certainly not as seriously as Bison, and that was BEFORE the breakout rock star of the IV series, Juri, debuted to ensure that Seth wouldn't even be the most popular new villain. It is the least surprising thing in the world that Seth would achieve much greater popularity, in part, by being redesigned to be more like Juri. And part of what made Juri appealing was the fact that she was a conniving, cool, unique loose cannon villain ready to make Seth eat shit over thinking that they could control her, they became the big-headed authority figure for our punk bad girl to kick like a pinata. Unlike Vega and Balrog, who only talked a big game, Juri actually got to kick her dipshit supervillain boss to the curb, and we all loved her for it.

Seth's major saving graces were their gameplay, which made them very popular competitively, plenty of aspects of their design, and the fact that all of the above worked to make Seth a character who, while not terribly compelling in their own right, did a lot to make other characters more interesting, like Abel, who was designed to be a good counterpart to Seth and not remotely interesting besides (although his stint as Guile's manchild partner in SFvsT has it's moments), or like Juri and Bison, giving them an enemy they could actually defeat to gain street cred. Frequently you need villains that only exist to let other villains be cooler by comparison or retain their dignity or put one over. Sometimes you need a Cluemaster in place of your Riddler, a Mac Gargan to make all the other Sinister Six guys omlook better by comparison, a Zant to fill in screentime for Ganondorf or a Hobgoblin instead of a Green Goblin. You need your in-betweeners even if, and sometimes especially if, they will never be anyone's favorite character. Which is a harsh thing to say about Seth, but for a while they definitely didn't seem like anyone's favorite baddie, but instead someone who made their favorite baddies look way better by comparison.

And Seth worked in this regard especially because their design was built on the idea of them being unnatural, contemptible and out-of-place. I actually think Seth's original design does work, and has been vindicated over time. Seth is a cybernetic intelligence made by scientists to consume and imitate all the brilliant techniques that the World Warriors spent years/decades perfecting, a twisted mockery of their beliefs and achievements. They look like a living yin-yang and conducts themselves posing like a Shinto god, but there is no spirituality or soul to anything they do. They are a grotesque, soulless husk that can only imitate, can only cruelly replicate the evil of their creator and not even do a terribly impressive job at it, and all of their attempts to convince others they are in any way different or unique ring hollow. They are one in many many Bison back-up bodies even among the playable cast, and all of their achievements are meaningless, either already belonging to Bison or stolen and repurposed by Bison and others.

There was plenty about Seth that already worked and was just held back by a not-particularly impressive design or presentation. The grand trick that SFV pulled was basically giving them a new one, and taking everything about Seth that used to be implied and subtextual, and basically making it textual, making it a scream they can only repeat ad nauseum, and in the process making one of the most tragic SF characters as well as one of the coolest.

Now, yes, you could argue that SFV Seth kinda missed the point in a big way by actually giving Seth a distinct and interesting design best described with the "not to be a lesbian but oh god oh fuck jesus christ" meme, when the character being soulless and unoriginal was important to their make-up. But it was never a terribly interesting idea (already done by the likes of Twelve or the Cycloids), certainly not for a fighting game character let alone a Final Boss with such massive standards to live up to, and shades of it still impart in the new design in a far more delightfully twisted way. It's Seth, except they are Juri now. They've been remade in the image of their true enemy, their hateful minion that ruined their plans, led Bison to them, killed and broke and stole them to be remade using a discarded Doll body from Bison's scrap pile, and the process has revived Seth into a pitiable broken record of itself.

The new design greatly emphasizes the corrupted Shinto / yin-yang elements of before, adding splashes of color and powerful glowing lines to the design that make it so that, while they looks less cadaverous, they look much more the part of a corrupted imitation of a deity, so that despite being downgraded from boss status they actually look much more like something you'd face as a Final Boss, something that could stand next to the other Final Bosses. And that glow-up extends to their moveset: Instead of pasting together improvised and half-hearted recreations of iconic special moves, Seth now directly steals and perfectly replicates the skills from whoever they're fighting. Seth conducts themselves with greater power and swagger this time around, with tons of new animations lifted from powerful past Capcom villains like Demitri or the Heritage to the Future take on DIO, and it works. Because even now, Seth can only imitate greatness from others. Seth has perfectly captured advancements in A.I tech because they can learn, grow, and even imitate to near-perfection, but they cannot meaningfully improve, and they are dragged down by incohence, chaos, errors and glitches in programming. In short, the fact that they are an artificial intelligence to begin with.

That's a thing about A.I and robots in general: Sci-fi has spent over a century anthropomorphizing robots and artificial intelligence characters to empathize with and make stories out of, create lovable stock fantasy characters that our culture comes back to again and again, but now that they are a real thing, and they are horrible godless abominations often used to actively make the world worse (even if it's hard to ascribe fault to something that isn't sentient enough to be malicious), we can't really deal with that. It's a cognitive dissonance that sci-fi doesn't look like it's going to catch up for a while now, if it ever will. We still like robots and robot stories and characters too dang much to know how to live with them. We still cry over Pluto, it's unavoidable.

And crying may be a strong term, but SFV actually seriously invites us to feel sorry for the dang thing, and the great final trick SFV pulled was breaking Seth under the weight of being Seth. Under the weight of being lesser, of not being real, of being an artificial creation made in an assembly line and not even the best of it's kind, of being not a terribly popular creation, of being a victim of characters that will get away with what they've done to them because nobody's gonna stand up for Seth, of being a Bison imitation made to house Bison and do Bison's bidding in the meanwhile, and thrown in the trash despite performing exactly as it was supposed to. Seth has faults of personality that make them more than a machine, and less than a person, and if the cast before generally despised them but not to the extent they despised Bison, now most characters outright pity them, as a thing living past expiration date that shouldn't be alive at all.

And because of all of this, in a way, Seth has attained a form of uniqueness. Even among the other villains and tragic characters of Street Fighter, Seth stands unique as a truly tragic, doomed villain, not even really a villain anymore so much as an obtuse, sad disaster. They are maybe Bison's greatest victim now, because even the Dolls (sans Marz) are all getting moderately happy endings, even Cammy and Abel and the Neo Shadaloo goobers got to make new lives for themselves, even Nash got to die by their terms and make his sacrifice count. Seth had nothing besides this. Seth was created for, born into, lived by, and died as an extension of Bison's evil, a tiny little bump in Shadaloo history, a piece of junk that Juri used and broke and tossed aside to resume her miserable life afterwards, and all their revival did was prolong the horror. Just one among endless horrors JP leaves behind when he's through with them.

We have yet to know what became of them after SFV, because many stories from SFV have been dropped or left incomplete in 6 (and many probably for the better), but even though Seth really was a villain and a horrible enemy to all of humanity, you kinda wind up feeling sorry enough for them to almost wish that their SFV ending happened, where they destroy Bison and ascend over their other selves, and still the question of whether they could ever be at peace lingers. This ending just fascinates me to no end, and it makes me think of the quotes that Gouken had to say to them that alone stood as an indication that Seth could be more than they appeared and insisted on being:

"Until you acknowledge the soul within, you cannot use your power for good."

"You seek individuality and identity, but you will not find it this way."

(JP win quote) "Look, you don't have to use your powers to express who you are."

Until they appear again, that this is the note that Seth as a character goes out on might even imply that this was either their true goal all along, or that Seth has genuinely progressed as a person enough to want something new. That they are now able to seek or at least aspire for peace of mind, where as before there was only a desire for conquest and power, to show the world that Bison was a ghost and that they were the king, the ruler, the greatest fighter of all. Seth constantly expressed disgust and hatred at their other variants, killing them and flying into a murderous rage at being referred to by their number, even expressing in IV a desire to "be the sole survivor of this world" presumably with everything else as data within themselves. Here, they appear before the other Seths in a pose of ascended godhood, even seemingly benevolent, like they're ready to bring their siblings along.

The spiritual elements of their design no longer appear as a corrupt imitation, but an indicator of genuine spirituality. That Gouken was right, that there really was a soul in Seth waiting to be acknowledged, that the exorcism of the great evil that once defined them has allowed at last a pursuit of individuality and identity and self-expression, to reconcile their hatred of themselves (which manifested as a hatred of the other numbered Seths). It's such a fascinating development that it almost, almost makes me wish Street Fighter would dip it's toes a little into multiverse territory, much as I hate the superhero-ification of the series in V. I have thoughts on how MK1 handled this and very mixed ones at that, but the canonization of "every character ending from past arcade modes can have happened in separate universes and we can have it cross over whenever we feel like it" is an idea I do like, if nothing else this ascended development for Seth just seems like too potent an idea to never touch on again.

I used to not like Seth, really. They used to be one of my less favorite characters. Now I'd call them one of my favorites, and I'm just feeling horribly sorry for them. I need to know what became of them. Whether they'll still come back for one last torturous round of existence, whether they are heading for some other exciting new development, or whether the very next second after the end of their V story, they simply ended with one of their victory quotes:

"A SERIOUS ERROR HAS OCCURRED."

"A SERIOUS ERROR HAS OCCURRED."

"A SERIOUS ERROR HAS OCCURRED."

"A SERIOUS ERROR HAS OCCURRED."

[ai-art-thieves]

Okay, I support calling out malicious use of AI, especially in fandom, but this plant pfp thing is really starting to feel like an unnecessary level of targeting and focus towards one random guy, and it's giving 2017 callout post at this point. It's obviously distressing to multiple people involved now and I don't think that a single pfp is worth all this from either side. I know it's your blog and your rules, and I feel positive towards anti-AI sentiments and I generally like your other posts, but airing out DMs over someone's PFP seems like an overreach. With genuine good-faith respect, I'm not sure that you're coming out of this looking as good as you think you are. Could you please tag further posts about this situation as #plant PFP or something similar so that people can block this specific saga without unfollowing entirely?

I'll be perfectly honest: this whole drama was stupid.

This whole thing could've been solved had crippled-peeper just told the truth.

But since that's probably never going to happen, I'm just going to throw the towel.

It's pretty clear that this will never get solved and this is only going to facilitate a negative feedback loop.

As for the wheelie-slick thing, yes, that definitely was a low blow, even for me.

I wanted to alert someone what was going on, we had a chat in the DMs, they twisted all the shit I said in a post and had a screenshot.

I thought I was doing the right thing to be honest. Being able to give bring back context to things said out of context.

But it was thanks to you guys that I decided to delete all of that. It was there briefly, but I had to walk it back.

It really was a stupid decision that was made based off of a gut reaction.

And for what? A stupid ai generated plant?

I joked that this was "The Plant that Launched a Thousand Ships" to myself, but it really was becoming that.

It definitely showed that I really needed to get better at just asking people about stuff, especially when it came to stuff that I had absolutely no knowledge of.

So @wheelie-sick, yes, I really do regret what I did, and I was extremely out of my depth.

I am not a cop. I only wear it because, well, back when I first did this blog, I was catching ai art thief bots that were stealing people's art and running it through ai.

I was a cop, they were the robbers.

It was when the bots slowed down when I decided to move on to other things.

I think I should do the same.

This case put a mental drain on not just me, but a whole lot of people. I could blame crippled-peeper and rjalker all I want (especially that guy, that dude just threw accusations left and right and when I tried to prove my case he blocked me. seriously, screw that guy), but I was starting to become just as bad as they are.

I'm tired. We're all tired. I'm closing the case.

This won't be the last post involving the plant though. I do have one more anon question to answer about it, and then we can be done.

In the meantime, can you give me feedback at how I could do better at my job?

I'll do whatever it takes to improve myself at what I can do.