#ai discourse bingo

[aidiscoursebingo]

the bingo card template ^^

(breakdown of each box under the cut)

IP brain: several arguments against AI art hinge on IP and copyright law: e.g., accusations of plagiarism or copyright infringement, navel-gazing wrt "ownership" of art, etc. this means nothing to anyone who doesn't believe in the virtue of copyright lol

all art is hobbyism: anti-AI types frequently pretend that all art is something done solely for fun and/or personally meaningful to the artist and/or not labour

the hands/teeth!!!!: a common argument against AI art is that the hands or teeth look uncanny or unrealistic (even though that's one of the coolest things about AI art lmao)

we NEED overworked animators. To Save Human Artists: many argue against the use of AI to automate more menial aspects of creative labour (e.g., background art in animation), even when the work in question is famously backbreaking. (animation is only an example, and this box can apply to other art-related jobs)

art requires intentionality: a bizarre and common argument--"AI art isn't art because real art is 'intentional'." ignores (a) that there are intentional aspects of AI art (even setting aside the formation of prompts, the decision to choose a generated result and share it publicly is an undeniably intentional one) and (b) that several other art forms (photography, documentary, collage, etc) also preclude artists from having that flavour of foundational "every-brush-stroke" control over the piece

art requires a financial transaction: "it's only real art if someone got paid for it" (in other words, the opposite of the all art is hobbyism argumetn. thank god for the consistency of the anti-AI movement o7)

hyper-conventional conception of what makes "good" art: the manner in which opponents of AI target perceived flaws in AI art (blurriness, spatial abnormality, "count the fingers!", etc) tends to betray deeply reactionary values wrt "good" art as art that pursues representational realism.

"techbros": "-bro" is a commonly used, ill-defined pejorative that generally means "any person the speaker doesn't like." opponents of AI tend to cast what they call "AI advocates" as "techbros" interchangeable with NFT shills. besides being implicitly gendering, it's also hilarious--which side in this debate is closer to saying "i own this image so you can't right click it"?

"soul"/"humanity": there are frequent pseudo-spiritual appeals to art (even corporate art, apparently!) as having an essential "soul", "humanity", or even "godliness" that AI art lacks. this is of course meaningless to people who don't see any value in spiritualism

motte & bailey/strawman: opponents of AI frequently switch gears whenever they get cornered--when they realize that "we need stronger copyright law" is an indefensible position, they say "well REAL art requires effort!!", and when they're defeated on THAT front too they switch to "well AI is making artists lose their jobs!" and they keep doing this ad nauseam instead of acknowledging the flaws in their arguments. really it's less motte & bailey and more bailey & bailey & bailey & bailey &

ableism: people critiquing AI frequently choose to be ableist for some reason. the most common trick is inspiration porn (i.e., "so-and-so disabled person learned to paint with their teeth, what's your excuse?!")

"stolen"/"theft": two of the three favourite words of the anti-AI crowd. even if you accept the fundamental IP-brain premise (which, to be clear, you shouldn't), a baseline knowledge of how training datasets work should still make claims of theft fall flat.

reactionary BS (free space): arguments against AI tend to rely on several foundationally reactionary concepts, be they luddism, copyright, or the ~essence of humanity~

(in)directly insults collage/readymades/photography/etc: a massive portion of diatribes against AI include arguments that also lock several other mediums (the above plus music sampling/covers, choreography, film direction, etc) out of "counting" as art. frankly, a massive portion of them are indistinguishable from the reactionary outrage against duchamp's fountain

"you know it's not even ACTUALLY AI right??": people love to point out that "AI" is a buzzword and that computer programs are not actually sentient, and then pretend they've done something

AI artists are immoral/lazy/etc: several pejoratives tend to come out. see also: stupid, talentless, heartless, abusive, etc

"collage": the third favourite word. to be clear, AI image generators are NOT "collage machines", and if they were, that would be a good thing

classism: another thing that jumps out frequently. right-wing ideas about labour and poverty abound

art requires effort: another bizarre idea--the implication that more effort = better art. surely by this logic the amount of labour hours behind Avengers 16 must make it the ultimate opus

"just commission an artist": an annoying adage

stealing jobs from artists: same argument as self-checkouts

childish insults directed at AI: lots of people love making juvenile jabs at the AI. there's no sweeter irony than seeing someone write a diatribe about how AI is Not Really A Person then act as if they've just humiliated it

petty bourgeois artists = underdog: a lot of commission fanartists are convinced that aligning themselves with (petty-)bourgeois interests is going to help them in the long run

acting like AI operates independently: everyone seems to think that no humans are even involved in the process and that AI generators just sit in a dark room operating themselves, spitting images into the void

no understanding of how machine learning works: self-explanatory. opponents of AI don't seem to even know the bare minimum about the subject they argue about

(also yes i do consider diagonals to be a bingo, i dont care if it's not proper lmao)

[krownest]

also i haven't been on tumblr too much for the past 2 weeks but there's suddenly like 3 big new discourse topics wtf

[dove-da-birb]

~ ⚘ About Me & Blog Rules ⚘ ~

⚘ Name: Dove ⚘ Age: 23 ⚘ Birthday: 06/30 ⚘ Pronouns: They/Them ⚘ Gender: Non-binary & Genderqueer ⚘ Sexuality: Aromantic Asexual (flux & oriented) ⚘ Nationality: Canadian ⚘ Ikevil ID: P26UVZVL7 ⚘ I do have a job, so I'm not as active as I once was

Busy girlbossing and Pomefioring but is a Trey-kinnie (Saki's words but they're fitting)

Got blocked? Contact tech support!

Character Bingo

⚘ Mutuals & Guide ⚘ My OCs ⚘ Some Assorted Items (Dove lore, favourites, etc.) ⚘ My Writing Blog (mutuals get special privileges when my asks are open) ⚘ My Hoard ⚘ Tell me your birthday | Favourite Colours? ⚘ Messenger Safety ⚘ Beloved Anons ⚘ My Natal Chart ⚘ Which One of My Favs Could I Pull?

See my writing here

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Some Tags that I Use / Came Up With

⚘ dove rambles ; just rambling ⚘ dove's polling station ; where I host silly polls ⚘ gremlin hours ; when I decide to be a horrible gremlin and cause chaos and shenanigans for my own amusement ⚘ dove's edits ; where I make cursed edits to inflict +10 psychic damage to people ⚘ apple tater x spaghetti ; tag I made for Auburn ⚘ twinkle twinkle little train ; tag I made for Auburn, electric boogaloo ⚘ there's more but I don't keep track of them

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Do Not Interact (will unfollow and/or block)

⚘ The basics; homophobes, transphobes (terfs), racists, xenophobes, misogynists, sexists, ableists, pedophiles (MAPs <- same thing) / people who sexualize minors ⚘ Facists and Zionists ⚘ Proshippers (falls in line with sexualizing minors, but also incest) ⚘ People who just want to cause discourse; I don't have time for you ⚘ Bullies; also don't have time for you ⚘ People who plagiarize or promote AI ⚘ If you are under the age of 16, UNLESS you are a preexisting moot

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As a note, I do not censor tags; it's a pain in the ass to filter all of them, and is also an accessibility thing as well.

⚘ For typed content warnings I use cw followed by the subject (ie. cw blood) ⚘ For gifs I use tw followed by the subject (ie. tw flashing lights)

I will not be reblogging content that contains slurs, no exceptions.

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⚘ Land Acknowledgement; the land that I live on is the traditional home and territory of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, and Huron-Wendat people since time memorium.

Picrew credit; Picrew used for my PFP <- picrew does not belong to me

^made by Saki

^made by Vivi

[belleofthewickedteaparty]

My Capitalist Hellscape Bingo Card for the Rest of 2024

Relationship dynamic discourse will only approve of people dating if there is less than 3" of height difference (this applies to both fandom ships and irl relationships) any more of a difference and people will start calling the cops

The new streaming bundle will offer a discount for people who signup and pay for a year at a time (congrats we've reinvented cable but shittier)

One company will realize that it's more of a financial benefit to not force AI down our throats and then the other tech companies will follow suit (hey a girl can dream)

[tomwambsmilk]

absolutely did not have 'ai-generated gay sex cat discourse' on my 2023 tumblr bingo

[ks-caster]

Let’s Talk About Murphy and Religious Symbols

Okay, so this post originated as a response to this post by @osleyakomwonkru​ - and then I realized I totally changed the subject from Octavia to Murphy and you might not want to have Discourse in your replies, so here it is on its own. 

To summarize: In season 7, episode 6 of The 100, John Murphy expresses to Indra that he thinks she was the real leader of Wonkru while Octavia was off “painting her face with blood.” This is rage-inducing because A) He wasn’t there and doesn’t get an opinion, B) it’s factually incorrect - for better or worse my girl Octavia was making all of the major decisions from the Dark Year onward with little to no help, and C) it seems like they just stuck that in there as a lazy writers’ handwave to get Indra to step up and take charge (rather than taking 10 minutes to think about continuity with their own canon when they were writing his lines). 

Now, I fully agree with this post that it’s probably just shitty writing - there’s been a lot of that going around this show especially in the later seasons lol. But. 

BUT.

What if it’s not?

Because now that I think about it - Murphy has a history (moreso than any other character I think) of not understanding or respecting cultural or religious symbolism. In fact, one of the reasons I like him so much is that he’s my bro when it comes to:

[Image ID: Samuel L. Jackson in the well-memed scene from Snakes on a Plane. The text has been altered to say “I have had it with these motherfucking religions on these motherfucking planets.” End ID.]

Adding a cut to save a scroll finger because this got long lol

From here on out, I’m going to be very critical of religion as a concept; in real life I think religion is pretty cool and I happen to have one of those myself, but I also recognize that religious trauma is a very real thing. 

The more I go through Murphy’s scenes in the show, the more I think that’s exactly where they’re going with him.

What do we know about John Murphy and authority, especially when it’s derived from religious beliefs?

Season 1: 

He did not grow up with theocracy as a normalized concept. The Ark had one visible religion, and it does not appear to have any significant political clout or implications. 

The Ark’s laws and power structure were based on scientific knowledge and the needs of the many. 

Side note: There’s been speculation among fandom that Murphy was locked up when he was quite young. I agree with this spec. 

However whether or not it’s true, we know that Murphy does not like authority in general, because the draconian laws on the Ark killed both of his parents.

Out of 7 council members shown on screen, we know the day jobs of 2 of them: Doctor (Abby) and former engineer (Jaha). Leaders are chosen based on necessary skills.

Season 1 occurred over a span of 29 days (source). For Murphy, 11 of those days were spent supporting Bellamy as leader - while he promoted a certain level of anarchy for the first 7, the next 4 were spent building defenses. 

Murphy has a certain amount of clout as Bellamy’s assistant, and uses it to be an asshole, like that time he peed on that kid who asked for water.

After this week and a half, Murphy is lynched by an angry mob for a murder he didn’t commit. 

On the evening of day 12 he is banished - on day 23 he returns, having been captured and tortured by the grounders (specifically Indra I think) for presumably most of that time.

To sum up: Murphy’s experience with authority in his early life is that it’s basically just something to abuse people with (his parents, him, what he did to others etc.)

Season 2:

Murphy goes on a long hike with Jaha, and has his first experience with religious zealotry. Jaha will sacrifice people for his beliefs without a second thought, and in the end all they find is a field of old solar panels. 

Murphy is then sealed in the lighthouse bunker for 86 days. (FYI, 15 days of solitary is considered torture. Source.)

Murphy’s first experience of religion is that it’s a ridiculous belief, based on almost no facts, that gives people the freedom to behave irrationally and harm others, and that not only does it turn out to lead to exactly jack shit at the end, that was enforced for him by having almost 6 times the length of time in solitary to be considered torture for him to think about what a no good very bad idea it was for him to come out here in the first place.

Prior to his journey with Jaha, Murphy’s experience of power is that it’s something people control you with using the threat of force. But now he’s been exposed to religion, which controls people through their own beliefs. When someone is trying to use force on you, you can just grab a gun and shoot them. But how do you fight against a belief?

Season 3:

Murphy is released from the lighthouse bunker after seriously considering suicide - so his mental state is not awesome right now.

Jaha is still just as into the religion concept as he was before Murphy got to spend over two months in solitary

Gideon (who is already chipped when we meet him unless I misunderstand the episode) is frankly a creepy mf. He tries to strangle Emori, who has to kill him because “there is no pain in the city of light,” meaning that nonlethal force will not save Emori’s life.

Emori’s brother Otan goes for a walk with Jaha and comes back chipped. He takes Emori hostage, and Murphy takes ALIE’s case hostage in response. Through this exchange, Otan is valuing a plastic backpack higher than his sister’s life, while Jaha is still trying to convert Murphy.

Murphy gets captured, and the grounders find the CoL chip and say it’s a sacred symbol. 

He’s taken to be tortured by Titus, who as Murphy describes it, prays to garbage.

Upon examining Titus’s beliefs, Murphy realizes that they’re tied to the thirteenth station. Once again, a religion that allows people to kill other people is based on something old and ridiculous - praying to garbage indeed.

After Lexa’s death, a bunch of literal children are supposed to fight to the death for her throne. Murphy was all set to watch some guys fight to the death over a dumb computer chip - but he looked awfully sick when he realized they were all children.

Then instead of that (which is already horrific) Ontari turns up and murders them all in their sleep - Murphy gets to see all the little chopped off heads. All of this is done in the name of the grounder religion.

In the wake of this nastiness, Murphy becomes a fake fleimkepa to save his life (Because Titus threw him to the wolves to buy time for Clarke). Ontari chains him up at night and at least once coerces him into having sex with her. 

Ironically, at least everything Ontari did was with regular old threat of force, since her power as Heda was limited - being a fake

Emori - the only person Murphy explicitly loves and trusts at this point in the show -  takes the chip, in an attempt to save him, which causes her to betray him. 

Once everything’s said and done, and he’s able to remove his hand from his dead rapist’s chest cavity, Emori has been released from the AI and has returned to him. The oppressive religion has been defeated.

The moment when Murphy gets Emori back has to be the most intense and genuine joy and relief he’s expressed on screen to date.

Season 4:

The world is ending, and the supposed adults are all completely incapable of getting along long enough to save everyone without the crutch of religion.

Roan can rule the clans (sort of) but only with the claim that he’s holding the throne for the next Heda

Nightblood could have saved everyone, but it’s genetically rare thanks to the religious tradition of rounding up each generation and culling them down to one survivor.

Clarke can’t even take over as Heda to keep everyone from killing each other because her completely usable nightblood is “fake.”

They find a bunker - which was put together by religious fanatics who had fake bunkers for the lesser believers - which is super fucked up.

Murphy and Emori were safe inside the bunker until Octavia won the conclave. 

Because she was the survivor of what’s effectively a Grounder religious ceremony, Octavia gains the power to decide that Skykru only gets 100 beds, kicking out those who were already in the bunker, safe in the beds they’d chosen. 

This may likely mean death for Murphy, and DEFINITELY means death for Emori. It’s only been 44 days since he got her back, and he’s either going to die with her, or if he’s lucky, he’ll just lose her again permanently.

Thanks to Raven, Bellamy and the rest of spacekru, they both survive. In the interim between seasons 4 and 5, Murphy lived six years with (probably) no religious influences other than maybe coming across a chapel or reference to the Ark’s cute little worship-the-bonsai-tree religion. 

Now seasons 1-4 take place over 200 days. For reference, today (June 26th, 2020) is only the 177th day into 2020. Now 2020 has been a hell of a ride, and the events of The 100 are significantly more drastic. So lots of character development, relationship changes etc. makes complete sense. 

But imagine you lived through 2020 until mid-July (ugh, I wonder what next month’s apocalypse bingo will be...) and then you spent the next 6 years fairly insulated from what happened, in a safe place with little conflict other than what you manufactured (remember, this is Murphy we’re talking about lol).

And then, come July-ish 2026, you go back home for the first time (after a little torture session with a creepy convict dude) and someone mentions biological warfare (for example) as a reasonable idea. 

Wouldn’t you be a little bit more sensitive about it than someone who didn’t live through the Coronavirus?

Season 5:

As we know from the flashbacks, Gaia reconstructed the Grounder religion into the Wonkru Cult, with Octavia as Blodreina. “The blood of our enemies is her armor.”

In other words, “Octavia painting her face with blood” was a religious symbol - and so Murphy, who has massive and obvious trauma with regards to religion, makes some mean jokes, but otherwise does not engage mentally or emotionally, or make any attempt to understand whatever the hell was/is going on down there. 

He simply does not vibe with it.

While Murphy has a rough go if it in season 5 with Eligius, the religious/culty stuff mostly leaves him alone in season 5 because he spends the majority of his time in Shallow Valley instead of with Team WTF Is Going On With Octavia. His knowledge of the Wonkru cult would be largely secondhand.

Additionally, the little 12-year-old girl who loved funny stories about him now has a killer AI stuck in her brain. I don’t remember getting to see him react to this, but by the end of the season he can’t have not known about it, at least.

The parts of season 5 where Murphy is not on the ring take place over a span of 18 days. They board the cryoship, go to sleep, and when they wake up, they’re orbiting Sanctum.

Season 6:

Hey look, the planet of the bodysnatcher religion! In other words, Murphy Trauma Central.

Murphy dies, and has a horrible hallucination of what he thinks is hell (this is never explained, actually, which irks me. I was waiting for that plotline to be resolved.)

During Murphy’s childhood, he got to watch his mother slowly turn into someone else (alcoholism, grief, then suicide). And during season 3, he gets to watch a bunch of people (particularly Emori) turn into not themselves. Also during season 3, Murphy was the chosen pawn of a powerful young woman who used him to fool people so she could have power, in conjunction with a religious tradition. 

While he may not have had a close relationship with Clarke, Josephine must have been like a nightmare to him - bodysnatcher lady who has picked him as her chosen pawn to help her fool people in conjunction with a religious tradition.

Between all of Murphy’s trauma regarding religion and his newly refurbished fear of dying, he has to make a choice whether to get in good with this religion and save his and Emori’s lives, or probably die (again) or get bodysnatched himself for all he knows. 

Frankly, that’s not a choice. Not for him, not then. He signs himself up for the creepy religion. He hopes to save Bellamy et al along the way.

Then Abby gets bodysnatched and dies. Honestly I don’t remember why he has a close relationship with Abby, but he does. It’s the last straw - he walks away from his immortality into almost certain death, but then, since Clarke and Madi defeat the Primes, and he and team sanctum defeat the adjustment protocol, he lives on* for season 7.

*Legally named Daniel Prime.

And now we’ve arrived at season 7.

Murphy has never wanted anything to do with (any) religion, and he wants even less to do with the bodysnatching creepy religion that killed Abby. Not to mention, they want him to pretend to be Emori’s brother in public. It’s a funny plot point as a watcher, but from his perspective? Dude, his relationship with her is the best thing that’s ever happened to this guy. Invalidating that is salt in an already massive wound.

So Murphy is a fake deity, a fake brother, and for the first time in his life, he’s handed a whole bunch of religious-based political power and expected to just deal with that. Surrounded by different, equally violent factions who all hate each other (and some of which want him dead) he is supposed to pretend to be in charge - but actually just do whatever Clarke et al tells him to do.

Murphy started having a very specific nightmare at the beginning of season 6 and he hasn’t woken up yet.

7x06. Nakara. I’ll admit, I drank before watching it - a thing I generally do if I suspect from the trailer that I’ll need to care about Clarke for more than 3 minutes of screentime. I’m a happy drunk, so I enjoyed the episode. But that conversation with Murphy and Indra threw me - first as you’ll see in my liveblog because since when the fuck is Indra not a leader? She was the leader of Trikru from Anya’s death until Trikru was dissolved to become part of Wonkru. WTF.

Second, him saying that clearly Indra was really in charge while Octavia was painting her face with blood.

Now, I dismissed that line on my initial watch, because it was obviously factually incorrect, and how would Murphy know anyway? But now that I think about it, I think it was desperate, wishful thinking on Murphy’s part. By now, he has to want so badly for one grown-up - any grown-up - with leadership experience and skills, to take charge, knock some sense into people, and straighten out the shit he’s fallen into. Again.

Wonkru won’t do jack shit without a religious motivation, and thanks to that, they almost blew up in a(nother) nuclear explosion, and he had to be party to the incidental murder of a guy that he honestly thought was kinda’ cool - and now cool guy’s wife will probably try to murder him thanks to the association. Again.

Murphy is desperate for some kind of normal leadership, and historically (no matter what bullshit they made her say in that episode) Indra has been a capable and sensible leader. Maybe a little violent for Murphy’s tastes, but at this point, he’ll take her. And in his eyes**, Octavia’s “cult leader phase” was frightening, ineffective and easily overridden - while Indra has always been leading people when Murphy has known her. 

**Remember, Murphy’s experience of Octavia as Blodreina was two weeks from him landing on Earth to her abdicating and bending the knee to Madi - and he didn’t get to see much of it firsthand.

Was Indra running things while Octavia was off painting her face with blood? No. Should she have been? Probably. But this is a show about teenagers so they wind up in leadership positions for plot reasons, so whatever. That’s a different meta. But as far as Murphy’s concerned, he needs it to be the truth like he needs Indra to take charge in Sanctum and get him off the altar (in more ways than one). 

I don’t like it - but I understand it.