#chat gpt and midjourney - yeah these are the uncanny products

[dropthedemiurge]

Exactly, please separate the Technology and Business Product.

Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been worked on and used in many fields for decades already.

In short words, it's an algorithm that trains on certain data (it could be on your own, too, just lots of it) to try and predict or provide new outputs. It is used to search for problem solutions in science/engineering that would otherwise take days for people to look through. It is used in medicine to find new possible opportunities (idk I was a computer science, not a med researcher but I remember reading news about finding new cures with the help of ML/AI). The technology is good and it's a powerful tool for many tasks.

And yes, almost every enemy in thousands of games already has their sort of AI because it simply describes the behavior algorithm that computer uses to react to player's behavior or, well, make NPCs look human/act complex, etc. I think it's been used in 3D animation, too. Even way before the common folks started hearing about 'AI' from every corner.

When you do want to start burning people in a funky bonfire is when some businessmen combined with tech bros make some 'cool' scheme to effectively and easily earn quick money, not caring about people.

I remember a good advice being told as "When all your neighbours hear about this new trend, it is too late for you to invest in it", but in this case, it's about remembering that the technology probably already existed and was used years before and in many places that weren't so controversial but also that's why you didn't hear about it.

Same with blockchain (supporting technology that can enhance cyber security) and all the cryptos/NFTs (business product for messing with money and making owners rich)

So when the 'training data' is scraped from actual people, copyrighted and not, and promised to 'get rid of annoying workers and save you time with our passable content' or 'let's make you a cute anime avatar if you pay us 5 bucks' - that's the problem. The apps, the trendy products - this is what you should be upset about and not engage with. Boycott, even. Start that bonfire, glass your fanarts and junk the data so businessmen get annoyed and society will ridicule companies that produce art tools for using computer-generated illustrations.

But, guys. When companies talk about AI now, it could be about regulations, actually either making sure the customers know what they get, was this generated with problematic algorithms trained on stolen data, or was there consent given by people who participate in making a generator tool willingly. Maybe they even talk about being protected from the generated content or being able to detect it. The AI needs to get legal regulations, it now needs to be discussed in order for the technology usage to become better and nicer and safer. But you have to listen carefully first.

You shouldn't jump on people who talk about AI or work with AI tools only because the technology is now (as often happens) mostly associated with awful controversial trendy products. Some poor people are getting smashed when they spent years trying to making NPCs in their game fun to play, or assisting doctors in quickly recognizing cancer on MRI scans, because you won't give them time to explain what 'AI' means for them.

Some of y'all will see the word "AI" and freak out without actually processing anything that's being said like a conservative reading the word "pronouns"