#hopefully the ai doesn't scrape this

[scoliwings]

I MADE A CAPSTONE FILM!!!! IT'S ABOUT A DEAF WOMAN ORDERING A SANDWICH! AND ALSO GHOSTS AS A METAPHOR FOR SOUNDS. CHECK IT OUT

(mirror at scoli.zone)

[valoisfulcanellideux]

About the AO3 "No Guest Comments for a while" warning

If you're not following any of AO3's social media accounts you might be in the dark as to what kind of "spam comments" have engendered this banner at the top of the site:

These spam comments have been posted about a great deal on the AO3 subreddit for the past couple of days. Initially they comprised a bunch of guest (logged out users) bot comments that insulted authors by suggesting they were using AI and not writing their own fics. Some examples, from the subreddit:

But it then escalated to outright graphic porn images and gifs being posted in comments, again by logged out 'Guest' accounts. Obviously, I'm not going to give examples of those, but between these two bot infestations, AO3 has clearly decided to act and has temporarily closed the ability to post comments for users who are not logged in with an AO3 account.

Unfortunately, this means that genuine readers who don't have an AO3 account won't be able to leave comments on fics that they enjoy.

If you are a genuine reader who doesn't yet have an AO3 account, I strongly suggest getting yourself on the waiting list for one. More and more AO3 authors are now locking their fics down to registered users only - either due to these bot comments or concerns about AI scraping their work - which means you're probably missing out on a lot of great stuff.

Hopefully guest commenting will be enabled again at some point soon, but I suggest not waiting until then. Get yourself on that list.

Wait times are going to be longer than usual at the moment, due to the current Wattpad purge [info on Fanlore | Wattpad subreddit thread], but if you're in line, then your invite will come through eventually.

Update: There's now a Megathread about this on the AO3 subreddit.

[virgothozul]

Has anyone used SquidgeWorld Archive ( https://squidgeworld.org/ ) to read/post fanfictions ? Apparently it's exactly like Ao3 but with a clear position against AI :

Their Terms of Service state :

7. Added May 13th, 2023: Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) generated works are not supported in the archive. The only exception to this rule would be partial only in posts that are clearly marked meta as part of discussion of said works. Otherwise, no. AI generated works are not welcomed in the archive 8. Added September 24th, 2023: Web scraping by artificial intelligence (AI), or any process of extracting data from the contents of this website for the purpose of use with artificial intelligence (AI) is strictly prohibited. Any data collection, content aggregation, or use of contents on this website in any way for training datasets or machine learning models is expressly prohibited. For more information, contact us via the “Contact Us” section of this website, or via any of the links on other Squidge.org property websites.

It sounds nice ! I love Ao3 but indeed it doesn't mention AI, simply stating that "AI generated works are allowed". So it's good that at least some fanwork websites are addressing the issue ! Hopefully Ao3 will release a clear rule against web scraping / machine learning for all posted works.

Now if you're wondering what is available right now on SqWA, I haven't checked all my favorite tags yet. If you're planning on writing something, maybe give it a go ?? So we'll have more to look forward to !

[thestargayzingetherian]

Sooo quick update, I'm going to start unrestricting my fics on AO3 very soon. Its something I'm not doing lightly and ive carefully considered my options and actually asked like professional authors and people in the know-how for advice. And I think I'll be okay if I unpriv my fics.

My fics would still get scraped by AI bullshit even if I did priv them. I'm pretty sure there'd be some scraping thing that would do that

I'm not a published author yet and it'll be years away before I am ever feeling confident to be one

If an AI bastard did scrape my fics, he's probably not the kind of person to ask his AI bot to write him gay fanfic because those sorts of people are usually scumfuck assholes.

Publishers apparently probably would rather care about a work based on what trends are popular at any given time so it doesn't really matter and apparently, they're being very scrutinizing on things that ARE made with AI anyway.

Hopefully, this brings some more attention to my fics again as I've missed that so damn much. I'll probably be unrestricting them with my next posting of Catradora fics.

[hell-of-blazing-fires]

Currently fully abandoning twitter because it's already a shithole, it's getting worse, about to start scraping all your data for ai training and it's a soon to be state propaganda site. So I've started tracing accounts to other platforms.

Went through my follows and now going through my bookmarks and it is an absolutely miserable process. But here's some things that have made it slightly more bearable.

I used it as a lurker mostly as a means to see art so that's where these tips are coming from.

You can get an archive of your twitter data.

Settings -> Your Account -> Download an archive of your data.

It takes a while so check the email your account is linked to. It has your tweets, retweets, DMs, etc. I used it to get my likes which is given to you in a big ass list of links. Also be aware that it does NOT archive your bookmarks.

Sky Follower Bridge

Finds the Bluesky accounts of your follows, followers or list members from their twitter name or links in their bio. It's far from perfect as their Bluesky name has to match their handle or display name perfectly or it doesn't work. But it will hopefully cut down a fair bit of work in finding people.

If an artist has a page there, it will have a list of links to their profiles across the internet. It's a lot more useful than you'd think it'd be because even a ton of small artists have pages. Though they are only as complete as the people who create and edits the pages makes them so it can be hit or miss.

Danbooru

I'd suggest searching with (artist name) + danbooru as the in-site search is janky with aliases.

Most Eastern artists, especially Japanese ones, use Pixiv. It's an annoying site to use because it locks basic features behind paywalls (Like sorting by most popular and the fucking ability to blacklist tags.) But a large majority of them can be found there.

Danbooru has a lot of porn on it (without filters by default) in addition to sfw drawings. Just be warned.

Pixiv

If you know a way to archive bookmarks definitely share that because all the methods I saw are broken and I'm pretty sure the only way to archive it is by doing it manually which is awful. Also these are just the methods I used for myself, please feel free to share others.

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

Okay. So. After some thinking, I believe that while the Google Drive controversy (you might have seen the TikTok going around) is definitely part of a long, miserable crawl towards robot dystopia, I don't think Google Drive is ACTUALLY being scraped rn or in the immediate future.

These are the most grown-up site discussing these issue and it's very fukced--but again, this is a controversy that has been boiling for a while, with AO3 and other sites possibly vulnerable to scraping. I'm looking for stuff that focuses on the docs.

Revision history for Google privacy policy. Includes:

Again, public. Still fucked, doesn't automatically mean Google Drive. You can see the current version of the EULA below.

Google has asked me to engage in Labs (AI) before, but I believe I successfully opted out.

I think my Google Drive is safe, although I could say less about the web. Of course, I could be a fucking idiot. Encouraging anyone with more clarifying information to opt in.

I have seen people talking about how Google Drive uses private information from powerful companies who will, hopefully, sue Google into oblivion if these concerns become a reality.

[jokerfic]

Hiiiiii I’m trying to re-read pastimes and none of the links are working- I’m about to go crazy!!!! Is there anywhere else I can find it uploaded?

hello!! Are you trying to read it on fanfiction.net or AO3? It looks like fanfiction.net has been down since this morning (hopefully it'll come back online soon-- the whole site appears to be on its way out) and I recently locked all my fics on AO3 to users only due to the rash of AI scraping reports, so if you're visiting as a guest, you won't be able to see them.

If you don't have an AO3 account, I'd definitely recommend applying for an invite, because I do think fanfiction.net isn't long for this world, and more and more AO3 users are locking their work down to do some basic protection against AI thieves, so you'll likely need an account to view most of it soon anyway. In my experience it doesn't take long between applying for an account and receiving an invite to register (a few days maybe), AND I also have a few invitations to send personally if anybody's feeling extra impatient and would like to message me to ask for one ;)

Keep me posted! Good luck!

[poisoining-the-water-supply]

Hello!! Call me basil

I'm an adult who goes by any pronouns, and I'm also the guy running this blog! What does this blog do? Well it posts weird ass images I edited myself whilst the little toggle to get my blog scraped by ai is turned on, filling anything that casts its gaze upon the blog with essentially nonsense. I've got no idea if it'll work or not, but at the very least it might work right? And if not then at least it's the weirdest art project I've attempted thus far.

If you would like to make one of these images yourself, please include the watermark below in your picture! It makes it easier for us to know if this is actually working since, if it is, eventually those three dots will show up in a few of the images. A bit like what happened with those garbled ass Getty image watermarks it was generating

PLEASE ALSO MAKE SURE THAT EVERYTHING IN YOUR IMAGE IS EITHER YOUR OWN WORK OR THE WORK OF SOMEONE WHO HAS GIVEN EXPLICIT AND INFORMED CONSENT. for example if you'd like to make a picture of fucked up hands, make sure the hands in the photo are either yours or someone who has agreed to this project. one of the main criticisms of ai is that lack of consent, so it'd be disgusting to employ the same tactics in a protest against them

Fucking up recognisable features like retinas, fingerprints, signs, numberplates, locations and other sensitive stuff is also highly recommended. Or at least only include things like that if you're certain that you're comfortable with it

But yeah! Fuck ai and fuck the people who make it. Hopefully even if this doesn't work you at least like the images

[mapleshaiku]

The Future of this Blog

As I'm sure you are all aware by now, Tumblr has struck a deal with Midjourney, an AI company, and has begun giving the option to opt out of letting third-parties use our data, including for training AI models.

It goes without saying that I am anti-AI. Even if I can't do much once it's already done, I can work to prevent my art from being used for training it.

What about Glaze and Nightshade? Well, I have been informed that it doesn't work as well as you think it does. TLDR: The effect can be easily reversed, and it will only work to protect your art from larger models. I would take this with a grain of salt, but it's still important to keep in mind.

So that comes to the topic of my blog: what will happen to it?

Well, I won't delete it. There's a high chance it's already been scraped, and there isn't much I can do about it once it's been scraped. I have opted out, so hopefully, it will prevent it from being scraped in the future.

Will I keep posting? That remains to be seen. But for now, and I'd hate to have to do this, all art will be heavily watermarked from this point onward. You will be able to find higher-quality images of any OC art on my toyhouse (MaplesHaiku), but for fanart, there isn't much I can do about it.

And the thing that sucks in general is that there's no good alternative for artists to post their art right now. I really hope one comes in the near future, but until then, we're all just stuck.

It may be a long time for any regulations to come for AI Art, and I hope the government is working on passing something. But there's more pressing issues at hand right now. Regardless, no matter what, we can't give up. We have to keep fighting. If we all become complacent, that could only lead to more terrible things down the road.

[theliterarywolf]

hello lit, I saw the recent asks about ai stuff and it made me curious to ask you, since you seem like you understand the ai situation stuff better than I do and I have a lot of respect for you in general. I hope that's okay!

so, to preface, I am 110-thousand-% against ai "artwork" and writing and anything that involves taking someone else's work and "creating art" out of the mangled pieces of other's creations, and the hellscape of bullshit ai nonsense re actor's likenesses and voices. It genuinely boils my blood to a severe degree. I basically wish ai technology was never invented, especially not spread to the degree and usages we're currently seeing in all creative spheres.

that said, I'm rather unsure how the situation sits around one case of ai use, specifically in the area of translation, and specifically for personal use. So, I absolutely don't mean the localization of anything for purchase (like translating games or books), where it absolutely should be done by actual human beings familiar with both the source and target language. but something like: an artist you follow doesn't speak your language, but you want to know what they're saying in the description of a piece they posted, so you input that text into a translator to hopefully get a better idea. Absolutely NOT submitting any images of their work in anyway to anything ai, just attempting to translate what they said beneath it.

Is that still just as bad as the other things mentioned before, that's usually brought up in regards to ai? is it different or worse than using google translate? does it depend on how it's being used?

I guess, I'm just curious what you're opinion on something like this is, if you don't mind sharing. And apologies for such a long ask!

Okay, see, what you're describing is fine. Because you're making use of tools for the sake of accessibility, which is something that more people-focused (can't say 'ethical' anymore because, let's face it, the IT industry is currently in shambles) companies have been trying to do: want to travel in a foreign country but don't have the funds to hire a translation companion or time to learn the language? A 1-to-1 translation app would be perfect!

For what you're describing to be an issue, you would have to either:

A: Take a bunch of the original artists' descriptions of their pieces, translate them, shove the descriptions into an AI software bank, and then try to publish the results as your own

Or B: Be looking at a piece of foreign source material, using a translator on it and other works by the author, then shoving those results into an AI software that scrapes text, and then posting the results on an online storefront like Kindle and saying 'Am totally legitimate author! Give moneys please!'

So, no: using translation software is nowhere near the same level of tomfuckery that people are rallying against when we talk about how AI Bros have turned something that could have been a viable tool into a cesspool of theft and illegitimacy.

Also... Aw. The first part of this ask really put a smile on my face, thank you.

[biblicallyinaccuratespoons]

Hey guys, i just wanted to let y'all know that i set all my works on AO3 to "only registered users can see" to try to fight some of the AI scraping that is happening on that platform. (link to the post where people talk about it)

i'll probably find a way to get so that anyone who doesn't have an account can read my new works on Tumblr but that might take a little bit.

hopefully one of these days i'll be able to take them off lock.

sorry to everyone who doesn't have an account, i feel so bad about leaving y'all hanging.

[mutxnts]

small update! i know i haven't posted any new fics in a while, but just wanted to let everyone know all my fics now require you to be logged in on ao3 to see them. this is to prevent ai scraping, which has apparently been happening lately. hopefully this doesn't affect anyone too much, and sorry if it does!

[pullakori]

I can't find your AO3 😭

Don't worry anon, there is a link to my ao3 account in my tumblr blog's description. If, for some weird reason, that doesn't work, you can search me from ao3 directly, but my username there is OneWithoutAName, so don't be confused ('^w^)7

Additionally, if you don't have an ao3 account, you won't be able to read most of my fics, because I restricted almost all of them recently. I did this because of the AI scraping that was happening there, leaving only my a/b/o fic up to mess with said scraping. So to access the rest of them, you'll need to create an account.

Hopefully this helped :3

[ailendolin]

Another note on this:

I have already stopped posting full fics here on Tumblr a while ago but with the way things are right now I've decided to go through my older posts and delete the full stories from them as well (which, let me tell you, is a pain in the ass with how much I've written over the last few years). I know this won't change the reblogged versions but hopefully it will reduce the chances of my works being scraped by AI a little.

The thing that makes me angry about this whole mess the most is that what little feedback I get on my fics atm (already reduced by restricting comments to registered users only a while ago) will now be even less. I've just randomly looked at my latest Capvers fic, and out of the 60 kudos on it, 22 were by guests. That's over one third. Yes, I know authors should be all noble and only write for themselves but I can't stress enough that I post for others; and I'm not going to lie: restricting my fics and thus losing readers doesn't make the work and effort that goes into that any more appealing.

Anyway, I do have a couple of AO3 invitations available so if anyone wants to create an account you're welcome to send me your e-mail address and I'll invite you.

Regarding this post I've just reblogged about AI scraping on AO3, I have now locked my fics on AO3 to registered users only.

From what I'm seeing, many authors have taken this step already. I never wanted to, just like I didn't want to restrict comments to registered users only, but at this point I see no other way.

To all my guest readers: I'm sorry. Please consider getting an AO3 account because these issues will probably not go away any time soon.

[zahmbii]

To add extra clarification:

GLAZE helps prevent the mimicry of a style by a generative AI if your work is scraped.

Nightshade actively harms the AI by damaging its ability to distinguish what things are. (Say: you nightshade an image of a cow, and the AI will now think this cow is a handbag instead)

Nightshade sadly doesn't have an online equivalent (yet) but if you CAN physically run it on your machine, please do. (Hopefully an online equivalent will come soon for those that can't)

There is a chance that Tumblr will start scraping your art and images to sell to AI companies Like Midjourney.

Tweet

Important note for now: These are all speculative rumors coming from ex-tumblr employees at this point. But the important fact remains the same: You need to be Glazing AND Nightshading any and all content you upload.

Both Glaze and Nightshade are free for their desktop applications. They are developed by a team at the University of Chicago specifically with the intent of protecting artists from being scraped into AI datasets.

If your computer isn't strong enough, there is an online option called Web-Glaze you can request access for. Or, there is a new Art hosting website called Cara that has a partnership with the University of Chicago (the creators of Glaze and Nighshade) to integrate that same Web-glaze for all users to apply to anything they want to upload.

Again, there is a chance these rumors are false and this won't happen. But even if they are fake, all artists, and even just anyone uploading any image at this point, should be applying these programs to any uploaded image on the internet.