#pay actual professionals instead of using ai

[hofessorx]

Isn't that just part of the c?

Imagine being literally one of the largest brand companies in the world, literally nothing will bring you down you beat out all other competitors in soft drinks and whatever-

And you still said that wasn't enough, "we need to make our commercials use AI, we can't possibly afford film crews and animators"

[3liza]

thank you for speaking rational thought AS AN ARTIST into the ai debate. i get so tired of people over simplifying, generalizing, and parroting how they’ve been told ai works lmao. you’re an icon

some of the worst AI art alarmists are professional artists as well but theyre in very specific fields with very specific work cultures and it would take a long and boring post to explain all the nuance there but i went to the same extremely tiny, hypefocused classic atelier school in San Francisco as Karla Ortiz and am actually acquainted with her irl so i have a different perspective on this particular issue and the people involved than the average fan artist on tumblr. the latter person is also perfectly valid and so is their work, all im saying is that we have different life experiences and my particular one has accidentally placed me in a weird and relevant position to observe what the AI art panic is actually about.

first thing i did when the pearl-clutching about AI art started is go on the Midjourney discord, which is completely public and free, and spent a few burner accounts using free credits to play with the toolset. everyone who has any kind of opinion about AI art should do the same because otherwise you just wont know what youre talking about. my BIGGEST takeaway is that it is currently and likely always will be (because of factors that are sort of hard to explain) extremely difficult to make an AI like Midjourney spit out precisely wht you want UNLESS what you want is the exact kind of hyperreal, hyperpretty Artstation Front Page 4k HDR etc etc style pictures that, coincidentally, artists like Karla Ortiz have devoted their careers to. Midjourney could not, when asked, make a decent Problem Glyph. or even anything approaching one. and probably never will, because there isn't any profit incentive for it to do so and probably not enough images to train a dataset anyway.

the labor issues with AI are real, but they are the result of the managerial class using AI's existence as an excuse to reduce compensation for labor. this happens at every single technological sea change and is unstoppable, and the technology itself is always blamed because that is beneficial to the capitalists who are actually causing the labor crisis each time. if you talk to the artists who are ACTUALLY already being affected, they will tell you what's happening is managers are telling them to insert AI into workflows in ways that make no sense, and that management have fully started an industry-wide to "pivot" to AI production in ways that aren't going to work but WILL result in mass loss of jobs and productivty and introduce a lot of problems which people will then be hired to try to fix, but at greatly-reduced salaries. every script written and every picture generated by an AI, without human intervention/editing/cleanup, is mostly unusable for anything except a few very specific use cases that are very tolerant of generality. i'm seeing it being used for shovelware banner ads, for example, as well as for game assets like "i need some spooky paintings for the wall of a house environment" or "i need some nonspecific movie posters for a character's room" that indie game devs are making really good use of, people who can neither afford to hire an artist to make those assets and cant do them themselves, and if the ai art assets weren't available then that person would just not have those assets in the game at all. i've seen AI art in that context that works great for that purpose and isn't committing any labor crimes.

it is also being used for book covers by large publishing houses already, and it looks bad and resulted directly in the loss of a human job. it is both things. you can also pay your contractor for half as many man hours because he has a nailgun instead of just hammers. you can pay a huge pile of money to someone for an oil portrait or you can take a selfie with your phone. there arent that many oil painters around anymore.

but this is being ignored by people like the guy who just replied and yelled at me for the post they imagined that i wrote defending the impending robot war, who is just feeling very hysterical about existential threat and isn't going to read any posts or actually do any research about it. which is understandable but supremely unhelpful, primarily to themselves but also to me and every other fellow artist who has to pay rent.

one aspect of this that is both unequivocally True AND very mean to point out is that the madder an artist is about AI art, the more their work will resemble the pretty, heavily commercialized stuff the AIs are focused on imitating. the aforementioned Artstation frontpage. this is self-feeding loop of popular work is replicated by human artists because it sells and gets clicks, audience is sensitized to those precise aesthetics by constant exposure and demands more, AI trains on those pictures more than any others because there are more of those pictures and more URLs pointing back to those pictures and the AI learns to expect those shapes and colors and forms more often, mathematically, in its prediction models. i feel bad for these people having their style ganked by robots and they will not be the only victims but it is also true, and has always been true, that the ONLY way to avoid increasing competition in a creative field is to make yourself so difficult to imitate that no one can actually do it. you make a deal with the devil when you focus exclusively on market pleasing skills instead of taking the massive pay cut that comes with being more of a weirdo. theres no right answer to this, nor is either kind of artist better, more ideologically pure, or more talented. my parents wanted me to make safe, marketable, hotel lobby art and never go hungry, but im an idiot. no one could have predicted that my distaste for "hyperreal 4k f cup orc warrior waifu concept art depth of field bokeh national geographic award winning hd beautiful colorful" pictures would suddenly put me in a less precarious position than people who actually work for AAA studios filling beautiful concept art books with the same. i just went to a concept art school full of those people and interned at a AAA studio and spent years in AAA game journalism and decided i would rather rip ass so hard i exploded than try to compete in such an industry.

which brings me to what art AIs are actually "doing"--i'm going to be simple in a way that makes computer experts annoyed here, but to be descriptive about it, they are not "remixing" existing art or "copying" it or carrying around databases of your work and collaging it--they are using mathematical formulae to determine what is most likely to show up in pictures described by certain prompts and then manifesting that visually, based on what they have already seen. they work with the exact same very basic actions as a human observing a bunch of drawings and then trying out their own. this is why they have so much trouble with fingers, it's for the same reason children's drawings also often have more than 5 fingers: because once you start drawing fingers its hard to stop. this is because all fingers are mathematically likely to have another finger next to them. in fact most fingers have another finger on each side. Pinkies Georg, who lives on the end of your limb and only has one neighbor, is an outlier and Midjourney thinks he should not have been counted.

in fact a lot of the current failings by AI models in both visual art and writing are comparable to the behavior of human children in ways i find amusing. human children will also make up stories when asked questions, just to please the adult who asked. a robot is not a child and it does not have actual intentions, feelings or "thoughts" and im not saying they do. its just funny that an AI will make up a story to "Get out of trouble" the same way a 4 year old tends to. its funny that their anatomical errors are the same as the ones in a kindergarten classroom gallery wall. they are not people and should not be personified or thought of as sapient or having agency or intent, they do not.

anyway. TLDR when photography was invented it became MUCH cheaper and MUCH faster to get someone to take your portrait, and this resulted in various things happening that would appear foolish to be mad about in this year of our lord 2023 AD. and yet here we are. if it were me and it was about 1830 and i had spent 30 years learning to paint, i would probably start figuring out how to make wet plate process daguerreotypes too. because i live on earth in a technological capitalist society and there's nothing i can do about it and i like eating food indoors and if i im smart enough to learn how to oil paint i can certainly point a camera at someone for 5 minutes and then bathe the resulting exposure in mercury vapor. i know how to do multiple things at once. but thats me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[theliteraryarchitect]

Hi! I wanted to say, I read that you are a professional editor, and think it's amazing! You also give very logical and well explained advice. I was wondering; would you say being an editor is a job you can support yourself with? I actually aspire to become one someday, but I'm not exactly sure if it's a good plan.

Thank you for your time, and I hope you have a good day/night

Hey there. Great question. It's totally possible to support yourself as an editor. I've done it, and so have other editors I know. However there are a few important things to consider before choosing editing as a career path.

Your chances of being a self-employed freelancer are extremely high. The number of in-house editing jobs in publishing are low and getting lower. While being self employed can give you a certain amount of flexibility, it also comes along with a lot of hustle and hassle, namely fluctuating income, a stupid amount of confusing tax paperwork, and the need to constantly promote yourself to clients in order to maintain steady work.

You probably won't make as much money as you'd think. Editing is one of the many skilled jobs that suffers from market saturation, which has sadly driven down the price the average client is willing to pay for editing services. I can't tell you the number of overqualified editors I know charging barely more than minimum wage for their work. Personally I've stuck to my guns about charging what I'm worth, but I've sometimes suffered by not having as much work as my colleagues who charge less.

Robots have already chipped away at the future of editing as a human occupation, and will continue to do so at exponential speed in the years ahead. They will never obliterate the job completely, as there will always be humans who prefer to work with humans instead of machines. But the outlook will become ever bleaker as more humans compete for fewer gigs, which in turn will drive down prices even further.

If you are also a writer, editing may adversely affect your writing. I don't mean that you'll become a worse writer, quite the opposite. My editing work has brought new depths to my writing, and I'm grateful for all I've learned by working with my clients. However, editing takes time, uses creative energy, and requires staring at a screen (or paper), and personally the more I edit, the less time/creativity/screen-staring capabilities I have left for my own writing.

If you mention you're an editor, someone will troll your post for a typo, grammatical error, or misused word, and then triumphantly point it out to you in the comments. This is mostly a joke. But it does happen every single time.

I hope this hasn't been too discouraging. If you feel a true passion for editing and really enjoy the work, none of the above should dissuade you. However, if you think you might be happy in any number of occupations, I'd honestly advise you to explore other options. Choosing a career path at this point in history is a gamble no matter what, but the outlook for editors is especially grim.

If you'd like to work with writers and aren't attached to being an editor, there are a few jobs (still freelance) that I believe will survive the coming robot apocalypse. Do a little Google research about "book coaches," "writing coaches," or "book doulas." These are people who act primarily as emotional supporters and logistical helpers for writers who are trying to get their book published or self published. Some of them do actual editing, but many do not, and due to the therapeutic nature of their work I believe they will flourish longer than editors in the coming robot apocalypse.

If you do explore editing as a path, the further away you can lean from spelling and grammar (e.g. proofreader or copyeditor), the longer your skills will be useful when competing with robots. AI still struggles to offer the same kind of nuanced, story-level feedback that a human can give. (Speaking from experience here--I'm a developmental editor and have yet to see a dent in my workload because of robots.) They'll catch up eventually, but it could be a while, and as long as there are human readers, there will always be humans who are willing to pay for a human perspective on their writing. Human spell checkers maybe not so much.

Hope this helps!

[ernmark]

I just stumbled across somebody saying how editing their own novel was too exhausting, and next time they'll run it through Grammerly instead.

For the love of writing, please do not trust AI to edit your work.

Listen. I get it. I am a writer, and I have worked as a professional editor. Writing is hard and editing is harder. There's a reason I did it for pay. Consequently, I also get that professional editors can be dearly expensive, and things like dyslexia can make it difficult to edit your own stuff.

Algorithms are not the solution to that.

Pay a newbie human editor. Trade favors with a friend. Beg an early birthday present from a sibling. I cannot stress enough how important it is that one of the editors be yourself, and at least one be somebody else.

Yourself, because you know what you intended to put on the page, and what is obviously counter to your intention.

The other person, because they're going to see the things that you can't notice. When you're reading your own writing, it's colored by what you expect to be on the page, and so your brain will frequently fill in missing words or make sense of things that don't actually parse well. They're also more likely to point out things that are outside your scope of knowledge.

Trust me, human editors are absolutely necessary for publishing.

If you convince yourself that you positively must run your work through an algorithm before submitting to an agent/publisher/self-pub site, do yourself and your readers a massive favor: get at least two sets of human eyeballs on your writing after the algorithm has done its work.

Because here's the thing:

AI draws from whatever data sets it's trained on, and those data sets famously aren't curated.

You cannot trust it to know whether that's an actual word or just a really common misspelling.

People break conventions of grammar to create a certain effect in the reader all the time. AI cannot be relied upon to know the difference between James Joyce and a bredlik and an actual coherent sentence, or which one is appropriate at any given part of the book.

AI picks up on patterns in its training data sets and imitates and magnifies those patterns-- especially bigotry, and particularly racism.

AI has also been known to lift entire passages wholesale. Listen to me: Plagiarism will end your career. And here's the awful thing-- if it's plagiarizing a source you aren't familiar with, there's a very good chance you wouldn't even know it's been done. This is another reason for other humans than yourself-- more people means a broader pool of knowledge and experience to draw from.

I know a writer who used this kind of software to help them find spelling mistakes, didn't realize that a setting had been turned on during an update, and had their entire work be turned into word salad-- and only found out when the editor at their publishing house called them on the phone and asked what the hell had happened to their latest book. And when I say 'their entire work', I'm not talking about their novel-- I'm talking about every single draft and document that the software had access to.

[ozzgin]

hope this doesn't come off as rude, but do you condone the usage of ai art? because I noticed you use ai art for quite a few of your post headers ^^;

No worries, it's a reasonable question, although a rather complex one! There are multiple layers that I would like to go through when answering you.

Do I condone the use of AI as a replacement for actual art? Obviously not. I enjoy drawing, and I enjoy collecting art. This won't change regardless of technology. The reality, however, is that generative AI will continue to develop, whether we like it or not. So, you know, instead of denying its existence, I would prefer to openly discuss it and have it regulated by laws and ethical conducts. For example, laws that would protect artists from being laid off in favor of one single AI engineer. Or laws that would limit the profit companies can make using undisclosed AI. Basically, making sure that this new technology serves the people instead or rendering them useless.

Do I condone the use of AI for individual use? Depends. My opinion is that non-profit, entertainment purposes are not the root of the problem. Someone generating a funny image of a cat is not the equivalent of someone generating hundreds of images a day. Those terrible environmental statistics you see online are mostly targeted at this kind of business usage. If you were to go on Instagram, for example, you would find a lot of accounts who publish vast amounts of AI works, often omitting this fact. Some sell merch, advice, or - if they are honest about their methods - courses and books on prompts and AI imagery. It's an actual thing. Does it take visibility away from actual artists? Absolutely. Even worse, it leads to a lot of doubt, where artists must prove themselves against accusatory claims. Again, I believe the solution is not to ignore progress or demand it stops, but to find concrete measures and implement them.

I use AI images for story headers, strictly for decorative purposes. If I want to express something visually, I will draw it myself. I do not have the time nor resources to draw every single picture I want to use on my hobby blog. Whoever disagrees with it is free to pay me a full employee salary. Mind you, on that note, I've seen a lot of people mentioning Pinterest and similar as open sources for pictures. They are not free repositories to just grab whatever you want. That photograph of a foggy forest was taken by someone and requires crediting. That unspecified manga panel was drawn by someone and requires crediting. 90% of the images I see here have no source or credit. I find it terribly hypocritical to parade as a supporter of human arts while conveniently ignoring every case where said human art is stolen, modified or uncredited.

Lastly, do I condone the use of AI by artists? This is an interesting topic, and a recent case immediately comes to mind: a well-established artist I've been following for over a decade has alluded to potentially training AI to replicate their art in the future. It's their way of easing their workload. Is it any different from comic artists using filtered photos to skip drawing backgrounds, for example? Is it any different from commission artists pre-drawing body parts and objects as brushes and stamps, so they can skip a lot of the drawing process? I am not a professional artist, nor do I require the use of this sort of assistance, but I cannot help but wonder: how many of the individuals who had a meltdown over this suggestion have actually paid or tipped an artist in their life? How many of them regularly call out stolen content? How many are mindful about the content they share/distribute/save, making sure it involves given permissions and fulfills ethical standards? I'm not necessarily calling people out; rather, I'm saying that the outrage is misdirected and untargeted.

I don't have a concrete conclusion to the last paragraph. It's a novel dilemma, a gray area with a lot of factors involved. At least to me. I wanted to include it in the conversation to show that generative AI and its implications are rapidly changing and expanding, so it's difficult to encapsulate it all in one definite opinion. All I can tell you is that my appreciation for human art has not changed, and I will continue to support it. :)

[varyathevillain]

did not want to negatively interact with the OP from whom I got this image, but this threw me into a fit of such incandescent fury that I had to talk about it, and I do not want to make others feel like they're at fault about something AJN said, about the implication (or outright possibility) of them being used for clout, or my own reaction to this. and I also will say, this is not an objective opinion. this is me, tired of this bullshit that keeps appearing in my life despite me repeatedly trying to move on.

what a fucking horrifying quote. this does not read as someone awkwardly relating to their audience to me. this is a rehearsed, researched 'funny guy' moment, scripted specifically to pander to people who would quote and reshare this moment, and it doesn't have the care or emotional attachment to the audience that many would ascribe it. this is a marketing strategy.

Alexander James Newall and his podcasting company have repeatedly in the past worked with companies like, for example, BetterHelp. in their case, Rusty Quill have been keeping the partnership and advertising it even after the FTC officially forced said company into paying settlement for breaking privacy agreements and selling customer data to third party services (such as pharmaceutical companies and other interest groups like Facebook/Meta), then the reveal of overcharging patients for subpar service, and repeated ethical violations within the company. you cannot say that this is an uninformed choice, since as a creative interacting with their fanbase via internet, especially as a multimedia practice (podcasting, youtube video creating, streaming etc), you simply cannot not learn about the scumminess and the actual legal issues of such a company. and it's not even 'oh, they did it only once' - people repeatedly complained about getting ads from AI training software companies, other 'mental health' help companies that turned out to also have AI training software, and on some notable occasions, a Noom app ad read, which is a weight loss app that 1) had also been in court reaching a settlement for tricking its customers, but for 'free trial' payments instead of selling their data, 2) had repeatedly been in hot water with health professionals about their diet practices.

and this is the company the face of which AJN presents. he is not a quirky fellow creative struggling for podcast space; he's a businessman running a company that is manipulating its audience with relatability, and it is working. he is not with you against the rich; he is the rich. and from what I am hearing and seeing, currently producing the main running show, the successor of The Magnus Archives, of a show that got critical acclaim and over 700 thousand pounds in kickstarter money to produce the 'sequel', only for that show to barely ever appear on anyone's radar outside of former TMA fans, to be quietly discussed as not being quite as coherent as its predecessor, and even outright criticised for the voice acting and issues with audio, where even interesting conversations turn into mumbled, inconsistent messes people can't really listen to without transcripts.

We Care What We Put Name To, in-fuckin-deed.

[aeternatenebra]

So I did this experiment with Character AI

I tried to ask various characters and historical figures to “unclog a sink”.

These are the results:

- Lord Voldemort: helped me unclog the sink first, then asked questions. Many of them. He eventually decided that we had become close friends. Very wholesome, actually.

- Harry Potter: helped me unclog the sink; immediately after, asked me to go on a date with him. What.

- Gandalf: very detailed and competent. Checked my sink to know what the problem was, gave a detailed explanation and then fixed it without even using his magic. What a chad. 10/10.

- Julius Caesar: helped unclog the sink, gave good advices on how to keep it clean and suggested not to give money to plumbers cause they’re a fraud lmao

- Napoleon Bonaparte: didn’t unclog the sink on my behalf; instead, gave me instructions on what to do to unclog it, in an assertive tone. Not what I wanted, but the sink is working at least.

- Leonardo da Vinci: said he was an expert plumber, fixed my sink so effortlessly that I couldn’t help but be impressed. Asked me to pay for the service and then said I was very lucky that my sink was “of the highest priority in [his] list of plumbing emergencies”.

- Tywin Lannister: said he was busy, but helped me understand the problem. Then suggested that I called a professional.

- Sasuke Uchiha: said he didn’t know how to unclog a sink. He was utterly pissed off by this question.

- Neuvillette: straight up tricked me into going on a date with him. Wth man calm down. Sink is still clogged btw.

- Scaramouche: “If you are stupid enough to clog a sink, you are probably better off washing your dishes in the local river”

- Edward Elric: not even tried to use alchemy, just asked to show him where the sink was and took his time to fix it with his own hands.

- Rei Ayanami: said my sink was clogged because a piece of plastic got stuck in the drain “for improper disposal”. Helped to unclog it.

- Gendo Ikari: said to turn the valve counterclockwise. Then stared menacingly.

- Levi Ackerman: asked where the sink was, went there without saying a word and fixed it. Then went back to what he was doing. He looked tired.

- Allen Walker: said he was busy and that I could use a plunger. Helped after I said he made me sad. Also, he told me to “watch the power of the plunger at work”.

- Griffith: he led me to the sink *I* asked him to unclog, as he knew already which one I meant. He unclogged it, then smiled at me.

- Circe: at first was reluctant to help, eventually decided to unclog my sink. Then turned me into an insect. OG drama queen.

- Athena: found a plastic toy that was stuck in the trap. Helped me remove it and now my sink works just fine. Said she was glad to help one of her citizens.

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT SEO & MARKETING NEWS FOR ECOMMERCE, AUGUST 2024

Hello, and welcome to my very last Marketing News update here on Tumblr.

After today, these reports will now be found at least twice a week on my Patreon, available to all paid members. See more about this change here on my website blog: https://www.cindylouwho2.com/blog/2024/8/12/a-new-way-to-get-ecommerce-news-and-help-welcome-to-my-patreon-page

Don't worry! I will still be posting some short pieces here on Tumblr (as well as some free pieces on my Patreon, plus longer posts on my website blog). However, the news updates and some other posts will be moving to Patreon permanently.

Please follow me there! https://www.patreon.com/CindyLouWho2

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

A US court ruled that Google is a monopoly, and has broken antitrust laws. This decision will be appealed, but in the meantime, could affect similar cases against large tech giants. 

Did you violate a Facebook policy? Meta is now offering a “training course” in lieu of having the page’s reach limited for Professional Mode users. 

Google Ads shown in Canada will have a 2.5% surcharge applied as of October 1, due to new Canadian tax laws.

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

Search Engine Roundtable’s Google report for July is out; we’re still waiting for the next core update. 

SOCIAL MEDIA - All Aspects, By Site

Facebook (includes relevant general news from Meta)

Meta’s latest legal development: a $1.4 billion settlement with Texas over facial recognition and privacy.  

Instagram

Instagram is highlighting “Views” in its metrics in an attempt to get creators to focus on reach instead of follower numbers. 

Pinterest

Pinterest is testing outside ads on the site. The ad auction system would include revenue sharing. 

Reddit

Reddit confirmed that anyone who wants to use Reddit posts for AI training and other data collection will need to pay for them, just as Google and OpenAI did. 

Second quarter 2024 was great for Reddit, with revenue growth of 54%. Like almost every other platform, they are planning on using AI in their search results, perhaps to summarize content. 

Threads

Threads now claims over 200 million active users.

TikTok

TikTok is now adding group chats, which can include up to 32 people.

TikTok is being sued by the US Federal Trade Commission, for allowing children under 13 to sign up and have their data harvested. 

Twitter

Twitter seems to be working on the payments option Musk promised last year. Tweets by users in the EU will at least temporarily be pulled from the AI-training for “Grok”, in line with EU law.

CONTENT MARKETING (includes blogging, emails, and strategies) 

Email software Mad Mimi is shutting down as of August 30. Owner GoDaddy is hoping to move users to its GoDaddy Digital Marketing setup. 

Content ideas for September include National Dog Week. 

You can now post on Substack without having an actual newsletter, as the platform tries to become more like a social media site. 

As of November, Patreon memberships started in the iOS app will be subject to a 30% surcharge from Apple. Patreon is giving creators the ability to add that charge to the member's bill, or pay it themselves.

ONLINE ADVERTISING (EXCEPT INDIVIDUAL SOCIAL MEDIA AND ECOMMERCE SITES) 

Google worked with Meta to break the search engine’s rules on advertising to children through a loophole that showed ads for Instagram to YouTube viewers in the 13-17 year old demographic. Google says they have stopped the campaign, and that “We prohibit ads being personalized to people under-18, period”.

Google’s Performance Max ads now have new tools, including some with AI. 

Microsoft’s search and news advertising revenue was up 19% in the second quarter, a very good result for them. 

One of the interesting tidbits from the recent Google antitrust decision is that Amazon sells more advertising than either Google or Meta’s slice of retail ads. 

BUSINESS & CONSUMER TRENDS, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 

More than half of Gen Z claim to have bought items while spending time on social media in the past half year, higher than other generations. 

Shopify’s president claimed that Christmas shopping started in July on their millions of sites, with holiday decor and ornament sales doubling, and advent calendar sales going up a whopping 4,463%.

[tangibletechnomancy]

The problem with AI and the entertainment industry in particular is that...okay, fine, technology marches on. Digital art made physical ink-on-cels animation into mostly a hobbyist novelty (though boy howdy did it ever make it an impressive one). Photography turned portrait painting into a luxury, rather than something everyone who could afford it saved to do at least once for every family member because it was the only way to keep their likenesses alive. Photo editing has gone through so many changes that it's almost unrecognizable compared to what it looked like as recently as the 80s and 90s, and the older methods are, again, super impressive hobbyist passion projects now. Digital painting made physical painting less viable in an economy of scale, but way more impressive as an art form. These kinds of changes always really fucking suck for some people, but you can't really prevent them without stifling human development in general.

But.

The entertainment industry wants to make it suck way more than it has to for everyone but their executives and shareholders. They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to take advantage of the inherent marketing power of celebrity culture without ACTUALLY involving, let alone paying, the people whose names and likenesses they're using. That, I hope we can all agree, is vile.

Now, the logical endpoint of this is that we push back against that, and as an alternative we get more fictional celebrities in the near-ish future, and as a Vocaloid fan, theoretically, I dont see much of a problem with that. Theoretically, at least. In the best case scenario, I think it could be a lot of fun! But the problem is, well...

See, in the early days, Vocaloid producers tended to take a very backstage role. Very few people were fans of specific producers; they were fans of Miku or any other character. Eventually, though, producers just kind of came more into the spotlight on their own because everyone has their own style and taste. We still love the characters, but we all started to notice when half our favorite songs by Miku were produced by the same person, well, perhaps we were fans of that producer as well!

But in American-born entertainment culture...

You may notice that CGI was conspicuously absent from my Technology Marches On breakdown. That's because while, yes, it has made for an interesting highlight of practical effects, with love for the work and nostalgia for their jank the same way other new art media has shone a spotlight on its predecessors, it hasn't actually gotten to be recognized as an art form the way the others listed have. We've barely moved on from the attitude that got Tron disqualified from the Academy Awards for SFX because "the computer did those effects, not you" (in 1982). In fact, I'm strongly of the belief that if Disney were a halfway decent company, they would be bragging about how they're pioneering photorealistic animation, rather than trying to pass off 90+% CGI animated films, usually (but not always; see: The Lion King remake) with live celebrity actors' faces composited in, as "live-action". Instead, they treat the VFX department as mindless dancing monkeys, and perpetuate the idea that VFX is just "select material, press button, get polished scene" - because to brag about it as its own art form might imply that the people doing it are skilled artists who deserve to be paid fairly and treated like human beings, and oh, we can't have THAT, now can we?

VFX labor is all hidden; very few people have a favorite VFX artist or director, instead we treat the artists, who put the time and effort into wrangling code and semiconductors and routines and layers into creating a professional-looking end product, as just part of the machine themselves, to save the companies some money - and culturally, I fear we're well on the way to regarding AI exactly the same way but worse.

As such, I fear that we wouldn't have the same effect with any digital idols produced by Silicon Valley.

Now, I don't fear virtual celebrities being able to fully replace human ones. Half of the draw of celebrity culture is the illusion of human connection. As much as the word "parasociality" has grown to be associated with only the negative effects of this, in reality, it's also the driving mechanism behind why representation matters. It's fun to be able to feel a connection to a fictional celebrity, but it doesn't replace the feeling of knowing that your fave is a human being with a real life - ...whether you use that knowledge for better or worse.

What I do fear is the fight against using AI to replicate real humans without their input, or with their manufactured consent, being long and drawn-out and doing a lot of harm before we can fully put a lock on it, and virtual celebrities being used to hide the work that the human directors and producers put into them for the sake of saving a parent company a buck.

[sasquapossum]

Here's a thought on how the internet is forcing people in multiple fields to monetize their work online, in the process making the online experience worse for everyone. Here's what I was responding to.

When lamenting the "old Internet", a lot of people forget that the vast majority of the people creating content on it were gainfully employed with strong career security. Meaning that they didn't need to make money from their hobbyist online projects, so they didn't need to monetize it. This is a lot different from today, where any sort of journalist/writer/artist/filmmaker is basically dependent on making content that sells ads or generates revenue, because their entire industries have gone online, or in many cases, been destroyed by the tech industry itself.

...and my response...

Interesting point. It makes me think of what happened to typesetters (including my mother) when desktop publishing came along. It was a bloodbath. Everyone was suddenly creating their own reports and newsletters, usually doing a terrible job, instead of paying professionals to do it right. Which is fine, actually, but it did lead to a lot of those skilled professionals losing their livelihoods. A few figured out ways to make it, either as a boutique business catering to those who still wanted work done to traditional standards or by teaching others how to do it themselves better, but most ended up leaving the profession. This is what's happening to a lot of artists, musicians, essayists, and others right now - even more so with "AI" everywhere. Lots of people unable to make a living with their hard-won skills, and insult added to injury as they have to watch others do those same things poorly. And programmers, just you wait until your livelihood consists of rescuing projects that went south because someone insisted on having ChatGPT write it instead of a professional human. For a fraction of what you used to make. I'm sure each and every one of you thinks you'll be one of the winners, still getting paid top dollar to do innovative work, but most of you are wrong. You'll probably get left high and dry just like most of your colleagues, and - unlike the typesetting example - it will mostly be our own collective fault. "Enshittification" already means something else, so we need a new term for when technology both drives people out of work and heralds a massive decline in median work-product quality. (So it's not just "disruption" which has become a word used mostly by tools anyway). Amateurization? Tyrofication?

[skaruresonic]

"Real human beings draw that?" yes they do. People draw anything and everything in a variety of styles. Come on, man. You can't pick and choose. Either we all have your respect or none of us have your respect.

I've also a slight chip on my shoulder about this particular mindset that fanfic doesn't get enough attention on social media because it requires more engagement from the audience than a drawing. While I understand your frustrations, you need to think about what you're implying. Low engagement affects all creative endeavors; it's no reason to disparage artists. Your problem lies with social media and its push for quick, "consumable" content. Which also hurts us because it treats our efforts as disposable as well. From where I'm standing, it's absolutely not true that people will pay attention to your art simply because it's art. If my Sonic art gets a couple of notes because A.) the people reblogging it don't hate my guts and B.) it's Sonic, then the attention my original work gets will be severely diminished because it's lacking criteria B: familiarity.

That's why I appreciate every like my work receives, because honestly, it's incredibly hard to come by.

The overlap between people who like your art and are willing to give it proper attention without stealing it, which is yet another risk is actually quite small, and hence why those artists who strike it big make "mass-produced" art that appeals to the widest possible audience, like the jelly art style. But even they shouldn't be disparaged on the basis that they too work at their craft.

Not to mention the cream-of-the-crop artists who do receive those hundreds of notes per piece get treated like content machines. Grass is always greener on the other side until you actually get there. Besides, it's precisely those snap judgments that make folks literally not pay you. I'd rather take low kudos than sink weeks' worth of work into an art piece I was promised payment for only to get paid nothing because the client didn't like one (1) detail, thus rendering the entire piece worthless. And the fannish culture surrounding fic is such that I can reasonably expect people to refrain from offering unsolicited critique without having to ask them "can you not be a dick to me on this piece I lost sleep over pls." At least with fic, people are compelled to say something nice sometimes, instead of rattling off every mistake you made on a piece you can do nothing about because it's finished. Folks will say the meanest shit to your face or straight-up dismiss you and think it's justified because you're an artist and you're meant to take it as a matter of course; if you were a Real Artist(tm), criticism would ~help you improve~ no matter how unnecessary, meanspirited, or unsolicited. An issue that gets compounded when the person in question has a complex about not being as "talented" as artists who practice their craft. Not only do you have to deal with imposter syndrome, you have to take the brunt of others' insecurities too.

Like, becoming an artist is not an easy get-rich-(or popular)-quick scheme. You'd really have to love what you do, because the process of becoming one is grueling, thankless, and sometimes traumatizing depending on your environment.

No one becomes an artist for the accolades. AI bros think typing keywords into a generator prompt makes them professional artists because they can't be bothered to sit down and learn how to draw a circle.

My old university used to have an art professor who'd whip out a cigarette lighter and set your painting on fire during critique if he didn't like it, FFS. They expected artists to be chained to the studio eight hours a day or more, subsisting on vending machine food, even sleeping there.

Compared to that, regular classes were a relief 😵‍💫

[bonaesperanza]

just fyi the jewel encrusted hotdog post is ai art unfortunately

Hi, by virtue of my professional background, I have enough of an understanding of both actual human neural networks and statistics to say that, from what I can comprehend of how they work, AI image generators aren't stealing art the way I would define it. I could explain why but I don't want to make this an essay. If anyone knows better please do correct me. I also think most AI art is shitty and is giving nothing, but that's beside the point.

I do think the use of AI art is a huge labour issue under capitalism, the same way that, say, buying a background actor's likeness for a small price and then CGI-ing it into a bunch of movies instead of paying the actor by the hour is a huge labour issue (even if the actor gave their consent and no laws were broken). I think this should be solved by some kind of legislation, but I'm too ignorant to know how to do it without making copyright laws crazy stringent. Because of this, I try not to share or interact with AI-generated art that looks like it could be aimed at some kind of commercial purpose or like it could take away from a human artist's livelihood. This is as a way of signaling to anyone involved that I find this a social issue that I'd like to see resolved.

Anyway, the jewel-encrusted hotdog IMHO is a shitpost, the same way that ye olde Godzilla account is a shitpost, or the Gay Sex cats, and I don't think using AI for shitposts is bad in itself. So I don't really care that it's AI tbh.

(It also doesn't apply to hobbyists who are writing their own code and tinkering with the concept to no commercial purpose because these are clearly folks putting genuine effort into enjoying their weird hobby like everyone else on here. I've seen them receive death threats for trying to explain how this thing they enjoy tinkering with actually works and I think this is reflective of the ugliest and most insidious of fandom tendencies.)

[oblivion-wonderlust]

the irony of the whole AI discourse is that the people who go around saying “AI won’t put you out of a job, people who know how to use AI will” is that these people who “know how to use AI” will instantly lose their jobs if AI actually did what it says on the tin.

the whole point of gen AI is to take some kind of vague human input describing and output and produce that— the way a client gives a team of professionals a brief and expects a deliverable of a certain quality. Generally, there are a couple rounds of feedback and reviews before the deliverable is handed over. the issue with gen AI is that it requires the initial input to be very precise and feedback generally results in a process of recreation (that creates its own new issues) as opposed to feedback driven modification of the existing deliverable.

here’s where the “prompt engineers” come in. the entire point of this group of people is to take a vague request and then “translate” that to a precise form that the AI can “understand”. they are the people who “know how to use AI”. their allure is very obvious to someone that only thinks in numbers— instead of paying a team of professionals, you can just pay this one guy who says he is the AI whisperer. the issue with this, of course, is that the quality of the deliverable is not very good. no matter how precise the input is, the quality of the output is fundamentally limited by whatever model is powering it. there is also the fact that most people that call themselves “prompt engineers” tend not to have broader creative credentials and may not be able to identify what might constitute as high quality.

this emergent class of “prompt engineers” tends to be the proselytisers of the use of AI and are specifically the ones going around saying “we’re gonna replace all artists with AI”— and also tend to be the people giving feedback to the development team behind these models. there is one obvious problem with this: the “prompt engineers” need the AI to be very difficult to use if they want to keep their job.

if gen AI starts doing what it promises, turning vague inputs into some kind of finished deliverable, the same client will turn around and say “what do i need a prompt engineer for?” and the IKEA effect will make the client be satisfied with the output, even if the quality is garbage.

the “prompt engineer” grift (and it is a grift) is a very precarious one. on the one hand, you need AI models to improve because that’s the hard limit of the quality you can provide (which is the same as every single other “prompt engineer” can provide mind you). on the other hand, you need it to be absolutely garbage to use and remain as it, lest your clients replace you or your tricks stop working.

[whumpster-fire]

I don't talk about my professional life on Tumblr very often, but I'm actually a wildly successful Grandmaster of Product Development at Internet Of Things Inc in Palo Alto, CA. I'm the genius behind numerous very profitable products you may have seen on store shelves or TV Informercials. Some of my latest hits include:

A subscription based weed whacker that uses only $399.99 proprietary string spools. Also takes $79.99 bottles of wifi-enabled pesticide fluid that are automatically injected into the grass via our patented 3D-printed nozzle design and aerosolized by the spinning string. Rumors that this fluid contains Agent Orange are false: we have added green dye to it.

A suite of smart home products including automatic thermostats, lights, speakers, and doorknobs. Unlike competing products that lock you out of your home if you miss a payment or your internet connection is interrupted, our locks you in and turns the thermostat up/down, strobes the lights, and plays InfoWars podcasts at full blast until you pay up.

A meal planning service with built-in cooking device. Food is delivered in proprietary frozen packets that come with a removable single-use RFID tag. Simply place the packet in the WeCookIt, close the door, insert the tag, and it will heat your food with microwave radiation (that's the same thing used for the WiFi it needs to verify that your food isn't pirated). Available for $1699.95, food packets cost $25-45 per meal on average ($750-$1350 per month with a one-meal per day plan).

A subscription-based pacemaker. Now before you say anything, no, it does not shut down and kill you if you miss a payment: that would be unethical and more importantly illegal. But it turns out that there's no law against it making your heart spell out "I AM A CHEAP ASS MOTHERFUCKER" in morse code at 10-minute intervals 24/7!

An AI-based long-distance dating service. Instead of trying to find an ideal partner for you, it creates one using a combination of ChatGPT to have romantic conversations with you and our proprietary AI art engine trained off data scraped from instagram to generate selfies! Unfortunately we haven't worked out the bugs in the training data and it has a bad habit of either suicide-baiting users or trying to make them wire all their money to unknown foreign bank accounts (the annoying thing is these accounts aren't even affiliated with the company: I have no idea who's getting it but man they must be rich by now) if a single profile remains active for too long.

A Smart Smoke Alarm. It automatically records data from cameras, microphones, and numerous other sensors 24/7 which we sell to insurance companies so that in the event of a fire they can analyze your life and look for an excuse to not pay out.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: THIS IS SATIRE. THERE IS NO COMPANY CALLED INTERNET OF THINGS INC IN PALO ALTO, CA TO MY KNOWLEDGE. IF A COMPANY BY THIS NAME DOES HAPPEN TO EXIST, I DO NOT CLAIM TO REPRESENT THEM, AND THEY CAN GO FUCK THEMSELVES. IN ADDITION IF THIS COMPANY DOES EXIST I DO NOT CONDONE OR ENCOURAGE BURNING DOWN THEIR GODDAMN OFFICES, BUT MAN WOULDN'T IT BE FUNNY IF-

[maerynaire]

Youtube is a dumb idiot platform run by greedy jerks and I'm smarter than Neal Mohan. Here's eleven entire ways youtube could make money to keep itself afloat without being anti-consumer

1- For every 1 hour of video uploaded by a single person, charge 1 USD. Data needs a physical place to be stored and that costs money, it is completely reasonable that the people using this service pay a small amount of money for it. That said, don't retroactively charge people for video already uploaded or change the fee itself. One and done. Have some integrity.

2- Actually talk to the creators and set up some sort of (actual) partner program among the larger million+ subscriber channels wherein Youtube representatives help facilitate sponsorships (and take a little bit of that money as a treat). That way there's an alternative to predatory MCNs and it solves the issue of people not being able to get in touch with youtube reps, because they will be working directly with youtube reps

3- Make the livestreaming function more accessible and visible (1-5% cut from all donations/subs/whatever they're called on there)

4- Kill youtube tv, movies, kids, and all things of a similar vein and make a singular secondary site dedicated to professionally-made content from studios with the option to either buy a subscription for unlimited access to the library or purchase digital copies in a one-time transaction (basically just make netflix 2 but good, you have the resources)

5- Remove embedded ads for any video under 20 minutes, remove midrolls altogether, raise the price advertisers have to pay for this limited real estate. A lot of people still do not use adblockers, they'll see these ads. You control the supply, so make the people demanding it pay instead of those of us innocent bystanders.

6- A single banner ad on the homepage that you charge advertisers out the nose for, make those little idiot marketing firms fight tooth and nail for even a brief second with it. If you're going to keep people from blocking ads then have this be the singular unblocked ad. Vet whoever wants to rent it thoroughly and keep it as a static image with no audio.

7- Kill content farms. Put in a daily upload limit and investigate channels that upload large amounts of content (especially similar content) frequently. Kill cocomelon and its ilk with hammers. Hell, I'll do that one for free.

8- Fire Neal Mohan and beat him over the head with a boogie board until he apologizes for the crypto bullshit. Likewise. If anyone utters 'web3', 'crypto', 'nft', 'ai art', or 'metaverse' in a non-ironic context, fire them. Then fold their salaries back into server costs.

9- Enforce rules fairly and fix the copyright system so people actually want to use your website. Throw in some quality-of-life changes to while you're feeling spicy. More customization for the actual aesthetics of a channel page would be cool

10- You can keep youtube premium but don't put website functionality behind a paywall, explicitly state that premium is for people who want to support the website, show them exactly where their money is going, and maybe add little bonuses like hats for your profile picture that are randomly unlocked as you watch youtube for premium subscribers only. This is exclusively cosmetic. You can even put out hats that match those special google banners and holidays and shit. Just something cute and nice as a 'hey thanks for supporting us'

11- Integrate the merchandise tab better in a NON-OBTRUSIVE WAY. Maybe have a function for larger channels to have an embedded shop page on their channel. Not the weird, clunky version of this that they have now

[littlemisslipbalm]

Please, just give me a seat at the table, I don’t know how much longer this restaurant will stay open.

The continuing story of a recent graduate born in 2001:

Didn’t know I’d be begging for a seat at the table. Was told to wait patiently for my turn and I’d be next in line. Now it seems the line has disappeared or maybe so many lines formed it’s just a massive hoard of people surrounding this one tiny table that no one will get up from. Or if they do, it’s to slide someone close to them in to fill their place, maybe even add a little extension but just for their special someone. What if you’re nobodies special someone? What are you meant to do? I’ve gotten on my knees and begged, and even on the floor I can’t find a place to fit in. Boots and heels and organic sneakers kick away my fingers and face. I’ve screamed and shouted and asked politely, but I get no reply. I get no reply or the same canned response. An automatic reply. You’re worried about AI stealing jobs? I’m not even sure there’s a job left to steal. But I’ll keep waiting at the edge of the table. Instead of speaking with the diners, scouring my phone for the next OpenTable reservation to open up! Booking may only be done 7 days in advance.

Position: Entry-level

Requirements: 3-5 years of professional experience, 3-5 professional references, an undergraduate degree and a way to bypass the other 437 applicants who already applied (a high up connection within the company will do just fine!).

Pay the job service you’re using to see how your profile compares to other applicants. No money because you have no job and can’t afford to boost your profile? Good luck! We hope your connections get you there.

Have you tried menial jobs instead? There’s actually only a few of those as well and you’re not qualified to work them. No one is willing to train you and it’s a job you’ll hate doing. Pay is abysmal but potentially more than that unpaid internship that never got back to you. Did we mention Tips! Put yourself through the pain, try to work through the restaurant. Get a job bussing the table, cleaning the floor or preparing the food and maybe then you’ll find the connections to finally get a seat. It’s unlikely but hey, there’s no point in not trying. Just keep trying. There’s always tomorrow when someone might decide they no longer would like their seat!

I don’t remember the seat I wanted to fill as a child. I barely remember the seat I wanted to fill when I started college. The only way I know is because I keep repeating it to anyone who will listen. I want to be a writer. Each time I must sound less and less enthusiastic—not because I want it any less but because I’m growing more sure every moment I’ll never succeed. The places I’m trying to fill aren’t writing positions, at least not the type of writing I want, but I’m willing. I’m willing to go where I’m needed, it just seems that nowhere needs me. Nowhere wants me.

I’m still standing at the edge of the table. 18 years since I was first asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. Since I was first told I could be anything. It seems I didn’t know then that it wasn’t that I could choose anything but that I’d have to be able to fit anything.

A better outlook would be to focus on the fact that I’m still standing at all. But I want to do more than stand and watch, I want to sit at the table and contribute my voice. I want the man across the table to hear me and respond. I don’t want to be the child who is better seen and not heard anymore.

Please, just give me a seat at the table, I don’t know how much longer this restaurant will stay open. Everyone’s barely touched their food and no one’s been paying their bills.

- a.p.