the most frustrating thing about AI Art from a Discourse perspective is that the actual violation involved is pretty nebulous
like, the guys “laundering” specific artists’ styles through AI models to mimic them for profit know exactly what they’re doing, and it’s extremely gross
but we cannot establish “my work was scraped from the public internet and used as part of a dataset for teaching a program what a painting of a tree looks like, without anyone asking or paying me” as, legally, Theft with a capital T. not only is this DMCA Logic which would be a nightmare for 99% of artists if enforced to its conclusion, it’s not the right word for what’s happening
the actual Violation here is that previously, “I can post my artwork to share with others for free, with minimal risk” was a safe assumption, which created a pretty generous culture of sharing artwork online. most (noteworthy) potential abuses of this digital commons were straightforwardly plagiarism in a way anyone could understand
but the way that generative AI uses its training data is significantly more complicated - there is a clear violation of trust involved, and often malicious intent, but most of the common arguments used to describe this fall short and end up in worse territory
by which I mean, it’s hard to put forward an actual moral/legal solution unless you’re willing to argue:
Potential sales “lost” count as Theft (so you should in fact stop sharing your Netflix password)
No amount of alteration makes it acceptable to use someone else’s art in the production of other art without permission and/or compensation (this would kill entire artistic mediums and benefit nobody but Disney)
Art Styles should be considered Intellectual Property in an enforceable way (impossibly bad, are you kidding me)
it’s extremely annoying to talk about, because you’ll see people straight up gloating about their Intent To Plagiarize, but it’s hard to stick them with any specific crime beyond Generally Scummy Behavior unless you want to create some truly horrible precedents and usher in The Thousand Year Reign of Intellectual Property Law
Why does every solution need to set some kind of Precedent™, can’t Congress just make a copyright law specifically about AI and nothing else?
You don’t need some “logic”, you can just make a law that says you need explicit permission or ownership of a copyright to use it in AI training or in the creation of other automated content generation systems. You can justify it using the same exact justification used for the creation of copyright in the first place.
It might not be as future proof but it’s good enough and does not allow Disney to own thoughts themselves.
can we talk abt disabled people without a concrete diagnosis. how diagnosis can be a privilege inaccessible for dozens of reasons. how even if you do happen to be fortunate enough to have access to doctors and specialists, it isnt easy to figure things out. how people dismiss invisible and undiagnosed disabilities. how the posibility of the issue being psychosomatic is used as a weapon to invalidate experiences. can we talk about how disabled people don’t have to know why they’re struggling for them to struggle.
Archaeologist. We sometimes choose places to dig because our gut says “this is nice, I’d settle here”. I’ve had field directors say “this has paleo energy” about areas. Often we see big hill in our dig area, we dig on big hill.
Most recently, I’ve found two sites because I was walking to my next hole and saw some petrified wood I wanted. Started picking up pieces and saw a half buried biface lmao.
Other site, I was walking and imagined a little native girl running along the ridge. I had a gut feeling to dig like 5m from where the hole was. Found a utilized petrified wood flake. Could’ve written it off as a plow fact, but due to all the pet wood I’d been collecting throughout the area (I’m a greedy little thing who wants pretty rocks), I knew the was it was broken was inconsistent to how the pet wood naturally breaks.
What sealed the deal for me was cleaning the mud off, and it cut me so, yup, definitely utilized.
So glad you commented this because I was looking for the term for “people saw a pretty rock and took it with them” forEVER now and couldn’t find it. Fuckin love manuports
eternal human urges:
shiny rock!!
throw object in body of water
big hill. climb.
not come in to lab on weekend
We found our T. rex last summer by just walking around and sticking a very long, thin stick in the mud until we hit something hard, then we dug.
The hardest part about getting older? You want to go back to the places you felt safe. You want to see the faces of the people you loved so much, but you can’t. People pass away and they’re gone. That’s that. And there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s out of your control, and you have to accept it.
I didn’t know my little brother had a Minecraft server until one of his friends mentioned it at his funeral a few years back during a speech. His friend said that anytime the server would crash, my little brother would hop out of bed and hurry to get things running again. He loved Minecraft and I remember watching Herobrine videos with him when we were kids.
I admittingly only started playing Minecraft this year with friends. And sometimes I wonder if he were still alive, if we’d be playing together too.
We are here for only a moment. Life is short. Love each other.
To anyone who believes fairy tale romances never happen in real life, may I remind you that JRR and Edith Tolkien met and experienced a forbidden love in their youth, and then were separated for five whole years because of his guardian’s rules that he could not date till he was 21, and she got engaged to someone else only because she assumed he’d forgotten her and lost hope that she could ever be with him, but then on his 21st birthday, he wrote her a letter saying he still loved her and wanted to marry her, she responded basically saying ‘if I’d known you hadn’t left me on the shelf, I would never have said yes to anyone else,’ then a week later she greeted him at the train station and then immediately dumped her fiancé, and they got married and she converted to his religion and danced for him in a flowering field far away from the trenches into which he was drafted, which left such an impression that he crafted an entire story about the most beautiful maiden in the world who danced in the woods and made enormous sacrifices to be with the man she loved, and they had four kids and remained faithful to each other and blissfully grew old together and their gravestones are now marked with the names of that same fictional couple that he created, who broke every rule and overcame every possible obstacle to be together and get a happy ending, who only did all that because he based it all on their own real love story.
Knowing all this has always made this bit of Beren’s song instantly reduce me to tears:
Though all to ruin fell the world
and were dissolved and backward hurled
unmade into the old abyss,
yet were its making good, for this—
the dawn, the dusk, the earth, the sea—
that Lúthien on a time should be!
Tolkien straight up wrote a poem that said “the world could end, but it wouldn’t have all been pointless, because she was in this world, however briefly, and that justified all the rest.” Kills me.
Who can outdo Wife Guy Tolkien? Dude was writing elaborate AUs where his wife is an impossibly beautiful magic-wielding immortal elf princess who fights Satan and wins to rescue her human boyfriend from Satan’s doom fortress. Flawless.
Final note: while they were dating, a favorite activity was to go to a local cafe with a balcony and throw sugar cubes into people’s hats.
FOR THOSE UNAWARE OF THIS, UH, “FACT,” THE IDEA IS THAT “GHOTI” COULD BE PRONOUNCED “FISH” IF YOU PRONOUNCE THE GH- AS IN “LAUGH,” THE -O- AS IN “WOMEN,” AND THE “TI” AS IN “AMBITION.”
HOWEVER, THIS FAILS TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THAT THE PRONUNCIATION OF LETTERS IS DEPENDENT ON THEIR POSITION WITHIN THE WORD.
AT THE END OF A WORD OR SYLLABLE, “GH” CAN BE PRONOUNCED LIKE THE LETTER F. THIS IS WHY IT’S PRONOUNCED THAT WAY IN “LAUGH” AND “LAUGHTER” AND “ENOUGH” AND, DEPENDING ON WHO YOU ASK, “VAN GOGH.” AT THE BEGINNING OF A WORD OR SYLLABLE, “GH” IS PRONOUNCED AS AN EXTRA-HARD G-SOUND, AS IN “GHOST” AND “GHOUL” AND “GHASTLY.”
LIKEWISE, “TI” IS NOT PRONOUNCED AS “SH” AT THE END OF A WORD. IN “AMBITION,” IT IS ONLY BECAUSE “TI” IS FOLLOWED BY “O” THAT THERE IS AN “SH” SOUND IN THE WORD AT ALL. THIS IS WHY “RATIO” IS PRONOUNCED WITH AN “SH” SOUND, WHILE “MANTIS” IS PRONOUNCED WITH A “T” SOUND.
IT’S ALSO IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT, IN WORDS LIKE “AMBITION” AND “NATION,” IT’S NOT THAT THE “TI” IS PRONOUNCED LIKE “SH.” “TION” IS A COMPLETE SYLLABLE, PRONOUNCED “SHUN” OR “SHEN.” IF YOU REMOVE ANY OF THE LETTERS, THE PRONUNCIATION WOULD CHANGE.
“ION” DOESN’T HAVE AN SH- SOUND IN IT. “TIN” DOESN’T HAVE AN SH- SOUND IN IT. “TI” DOESN’T HAVE AN SH- SOUND IN IT. “TON” DOESN’T HAVE AN SH- SOUND IN IT. “TIO” ONLY HAS AN SH- SOUND IN IT IF IT’S PRECEDED BY A VOWEL, AS IN “RATIO,” AND EVEN THEN, IT’S PRONOUNCED “SHYO” OR “SHI-O,” DEPENDING ON YOUR ACCENT.
“O” IS RARELY PRONOUNCED AS IN “WOMEN,” EXCEPT WHEN IT’S IN THE MIDDLE OF A SYLLABLE.
THAT’S THE THING. “-GH” IS ONLY PRONOUNCED “F” AT THE END OF A SYLLABLE. “O” IS ONLY PRONOUNCED AS IN “WOMEN” IN THE MIDDLE OF A SYLLABLE. “TI-” IS ONLY PRONOUNCED “SH” AT THE BEGINNING OF A CERTAIN SYLLABLES, AND NEVER BY ITSELF.
WHEN ASSEMBLED IN THAT ORDER, NONE OF THOSE PRONUNCIATIONS WOULD APPLY. IF THEY HAD SPELLED IT “GHOTION,” IT WOULD BE PRONOUNCED “GOSHEN.” IF THEY HAD IT “LAUGHOTI,” IT WOULD BE PRONOUNCED “LAFF-OH-TEE.”
HOWEVER, SPELLED “GHOTI,” THERE’S NO WAY TO PRONOUNCE IT “FISH” UNLESS YOU PRONOUNCE EVERY LETTER INCORRECTLY, IN WHICH CASE YOU’RE NOT PRONOUNCING “GHOTI” AT ALL, YOU’RE PRONOUNCING “FISH.” “GHOTI” IS PRONOUNCED “GOATY.”
NOW, THE ORIGINAL IDEA BEHIND “GHOTI” WAS MAKING FUN OF THE LACK OF RULES GOVERNING ENGLISH SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION. THIS IS STUPID AS HELL, BECAUSE THEY HAD TO IGNORE A BUNCH OF THE RULES GOVERNING ENGLISH SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION IN ORDER TO MAKE FUN OF THEIR NON-EXISTENCE.
THEY LITERALLY PRETENDED THE ESTABLISHED PRONUNCIATION CONVENTIONS DIDN’T EXIST JUST SO THEY COULD MAKE FUN OF ENGLISH FOR NOT HAVING ESTABLISHED PRONUNCIATION CONVENTIONS, WHICH IS ESPECIALLY AGGRAVATING BECAUSE THIS COULD EASILY BE ACCOMPLISHED WITH THE EXISTING WORD “COLONEL.”
WHY IS IT SPELLED THAT WAY WHEN CORN KERNEL IS SPELLED LIKE IT FUCKING SOUNDS
SORRY FOR THE SLIGHT DELAY IN RESPONDING TO THIS COMMENT, I WAS AT WORK
THE ITALIAN WORD “COLONEL” WAS DERIVED FROM TWO SOURCES: ITALIAN AND FRENCH. WHEN IT WAS IMPORTED INTO ENGLISH IN THE 16TH CENTURY, THE FRENCH VERSION WAS SPELLED CORONEL AND THE ITALIAN VERSION WAS SPELLED COLONNELA. THE SPELLING IN BOTH ENGLISH AND FRENCH WAS LATER UPDATED AND STANDARDIZED TO MATCH THE ITALIAN SPELLING, BUT THE OLDER FRENCH-STYLE PRONUNCIATION WON OUT AMONG ENGLISH SPEAKERS, LEAVING US WITH A WORD THAT IS SPELLED ONE WAY AND PRONOUNCED ANOTHER
I’m crying, 10 years later. I’m still here. I see the response.
Tumblr is the most eco-friendly social media site because we will see an old post and be like is anyone else gonna recontextualize this and not wait for an answer
Hurting your back isn’t always “ow, I lifted something really heavy and immediately felt a sharp pain,” sometimes it’s caused by the cumulative stress of straining it in tiny ways over a long period of time. Getting in the habit of good body mechanics makes a difference!
“average age of this site” no you should be doing this even when you’re young. Do it right from the beginning and you reduce problems later on.
Being a young adult is so strange. You enter a coffee shop. The 20 year old girl waiting behind you cried all night because she just came to a new city for university and she feels so alone. That 27 year old guy over there works a job he is overqualified for, he lives with his parents and wants to move out but doesn’t know what to do about it. That one 24 year old dude already has a car, a house, and a job waiting for him once he graduates thanks to his dad’s connections. The 26 year old barista couldn’t complete his higher education because he has to work and take care of his family. The 28 year old girl sitting next to you has no friends to go out with so she is texting her mother. That couple (both 25 years old) are married and the girl is pregnant. The 29 year old writing something on her laptop has realized that she chose the wrong major so she is trying to start all over. We are not alone in this, but we are actually so alone. Do you feel me
Being a young adult is so strange. You enter a coffee shop. The 20 year old girl waiting behind you cried all night because she just came to a new city for university and she feels so alone. That 27 year old guy over there works a job he is overqualified for, he lives with his parents and wants to move out but doesn’t know what to do about it. That one 24 year old dude already has a car, a house, and a job waiting for him once he graduates thanks to his dad’s connections. The 26 year old barista couldn’t complete his higher education because he has to work and take care of his family. The 28 year old girl sitting next to you has no friends to go out with so she is texting her mother. That couple (both 25 years old) are married and the girl is pregnant. The 29 year old writing something on her laptop has realized that she chose the wrong major so she is trying to start all over. We are not alone in this, but we are actually so alone. Do you feel me
does anyone else ever get the urge to use specific words. like sometimes i’ll wake up and be like if i don’t find an opportunity to say the words “abhorrent” and “catastrophic” today i’m going to lose my fucking mind.
okay context for the non-italians. long story short: it’s pretty much impossible from an engineering perspective. there are very strong and swirly currents that make it not feasible to just build a bridge where the coasts are the closest - it would have to be built in a spot where the distance between the coasts is wider, a little too much for a bridge possibly, but also, like, outside of the cities, which means it would still be quicker for people to step on the ferry than drive all the way to the bridge. the ferry is quick, cheap, also they’ve introduced sustainable non-polluting boats, so, literally no one in either sicily or calabria wants a useless bridge, even if it could be built safely.
on top of that… it’s a seismic area. you really don’t want to make engineering experiments there.
governments have tried to figure out a way to build that bridge at least from the 60s, afaik, but engineers have just come to the conclusion that nope.
also: people in sicily and calabria have reason to believe that if a project like that gets given the green light, it will end up fattening the pockets of corrupted politicians and mafia groups.
pretty straightforward right? yeah… NOPE!
the italian right has been waving the proposal of building that bridge for decades. every once in a while, when you think you’re free, BAM the right-wing politician genius of the moment comes up with the law proposal to build the bridge. it used to be berlusconi, now berlusconi is dead, recently it’s been salvini. they propose to build the bridge, the left says “what the fuck”, and the right goes see!! the left doesn’t want progress and development for the country!! they want the country to languish and die!!
(in the meanwhile taxpayers’ euros go into paying commissions that need to figure out how to build the bridge, ignoring that there’s been a billion commissions over almost a century that have all come to the conclusion that nope.)
(also remember what i said about corrupted politicians and mafia groups? well try to guess the reason it’s the right-wing parties that keep insisting on building this fucking bridge.)
it’s become a total national joke. mention the bridge on the strait to an italian, they’ll laugh as they go through the 5 stages of italian political grief.
i just think i could benefit from a healthier transgender life actually. no more talking pain and suffering and death all the time. lets talk about what being comfortable with who you are brings instead. catharsis is healthy but so is having fun and healing and remembering and being lightness etc etc i could go on and on but for brevity’s sake being transgender saved my life!!!! if i did not accept that part of myself i would not be here anymore. here i am!!! it was hard!! here i am!!!
and i love my gender because “i asked god to send me a swordsman and he said look at your hands” etc etc look this is not the post for heroics or half remembered quotes whose author name i will later find and paste here: (Melissa Broder) but what it is about is gender euphoria. don’t let anyone tell you being transgender is the end of your life, to me it felt like the beginning, like i’d freaking woke up for the first time and noticed how sunbeams fell through the open window, cool fresh air. a beautiful new day just beginning to bloom before my very eyes.
look, guys, this may seem ironic coming from a person with Verbose Disease, but I’m about to tell you the secret to winning social media: shutting the fuck up. you have a controversial discourse opinion? shut the fuck up and no one will know. can’t participate in a boycott for various reasons? shut the fuck up and no one will know. you think or do something Problematic that has no bearing on anyone but yourself? shut the fuck up and no one will know. you haven’t been keeping up on a pressing social issue? shut the fuck up and no one will know. your mind is a wonderful place where you can have all the bad takes in the world and they’re all perfectly insulated from everyone and everything unless you try to excise them on a grand scale. you can take the mental L all by yourself without using a public platform as a confession booth and face zero repercussions and it’ll be just fine. open up a damn diary and explain yourself there.
babygirl you wouldn’t believe the people I have blocked over this post
someone called me worse than a fascist for this post
look, guys, this may seem ironic coming from a person with Verbose Disease, but I’m about to tell you the secret to winning social media: shutting the fuck up. you have a controversial discourse opinion? shut the fuck up and no one will know. can’t participate in a boycott for various reasons? shut the fuck up and no one will know. you think or do something Problematic that has no bearing on anyone but yourself? shut the fuck up and no one will know. you haven’t been keeping up on a pressing social issue? shut the fuck up and no one will know. your mind is a wonderful place where you can have all the bad takes in the world and they’re all perfectly insulated from everyone and everything unless you try to excise them on a grand scale. you can take the mental L all by yourself without using a public platform as a confession booth and face zero repercussions and it’ll be just fine. open up a damn diary and explain yourself there.
babygirl you wouldn’t believe the people I have blocked over this post
someone called me worse than a fascist for this post
i’ve been seeing this cultural shift over my lifetime, too. it started with implications shaming poor folks for “wasting” money on fast food bc “making food at home is so much more affordable!” patronizing financial advice that ignores the reality of people’s time and energy budgets when working full-time jobs, and often more than one job, just to barely scrape by. then, as inflation has hit without any pay raises or raising the minimum wage, you see fast food evolve from an “unnecessary expense” to a “luxury” all while the actual quality of the food declines.
we never should have let the idea of fast food, or hell even simply the act of eating out, be seen as something that can reasonably be cut from a budget to save money! we should not have let it get so thoroughly ingrained in the cultural zeitgeist. people have always eaten food made by other people in their community, whether that’s been a restaurant or just some neighbors who are passionate about cooking as a hobby. being expected to cook all of your own meals at home, especially given how much more expensive even THAT has gotten, is just not feasible for everyone. everyone should have the ability to go eat out as many times as they’d like without the fear of breaking their budgets.
regulate food pricing and raise the minimum wage NOW. no more waiting!
i think about this LITERALLY every time i walk past anyone ever it has permanently lodged itself in my brain
idk why but this reminded me of when i was riding my bike and i was near this driveway and this car was coming up. one of its headlights wasn’t working properly so i thought the turn signal was on and that it was about to turn into the driveway right ahead of me, so i turned to go to the sidewalk on the other side of the street, riding right in front of the car.
the turn signal was not, in fact, on, and i felt like an asshole.
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