So I Must Brave the Storm?

26 | Gryffindor | INTP Period Dramas, X Company, Downton Abbey, MaryxMatthew, Jane Austen, Star Wars, Feminism, Nature, Fashion, Music, Photography

[prokopetz]

It's true that there's no practicable way to frame "style theft" as an intellectual property issue that wouldn't have horrifying consequences for independent artist, but that doesn't mean we can't have sympathy for all the artists who've spent their lives perfecting the craft of drawing moist-lipped, glassy-eyed, vaguely oily-looking anime girls in three-quarter profile and now everybody thinks they're a robot.

[theconcealedweapon]

Yet again, more proof that capitalism was never about "freedom" or "small government".

[justalittleconfusing]

THIS!!!!!!!!!!

Would it be easier to put an academic article in ChatGPT to summarize so I can check my summary and make sure I am on the right path? Would it ease my feelings of self doubt and imposter syndrome? Maybe!

BUT IS IT ETHICAL! If the AUTHOR does not consent to have their work analyzed by AI WHY can I as the consumer choose that consent for them? When you feed AI to make your life easier something you did not create, you are removing the creator's consent to how their work is used.

And it doesn't matter if it is fan fiction, a published article, a copy written textbook. CONSENT over your work matters.

[oddly-romantic]

generative AI literally makes me feel like a boomer. people start talking about how it can be good to help you brainstorm ideas and i’m like oh you’re letting a computer do the hard work and thinking for you???

[headspace-hotel]

There are many difficult things that were replaced with technology, and it wasn't a bad thing. Washing machine replaces washing clothes by hand. Nothing wrong with that. Spinning wheel replaces drop spindle. Nothing wrong with that.

Generative AI replaces thinking. The ability to think for yourself will always be important. People that want to control and oppress you want to limit your ability to think for yourself as much as possible, but continuing to practice it allows you to resist them.

[mikkeneko]

"This tool replaces thinking," is a technology problem we (humans) have faced before. It's a snark that I've seen pro-AI contenders take as well: I bet these same people would have complained about calculators! And books!

Well. They did, at the time. 

We have records from centuries -- even millennia back -- of scholars at the time complaining that these new-fangled "books" were turning their students lazy; why, they can barely recite any poems in their entirety any more! And there are people still alive today who remember life before widely available calculators, and some of them complained -- then and now -- that bringing them into schools dealt a ruinous blow to math education, and now these young people don't even know how to use a slide-rule.

And the thing is:

They weren't wrong.

The human brain can, when called on, perform incredible feats of memorization. Bards and skalds of old could memorize and recite poems and epics that were thousands of lines long. This is a skill that is largely lost to most of the population. It's not needed any more, and so it is not practiced.

There is a definite generational gap, between the people who were trained on slide-rules and reckoning and the generation that was taught on calculators. There came a year, when that first generation grew up and entered the workforce, when you suddenly started encountering grown adults who could not do math -- not even the very basic arithmetic needed to count down from one hundred. I would go into a shop, buy an item for sixteen dollars, give the cashier a twenty and a one because I want a fiver back, and have them stare at the money in incomprehension -- what do? They don't know how to subtract sixteen from twenty-one. They don't know how to calculate a fifteen-percent tip. They did not exercise the parts of their brain that handle this, because they always had a calculator to do it for them.

Nowadays, newer point-of-sale machines compensate for this; they will automatically calculate and dispense the change, no subtraction necessary on the part of the operator. Nowadays everyone carries a phone, and every phone carries a calculator, so if you need to do these calculations, the tool is right there. As more and more transactions go electronic and card, and cash fades further and further out of daily life, these situations happen less and less; it's not a problem that most people can't do math (until it is.)

The people who complained that these tools-that-replace-thinking would reduce the ability of the broad population to exercise these cognitive skills weren't wrong. It's simply that, as the pace of life changed, the environment changed so that in day-to-day life these skills were largely unnecessary.

So.

Isn't this, ChatGPT and Generative AI, just the latest in a long series of tool-replaces-thought that has, broadly, worked out well for us? What's different about this?

Well, two things are different.

1) In the previous instances of tool-replaces-thinking, the cognitive skill that it replaced was a discrete and, on a day-to-day basis, unnecessary outlay of energy. Most people don't need to memorize thousands of lines of poetry, or anything else for that matter. Most people don't need to do more than cursory levels of math on a day to day basis. 

This, however, is different. The cognitive skill that is being obsoleted here is more than "how to write essay" or "identify what is the capital of Rhode Island." It encompasses the entire field of being able to generate new thoughts; of being able to consider and analyze new information; of being able to follow logical trains to their conclusions; of being able to order your thoughts to construct rational arguments; or indeed of being able to express yourself in any structured way. These cognitive tools are not occasional use; they are every day, all the time. 

2) In the previous instances of tool-replaces-thinking, the tool was good at what it did.

Calculators may have replaced reckoning, but calculators are also pretty good at what they do. The calculator will, as long as you give the right input, give the right answer. ChatGPT cannot be relied on to do this. ChatGPT will tell you, confidently and unhesitantly and dangerously, that 2+2=5, and it will not care that it is wrong.

Books may have replaced memorization, and books certainly could be wrong; but a fact, once in a book, is pretty stable and steady. There is not a risk that the Guy Who Owns All The Encylopedias might wake up one day and decide -- to pick a purely hypothetical example -- that the Gulf of Mexico is called something else, and suddenly all the encyclopedias say that.

Generative AI fails on both these counts. It fails on every count. It's inaccurate, it's unethical, it's unreliable, it's wrong.

---

I remember some time ago seeing someone say (it was a video about medieval footwear, actually) that "humans have a great energy-saving system: if we can be lazy about something, we are."

This is not a ethical judgment about humans; this is how life works. Animals -- including humans -- will not do something the hard way if they can do it the easy way; this basic principle of conservation of resources is universal and morally neutral. Cognition is biologically expensive, and though our environment is not what it once was, every person still goes through every day choosing what is valuable enough to expend resources on and what is not.

Because of this, I don't know if there is any solution, here. I think pushing back against the downhill flush of the-easy-way-out is a battle both uphill and against the tide.

So I'll just close with this warning, instead: 

Generative AI is a tool that cannot be trusted. Do not use it to replace thought.

[burtoo]

Today I learned of Tumblr's plan to begin (or continue) selling user content to OpenAI and Midjourney, which is the last straw for me and my presence on the site. Regardless of their claims that users can opt out of this, I frankly just don't believe them.

I've used Tumblr since 2010 when I started photography, and this blog is the largest existing archive of my work on the internet. It's a liability for me to continue to allow it to be hosted on a site that is now actively contributing to the theft of art, directly from artists. I know my photos have already been stolen, repurposed and claimed countless times over the years from Tumblr and other sites, but I have to draw a line here. I will unfortunately be removing all my past work from this blog, perhaps something I should have done when the suspicions first arose about Automattic's greed.

Many aspects of my creative career have been negatively impacted by AI already, I just see this as one less path in which to be exploited.

That being said I want to thank all of you for the support over the decade plus I've been active on here, I stuck around much longer than most because of my appreciation for a website that was a huge influence to my early creativity as a kid. I still think it was the best format for social media, and I really am going to miss Tumblr and the creative community it used to be.

I will still do my best to utilize this blog as a place to make announcements about any new projects, such as my upcoming book I aim to release at the end of the year.

You can still find me and my (Glaze/Nightshade protected) work elsewhere on the internet at Instagram, Twitter, and my website.

So long,

Brendon

[leidensygdom]

Please be aware that the "opt-out" choice is just a way to try to appease people. But Tumblr has not been transparent about when has data been sold and shared with AI companies, and there are sources that confirm that data has already been shared before the toggle was even provided to users.

Also, it seems to include data they should not have been able to give under any circumstance, including that of deactivated blogs, private messages and conversations, stuff from private blogs, and so on.

Do not believe that "AI companies will honor the "opt-out request retroactively". Once they've got their hands on your data (and they have), they won't be "honoring" an opt-out option retroactively. There is no way to confirm or deny what data do they have: The fact they are completely opaque on what do they currently "own" and have, means that they can do whatever they want with it. How can you prove they have your data if they don't give everyone free access to see what they've stolen already?

So, yeah, opt out of data sharing, but be aware that this isn't stopping anyone from taking your data. They already have been taking it, before you were given that option. Go and go to Tumblr's Suppport and leave your Feedback on this (politely, but firmly- not everyone in the company is responsible for this.)

Finally: Opt out is not good under any circumstance. Deactivated people can't opt out. People who have lost their passwords can't opt out. People who can't access internet or computers can't opt out. People who had their content reposted can't opt out. Dead people can't opt out. When DeviantArt released their AI image generator, saying that it wasn't trained on people who didn't consent to it, it was proven it could easily replicate the styles of people who had passed away, as seen here. So, yeah. AI companies cannot be trusted to have any sort of respect for people's data and content, because this entire thing is just a data laundering scheme.

Please do reblog for awareness.

[happyheidi]

x- x / x - x 🍃

[depsidase]

[catchymemes]

[ms-hells-bells]

this isn’t reserved to china, though china suffers the worst from it due to being the same location as the investors. multiple countries are having to make buying property and land illegal for people who do not have at least permanent residency/do not live in our countries for a certain amount of days a year, because billionaire chinese investors and investment companies buy properties and land en masse for appreciation purposes, and in doing so, the act forces the prices to go up. and you have massive amounts of empty houses and unused land that just sit there, collecting capital gains. this was big in new zealand until we made it illegal (but unfortunately rich nzers and companies caught onto the practice and now do it themselves here, the scale has properly tipped).

i know other countries also have this problem from the rich and investors in their own nations, but yeah, i grew up in such a town where only 2000 people lived there, but there were around 5,000-10,000 empty, expensive houses in the area just bought up by real estate companies to sell and trade and collectively bring the prices up to make profit.

[female-malice]

This is what every west coast US city is like. West coast real estate companies only rent out about half the housing units they purchase or develop. The rest sit empty. They’re the driving force behind a debilitating housing crisis. And the cities bend over backwards to accommodate this practice. There’s been no regulation here.

[female-malice]

Los Angeles: 93,000 empty units with a homeless population of 69,000

San Francisco: 44,500 empty units with a homeless population of 20,000

Seattle: 22,600 empty units with a homeless population of 12,000

San Jose: 14,000 empty units with a homeless population of 7,000

Oakland: 10,000 empty units with a homeless population of 10,000

The state of California has a total 1.2 million empty units with a homeless population of 116,600. If every homeless person in California was housed, there’d still be 1.1 million empty units.

[gaygraviturgist]

me: oh cool i got a new follower, i hope it isnt a porn bot

salinamarcil805:

[starsandsuch]

🫣👀🔍

[iheartchristmas13]

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas ☃️🤍

[ur-daily-inspiration]

[narrie]

[kkneesockks]

[raymondshieldsofficial]

PLEASE support the railway strikers in the UK. they just announced that they are cancelling services after 6pm on Christmas Eve. people are pissed because they need those services to get to their families for Christmas. well, if the services are that important, then the workers should be compensated for providing them. the UK is broken. so many industries rely on goodwill to stay afloat (I am a pharmacy technician for the NHS, trust me, I know), and that good will is running out. why the fuck would you work longer hours when you end up still struggling to pay for basic necessities?

you don't.

despite what the government tries to push, the workers don't strike to screw over regular people. workers strike so that they can be safer and better compensated to provide the services you need. when workers work long hours for little money, they become less conscientious. as they should. workers don't exist to provide you with services; they are real people, with real lives, which don't revolve around you needing them.

everyone has better things to do with their life than stay late at work to make sure you get where you want to go.

[tonysopranobignaturals-deactiva]

paid sick leave exists in a majority of countries on earth and the US government is acting like the demand for it is a radical anticapitalist act that will destroy the economy. OK

[dradelcrahasmoved]

Bruh

[geoclaire]

I can’t believe I read this post with my own fucking eyes

[lurkerwithcomputer]

I love it unironically, I burst out laughing. It hits the same note as “the opposite of malice is bonfire”.

[tonysopranobignaturals-deactiva]

lots of people seem to forget strikes are SUPPOSED TO negatively impact the economy and inconvenience people. that's how you force the company to give into your demands. it's hitting them where it hurts hardest--their profit.