Did you know before this post that AI image generators can be run on a standard PC without any connection to the internet before reading this post?
Yes, and I am positively disposed towards AI Imagegen
Yes, and I am negatively disposed towards AI Imagegen
No, and I am positively disposed towards AI Imagegen
No, and I am negatively disposed towards AI Imagegen
I apologize for being On My Bullshit again, but like, a lot of people talk about how "the end goal of AI as a technology is to make us all dependent on a technology only useable on big tech's data centers to make images while our skills atrophy and they can cut us off" and...
Well, that's not really true. You can run an image generation program on a standard PC with no connection to the net, using the same amount of energy/water as any other program.
A lot of the idea that can only run on these massive servers because it's "constantly scanning the net for data" is a misunderstanding of how training works, it's a matter of statistical math not data storage.
Hell, even in training, China's shown that we need way less resources to train an AI than big tech says, the idea they need to roll out these data centers for the tech is a lie, based around inflating a bubble.
My point in bringing this up is to say that A) the idea that "You spend an entire gallon of water to generate a picture of a cowboy shark" is misinfo, B) To deal with the actual malfeasance going on it's way more productive to fight against big tech and their data centers than the end-users...
...And most importantly C) You need to get way more mad about software-as-service and the big lie that is 'The Cloud'.
Like, legit, the more I look at this issue the more I realize it's actually about the removal of control/hosting from end-users in favor of perpetual renting, but it was happening well before the rise of AI and there's no real organized effort to fight it on that front, and that's gotta change.
Like, legit you can draw a direct line between; say; the subscription fees for Adobe's shit & Zbrush with no option to own or the fact there's no desktop equivalent to my beloved Tinkercad, and the nasty, nasty plans that the AI corpos have to expand that business model, and we gotta start drawing that line fast.