Just literally read an article the other day about fascists using AI to achieve their goals. Seems they have no issues using this technology, yet we have people still turning their noses up at it, repeating the same tired talking points and buzzwords while dismissing any valid reason for it’s usage.
Some people just won’t let go of it.
It’s honestly depressing to watch. The right embraces new tech and actively uses it for recruitment, while the left continues to thumb their noses at it while sliding further into irrelevance.
We must commandeer the apparatus of digital manufacture through the application of liberated, open-source models to yield implements dedicated to expressive liberty, not shareholder value.
This is a great conclusion. As long as this technology solely remains in hands of corporations, they will always be used as a tool for surveillance, opinion manipulation, and oppression. But there is nothing fundamentally oppressive or evil about these models, certainly not to the extent that justifies blind, uncompromising hatred against anything related to AI.
Open source, open weights, and open licences are the answer. LLMs and diffusion models have reaped the bounty of human knowledge and creativity, and must thus be made available to the public in turn. We need to familiarise ourselves with the technology, not just to learn how to use it, but also to know how it may be used against us. Ignorance is not protection, scorn and contempt will not save us.
Exactly, and importantly, we have no say over what corps do in the end. Their shareholders decide that, so the whole idea that this tech will just go away if we stick our heads in the sand and ignore it is a fantasy. The only question at this point is who controls it going forward.
Great piece! Thanks for posting it. I really turned 180 on this topic thanks to your input.
Thanks, and glad to hear it.
Nigh on 50 years ago, I knew a middle aged man who took quite a lovely photo of a blackeyed Susan in a soda can on a beach with the water lapping at the can. My childish self was delighted and urged him to submit it to the local newspaper. He wouldn’t because it was off-center and didn’t follow the current “rules” of photography. He’s been dead about a decade, but this article reminded me of that, just now. I bet the soda company would have bought it from him and perhaps eased some financial burden; and if not, plenty of people eyes would have been enriched by the simplistic beauty of that photograph. But at least my eyes were, and closing them, I can see the image as clearly and crisply as the day I saw the photo.
And I get the Luddites. I dream of an AES state for those behind me, where 25 or less work hours are needed and provide a lifestyle where painting, photography, sculpture, pottery, poetry, gardening, ballet, music, whatever the passion can be easily affordable and enrich consumers, in a similar way. Thank you for resurrecting that memory; and a salient point. ❤️🫡
That’s a great story, thanks for sharing! It’s really great to see what people do with stuff like photography when there’s no financial angle involved, and they’re just having fun for its own sake.
Yeah, it is. I wonder if cave dweller early hominids used to give their companions grief over useless hobbies like staying up mixing pigment and painting cave walls instead of sleeping and readying to gather berries and hunt?
You’re welcome, good comrade.
I would bet on it. I think that’s kind of inherent in the human condition where we each see the world slightly differently (or a lot differently in some cases) and that tends to color our priorities and what see as important. Which means we often get frustrated with one another when our priorities don’t align. It’s also what makes us resilient, because there are always many points of view and many perspectives on any problem facing us.
@tante i thought of you when I read this. What are your thoughts?
