this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
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No, this is not a Black Mirror episode.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I don't know, but there is no good reason to just sit there while the rich replace all the creatives with machines built using their work.

Hell, even if your point about manual labor being replaced is just as bad, I can think of a company that makes you BUILD the robot that will replace you before you get fired.

But honestly, there's a reason people aspire to music and art and not to moving boxes at the dock, and it's not because the moving boxes job is low class but because it is backbreaking, unpleasant labor where you don't get to express yourself. But music and art and writing are forms of self-expression and some of the few places you can do self-expression during work. So those jobs should be preserved.

Maybe we can't get some sort of justice in the system, but people should at least try.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You still seem to have a very specific idea of what manual labor is. You may not think you'd find manual labor jobs fulfilling or expressive, but that doesn't mean no one does.

Could it be that you care more about creative jobs because you have one, and if you had a manual labor job you'd be arguing the opposite?

Edit: what, specifically, does "justice" in the system look like to you?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe.

Edit: An end to large tech companies scraping the internet and collecting everyone's data with impunity.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I caution you from repeating phrases you've read but don't fully understand. "Scraping the internet and collecting everyone's data" is just how the internet works. It's certainly how every single search engine works. (even privacy focused ones, like duckduckgo). If you don't want something to be read or viewed on the internet, you shouldn't put it on the internet.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't mind people reading what I put on the internet, I mind them selling it and I mind them making machines to replace my work.

The problem of course, is that we don't actually have control over what goes on the internet, do we? I can write a book, and it could be put online. I put a picture online, the metadata shows my location. This may be "how the internet works" but it doesn't have to. There could be laws protecting us.

There could even be laws protecting us that exist right now, but are being ignored.

So here's my question for you. Corporations like OpenAI and Facebook/Meta and Google put millions into lobbying and public relations to discourage us from even looking into registering our problems with what they do. Why argue their side for free?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You are trying to muddy the water, but I don't see why.

We aren't talking about location exif data on pictures, and people can and should strip that off (there are tools to do so) before posting online, but that has nothing to do with LLMs and their like. Privacy violations are certainly fair game for legislation-- but as you are finding out, you don't get a say in how people consume your work. I could buy your work and burn it, or read it to my dog, or put it on a shelf, or study it daily to better learn how to make similar works. Once you make it available for public consumption, the public can consume it, even if that consumption eventually hurts you financially.

One of the many problems with IP laws is that it is so ingrained in our society that people who benefit from it directly forget that it's not all encompassing, nor is it a law of nature. For instance, I am free to make a drawing of the main characters in Stranger Things, drawn in the style of The Simpsons. That violates no IP laws. If a computer learns a specific style of painting from a specific artist and can recreate that style on command, there is still no violation of IP laws, just as it would be if a human did it. And it's plausible (though, unlikely) that someone could learn a specific style of animation (like, the simpsons) and then go on to replace the originator of that style in the show. Styles aren't copyrightable.

Your job is very likely to be replaced and there very likely nothing you can do about it. That's the bottom line. Mine may as well-- I am in the field of Software QA right now, for military robots. I feel like my time to be replaced isn't quite here-- I can't imagine it's that far off. Acknowledging this is just prudent.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dude, the key to your freedom to draw Stranger Things characters in the Style of the Simpsons is that you don't make a shitton of money doing that and you don't compete with the actual Simpsons production.

But an AI is making a shitton of money for companies AND competing with the writers that it was trained on. So the stuff that makes it legal for you to draw Stranger Things characters in the Style of the Simpsons does not apply to AI.

Yeah, even with copyright protections they will probably deploy AI for tech writing, and my job will become editing all the mistakes on the output. But prudence doesn't mean just letting someone take advantage of you, and it doesn't mean you have to like it, and it doesn't mean you have to stop bitching about it, and it doesn't mean you have to accept trosy-lens pro-AI arguments on the Internet.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You have taken a turn towards anger, if I'm reading the correct context, but I'm just a messenger. I also wasn't expecting you to like it, and I guess you can complain all you'd like, but I was expecting to help you accept it. To be sure, whether or not you accept it won't change whether it happens.

Anyway, thanks for the discussion.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's not anything about you, I'm just a passionate person. I appreciate the discussion too, but I think you have identified the point where it's become unproductive.