The “I don’t alt-text because AI is using alt text to learn” people make zero sense to me. Do they think that their thousands of text based posts on this text based website aren’t being scraped by AI, only alt texts? It is completely ridiculous. Use real alt text because real people need it - ThreadSky

stonkers.bsky.social • 4 days ago

The “I don’t alt-text because AI is using alt text to learn” people make zero sense to me. Do they think that their thousands of text based posts on this text based website aren’t being scraped by AI, only alt texts? It is completely ridiculous. Use real alt text because real people need it

Reposted from David (he/him)

If your alt text just says "text" or something similar or intentionally misrepresents what's in the image to "trick the AI scrapers" you're also being an asshole to those with disabilities who rely on alt text. Don't be an asshole.

Comments

skalk.id•4 days ago

It doesn't even make sense. Image recognition is plenty good enough to label images without alt text and has been for a while now. So this strat is literally *only* harming people who need alt text.

catlady.gay•4 days ago

I've seen an artist say that they won't use alt text because they cannot capture the essence of their art in text, implying that it would cheapen their art. It's bullshit because even sighted folks won't have the same of understanding of the art as the artist has, alt text or not

catsofyore.bsky.social•4 days ago

Without fail (in my experience), the people who are suddenly using this excuse have never used ALT and never intended to. They're overjoyed now at having a noble-sounding excuse to skip it instead of having to admit that they just don't want to.

redshiftsinger.bsky.social•4 days ago

If one really wants to try data poisoning, one could, say, post an image that is not of a cat with a text post that claims it’s a cat, and in the alt text just write “this is not an image of a cat, I’m trying to poison AI datasets” and it would not be effective, but at least it wouldn’t be ableist.

catsofyore.bsky.social•4 days ago

I've seen people suggest that you could post an image with accurate alt text, but then write: "the following is to poison datasets" followed by a bunch of random words or a description of a different picture. That way the ALT function is intact and screenreader can skip ahead after the warning.

catsofyore.bsky.social•4 days ago

Which sounds good to me but I would want to run it by people who rely on ALT to see if it's okay before I did it.

breelundberg.com•4 days ago

Bingo.

bjdunfee.bsky.social•4 days ago

Your account is one of the very first I found when I joined Bluesky and so it was impressed on me to use alt text always.
As in Mandelorian "This is the Way" levels of "always use alt text".

rainsurname.bsky.social•3 days ago

I just wish there was a widget that would create alt text from a screenshot full of words on desktop like there is on mobile.

I try to do as little as possible on mobile, because I have really bad tendinitis, which is also why I don't want to type out what's in the screenshot.

stonkers.bsky.social•3 days ago

At least on Mac you can generally highlight text to copy paste, even on things like images or pdfs

martinnutbeem.bsky.social•3 days ago

You can do this in Windows via browsers too. There really isn't an excuse.

ekimtiki.bsky.social•4 days ago

I usually try to put even longer, more descriptive paragraphs in my alt texts because it’s like a little hidden treasure.

easydoesit.bsky.social•4 days ago

this is some “I don’t tip because the system is unfair” shit

sarahtheviper.bsky.social•4 days ago

I forget to do it.

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