Honestly surprised and disappointed at how many people I follow seem to now be A-OK with using GenAI if it means we get to laugh at some billionaires losing some money. Like, it's still a job-wrecking art-guzzling culture-flattening plagiarism machine. The source of funding was never the real issue? - ThreadSky

danwhitehead.net • 40 days ago

Honestly surprised and disappointed at how many people I follow seem to now be A-OK with using GenAI if it means we get to laugh at some billionaires losing some money. Like, it's still a job-wrecking art-guzzling culture-flattening plagiarism machine. The source of funding was never the real issue?

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stephencoxauthor.bsky.social•40 days ago

There is inner warmth at seeing the most awful people getting shafted, and I hope it will terrify funders, burst the bubble, and make governments more cautious. But it's an abomination whoever makes it.

hmcd.bsky.social•40 days ago

If you need a face put on the worry that AI is displacing people in creative careers…hello.

danwhitehead.net•40 days ago

It's wild that people are talking about job losses as a possible outcome. It's happening. An agency I used to do copywriting for already ditched all their freelancers, most of the full-time writing/editing staff, and went all-in on using AI instead. That was two years ago.

danwhitehead.net•40 days ago

I still see the people I worked with on LinkedIn, still trying to replace that work. Nobody will ever think of "content marketing" as high art, but it's canary in the coalmine type stuff where paid writing is concerned.

fraserc69.bsky.social•40 days ago

Yeah, as you know I lost work doing corporate twitter stuff, however that wasn't down to AI, it was because M**k destroyed the app. AI is just part of general tech drive to kill human work. People talk about an assault on jobs as if it's a potential future issue due to tech. It's here.

danwhitehead.net•40 days ago

And while nobody will mourn the cultural loss of company social media accounts or SEO blog posts, those were the jobs that meant writers could have enough income/stability to work on their Actual Art.

fraserc69.bsky.social•40 days ago

Yeah, it's a big hit that obviously makes creating other stuff that bit harder. Add postage increases, printing increases, the EU safety regulation issue etc. and many of us (in indie comics at least) have our heads underwater at present.

breakintoprogram.co.uk•40 days ago

Indeed. After fiddling round with it for a couple of months, the novelty soon wore off. The output is also of a very poor quality, especially artwork. I know too many folk who are being adversely affected by this now to not care.

illaurastrates.bsky.social•40 days ago

Yup :(

hazeldomain.bsky.social•40 days ago

I see it like the shift to rednote. Is China stealing my data? Yes. But as AI fans are so fond of telling me, data theft is “here to stay” so at least someone’s using it to fuck over the people who argued to my government that it should be legal.

jamesotron.bsky.social•40 days ago

I'll cheer when it's all dead in the water.

matt-also-writes.com•40 days ago

I still think that will happen. I think it's likely that the costs will be so great that it will be impossible for the likes of OpenAI to make a profit. Billions of dollars being spent, but no indication of what problem we are trying to solve.

ghostinexile.bsky.social•40 days ago

I was genuinely excited by it in the beginning, seeing it on the same level as filtering and image manipulation, having used all kinds of products for playing about with photographs over the years it looked fun.

Didn’t take long to realise it wasn’t that and the cultural cost is just far too high.

johnlees.bsky.social•40 days ago

I still loathe AI, and think it’s the death of culture. But a version of AI that doesn’t also have planet-wrecking energy demands is one small mercy. Plus, I’d rather the extinction event for US genAI firms comes BEFORE our economies are fully entangled in their fortunes, if they’re not already.

johnlees.bsky.social•40 days ago

It would undeniably be a short term reprieve that would pave the way for fresh longer term threats. But I think it’s okay for people to enjoy a moment of schadenfreude that the pricks who’ve been pissing in our cornflakes get a dose of piss in theirs too.

danwhitehead.net•40 days ago

I'm talking specifically about people I've seen who seem to think it's gone back to being a quirky fun little gadget as long as its not ChatGPT that you're using. It's bad news for the big tech companies, but it's also terrible news for us. Worse, even. AI is now fully brakes-off.

johnlees.bsky.social•40 days ago

And I guess my hope would be that we’ve already seen genuine interest in engaging with genAI hit a plateau, and if the bottom falls out from under it as a capital-hoarding grift and the investors go away, maybe that brings an end to these attempts to shovel it down our throats against our will.

mohammadrasoul.bsky.social•40 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/mohammadrasoul.bsky.social/post/3lgqmh4k5252u

danwhitehead.net•40 days ago

Yep. This is a pyrrhic victory. The floodgates are now wide open.

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