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* I need like... and overall explainer on this George Santos thing because I keep seeing followup articles assuming people saw part 1-6 of this drama and... what?
* So much for me talking a big game about having walked so much of this city. I *just* found out that a viral image I've seen for years is not only real, but it's from Portland. I'll get/post my own pic soon and explain then.
* Getty Images is suing Stable Diffusion over use of copyrighted images. Getty, for those unaware, is a big deal. Want to know why google image search works how it does these days? Getty made Google sit down and behave, to the benefit of everyone who does photography. There are a lot of lawsuits right now, including instances of extremely close copies of people's art, but Getty are the people who have the big stick.
Trying not to talk about AI too much because it gives me a headache, but we do have more tools than we think against all of this. My main problem is that anyone who is pro-AI is either making an argument from nihilism (artists don't matter, teaching/learning art doesn't matter, community doesn't matter, people don't matter) or they are the same reddit-addled idiots who think all content posted online is free real estate and posting online meanings giving up all rights and people can do what they want.
With the Getty/Google thing I am talking about how you used to be able to gather images from images search at full resolution, no visiting the site, no giving the site SEO or allowing sites to made ad revenue. Getty said 'no' and now image search shows a downscaled and lower quality image, if you want the good version as an art reference you need to take the extreme action of *clutches pearls* actually fucking clicking on the site and letting the site's stats go up by 1.
* Also in related news I was doing some research recently and saw *MY* images in google image search. I was ready to lock and load some takedown notices... until I realized the images were from my website. For certain search terms, I am what comes up. Now, obviously they do tailored results these days and I am likely to use the same specific wording as on my website, but I didn't used to be able to find my own content that way because my ranking was so low. I need to get off my butt and do things to get me more site traffic, it's been a while since I have, but I do get enough traffic that I go get search engine traffic.... riiiight as search engines are no longer becoming the big deal they were but oh well. One of the reasons why people do want to use chat bot BS is because google search gets worse and worse each year, but that is a whole 'nother... actually it's a very related discussion but this post is long enough.
* So much for me talking a big game about having walked so much of this city. I *just* found out that a viral image I've seen for years is not only real, but it's from Portland. I'll get/post my own pic soon and explain then.
* Getty Images is suing Stable Diffusion over use of copyrighted images. Getty, for those unaware, is a big deal. Want to know why google image search works how it does these days? Getty made Google sit down and behave, to the benefit of everyone who does photography. There are a lot of lawsuits right now, including instances of extremely close copies of people's art, but Getty are the people who have the big stick.
Trying not to talk about AI too much because it gives me a headache, but we do have more tools than we think against all of this. My main problem is that anyone who is pro-AI is either making an argument from nihilism (artists don't matter, teaching/learning art doesn't matter, community doesn't matter, people don't matter) or they are the same reddit-addled idiots who think all content posted online is free real estate and posting online meanings giving up all rights and people can do what they want.
With the Getty/Google thing I am talking about how you used to be able to gather images from images search at full resolution, no visiting the site, no giving the site SEO or allowing sites to made ad revenue. Getty said 'no' and now image search shows a downscaled and lower quality image, if you want the good version as an art reference you need to take the extreme action of *clutches pearls* actually fucking clicking on the site and letting the site's stats go up by 1.
* Also in related news I was doing some research recently and saw *MY* images in google image search. I was ready to lock and load some takedown notices... until I realized the images were from my website. For certain search terms, I am what comes up. Now, obviously they do tailored results these days and I am likely to use the same specific wording as on my website, but I didn't used to be able to find my own content that way because my ranking was so low. I need to get off my butt and do things to get me more site traffic, it's been a while since I have, but I do get enough traffic that I go get search engine traffic.... riiiight as search engines are no longer becoming the big deal they were but oh well. One of the reasons why people do want to use chat bot BS is because google search gets worse and worse each year, but that is a whole 'nother... actually it's a very related discussion but this post is long enough.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-18 01:20 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-01-18 02:14 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-01-18 01:36 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-01-18 02:19 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-01-18 03:01 am (UTC)From:But not branching into that whole thing, the Getty vs. Stable Diffusion thing could wind up being very, very good in terms of diminishing AI's current free-for-all theft, in a way that (unfortunately) individual artists being angry hasn't done.
This is likely the most effective way of going after the AI companies themselves, which is where the change needs to happen. "Winning hearts and minds" in terms of individual users/potential users of AI is never going to fully succeed, because there ARE too many nihilistic "none of this matters anyway, and I'm deep for believing that" and reddit-poisoned "well you shared the art, so of course it's fair for me to take it because I CAN" people that are never going to agree that stealing is bad.
Congrats on having your stuff show up in searches! *For your actual site* more specifically!
no subject
Date: 2023-01-18 03:37 am (UTC)From:Hopefully, a double pronged approach of both Getty but also artists hitting it can kneecap them pretty hard. Artists can win some hearts and minds and give a face to the problem while Getty does the heavy lifting. (writes something about being frustrated over people being all 'this is the future, accept it' for the hundredth time)
no subject
Date: 2023-01-19 01:32 am (UTC)From:Even putting things in quotation marks for an exact match doesn't fucking work half the time anymore.
Yeah, the general appeal and explanation from artists WILL have some impact - there are people who will be swayed by the fact that the artists they love are being harmed. Plus there are people who just straight up didn't know anything about how AI works, and learning that the training sets include a lot of stolen images, whether art, photos, in that one case *medical records*, may decide that it's not actually something they want to support. That certainly helps! It just sucks that there are some people who will NEVER care about artists or the people whose images have been taken, and plenty more who won't take that stand as long as it remains popular, because the popularity of "everyone is doing it!" is enough to make them feel absolved... they're just a drop in the ocean, it's not like it matters that they're doing it too!
The AIs themselves are the real problem, and getting sued is about the only thing that has a hope of changing how they operate. Getty may not be perfect, but they at least have the clout to hopefully make this into an actual Thing.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-19 07:26 am (UTC)From:Getty only cares about Getty, but their legal actions have been useful. Image licensing is big business and it's not about to go away. The artists who have found the bots 'make' near identical replicas of their art helps put a face on the problem for the public.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-20 04:43 am (UTC)From:Specifically, I was trying to find a song based on just a couple snatches of lyrics I remembered... and repeatedly it returned things that had nothing to do with the quoted words I'd searched. I'd rather it just spat back a "nothing matched your search" thing instead of trying to insist I obviously meant some Christian hymn that had ONE word in common with my search.
That's exactly it - their actions are absolutely only being taken to serve their interests, not out of a broader moral stance about the sanctity of art and artist, BUT I don't really care if it helps to limit what AIs can train on.
Having a visible "this is fucked up" way to make it clear how much is truly being stolen is also good. There are people who do not understand how these generators work, and being able to show the bots spitting out mimicked watermarks or near-identical works definitely helps make it obvious.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-21 05:11 pm (UTC)From: