2008, me: I love the idea of cryptocurrencyBITCOIN: The word "cryptocurrency" now means "financial scams based on inefficient write-only ledgers"2018, me: I love the idea of the metaverseFACEBOOK: The word "metaverse" now means "proprietary 3D chat pro...

spaduf

@mcc @csolisr @datarama I think there definitely a likely world wherein the applications are very specific to AI without significant change elsewhere. It's certainly different enough from everything that came before to warrant it. That said, I generally share your pessimism.

datarama

@spaduf @mcc @csolisr Just in case: The "generative art" I was referring to is the old kind where a human deliberately codes up an algorithm that produces something aesthetically pleasing. My point - which this thread ended up demonstrating - is that that's not what that term means anymore.

datarama

@crzwdjk @oblomov @mcc @mark @gsuberland It is, but that's *still* beside the point. You can't actually do anything with it unless you have the resources of a large corporation.

And my other point was that just because it isn't copyrighted, they can still keep it secret.

datarama

@asmaloney @gsuberland @mcc That's where I'm at too.

And I have never been as depressed as I have this last year. For every other awful period in my life, I always had creative computer things to fall back on - literally, that has been how I kept from going too crazy in the entire story from "tiny bullied autistic kid" to "middle-aged guy holed up all alone during a pandemic". There was always coding and writing.

datarama

@asmaloney @gsuberland @mcc Coding feels especially meaningless now. I try to convince myself that even after we all get fired and replaced with shitty AI, we could still do it for fun - but it's not fun when you know all you're really doing is providing more free training data for the same assholes who are actively working to destroy your life.

Andy 🌎

@datarama "middle-aged guy holed up all alone during a pandemic"

I feel seen (as the kids say these days).

datarama

@asmaloney I sometimes think about how much that particular experience has coloured the rest of my experience of this bleak, bleak decade. I sat at home with nearly no social contact for 1½ years (except what came in through Teams), and even if I'm a bit of an introvert, I'm sure it made me a bit crazy.

Andy 🌎

@datarama Me too. Really struggling to "dig out" of that and then all this other shit ("AI", wars, climate, politics, layoffs for even more profit, the shoddy state of software in general, etc.) just piles on.

I think we're very much in the same situation, so you aren't alone. I hope you find some peace or at least some outlet to move things in a positive direction.

I'm still lookin'...

datarama

@asmaloney I've been looking for a long, long time too. And I don't know the way out.

Every crisis is immediately followed by the next, without any of them being resolved. I am so tired.

Duchamp Pérez

@mcc @pinkdrunkenelephants @datarama In reality no, it is not in the air. OpenAI and the rest are in violation of copyright. If it were you and me, the media companies would be getting ready to make an example of us.

It is only "up in the air" because the laws don't apply to wealthy powerful people

datarama

@hugoestr @mcc @pinkdrunkenelephants That is *how* it is up in the air. It doesn't change the fact, namely that any human creative work put on the internet can and will be hoovered up, and the legal status of this is "definitely forbidden if you're some random 14-year-old using bittorrent, unclear if you're a billionaire using a neural network training algorithm."

Is this terribly unjust and destructive? Yes, yes it is.