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saltbearerBluesky link
๐ญ/๐ฐ I was originally going to post something like this the other day, but I didn't finish, and I switched to writing my new pin instead [quoted below, best read before these messages], so now it's a tangent/expansion on the aforementioned fear of blocking.
brave opinion, I know, but putting faith in someone else's blocklist and blocking everyone on it indiscriminately is a practice I can't respect.
I can only assume most people would probably never have a bad personal interaction with more than, at most, a couple exceptions to a massive list of people theyโd mostly-blindly choose to never know, anyway.
the concept blatantly sounds like itโd be prone to tenuous or vengeful inclusions of innocent people who would end up mass-blocked and accused of being things they're not, and I've seen enough personal recountings and related drama confirming that.
a year ago, I woke up to find myself banned from a community I pretty much never heard from any remaining member of again, because I posted something that I can only assume (based on a lingering message notification) was taken to be indicative of being transphobic. anyone who knows me knows that to suggest that I exhibit any pattern of transphobia is, on several different levels, Exceptionally Funny.
I figure those are the kinds of judgements that fuel these lists โ impersonal and snappily-made, broadly targeting anyone who vaguely appears to fit a mold, overcompensating to be sure the compiler doesn't miss anyone who could be seen as a potential danger... because list items aren't actually seen as people to connect with, just funnels of Content that shouldn't matter to you if they're not currently outputting the specific content you wish to see, with agreeable opinions underlying it (whether or not those opinions are relevant). they're just part of the experience for you to curate.
what got me thinking about it again was the blocklist for proponents of crypto/NFTs/AI โ going as far as to include people sharing memes/ironic AI content, according to one of multiple people I saw sharing it.
afaik, ~no one who knows me would use something like โAI broโ as a go-to descriptor of me, and I haven't shared ยฟany? AI stuff here, because there are too many other things to focus on, but I'm not really secretive about finding it Very Fun to screw around with genAI. I have also long ๐ป๐พ๐ฐ๐๐ท๐ด๐ณ cryptocurrency, and the NFT market by extension, and REALLY DO NOT appreciate an interest of mine being lumped in with inherent scams by virtue of it also being considered โanother annoying techbro thingโ.
this is itself basically a long tangent, but I have points to make afterward that it will help me to illustrate more concretely, so I'd appreciate not reading halfway and making โAI broโ your new primary view of me.
brave opinion, I know, but putting faith in someone else's blocklist and blocking everyone on it indiscriminately is a practice I can't respect.
I can only assume most people would probably never have a bad personal interaction with more than, at most, a couple exceptions to a massive list of people theyโd mostly-blindly choose to never know, anyway.
the concept blatantly sounds like itโd be prone to tenuous or vengeful inclusions of innocent people who would end up mass-blocked and accused of being things they're not, and I've seen enough personal recountings and related drama confirming that.
a year ago, I woke up to find myself banned from a community I pretty much never heard from any remaining member of again, because I posted something that I can only assume (based on a lingering message notification) was taken to be indicative of being transphobic. anyone who knows me knows that to suggest that I exhibit any pattern of transphobia is, on several different levels, Exceptionally Funny.
I figure those are the kinds of judgements that fuel these lists โ impersonal and snappily-made, broadly targeting anyone who vaguely appears to fit a mold, overcompensating to be sure the compiler doesn't miss anyone who could be seen as a potential danger... because list items aren't actually seen as people to connect with, just funnels of Content that shouldn't matter to you if they're not currently outputting the specific content you wish to see, with agreeable opinions underlying it (whether or not those opinions are relevant). they're just part of the experience for you to curate.
what got me thinking about it again was the blocklist for proponents of crypto/NFTs/AI โ going as far as to include people sharing memes/ironic AI content, according to one of multiple people I saw sharing it.
afaik, ~no one who knows me would use something like โAI broโ as a go-to descriptor of me, and I haven't shared ยฟany? AI stuff here, because there are too many other things to focus on, but I'm not really secretive about finding it Very Fun to screw around with genAI. I have also long ๐ป๐พ๐ฐ๐๐ท๐ด๐ณ cryptocurrency, and the NFT market by extension, and REALLY DO NOT appreciate an interest of mine being lumped in with inherent scams by virtue of it also being considered โanother annoying techbro thingโ.
this is itself basically a long tangent, but I have points to make afterward that it will help me to illustrate more concretely, so I'd appreciate not reading halfway and making โAI broโ your new primary view of me.
๐ฎ/๐ฐ I haven't felt pressured enough that I have Immediately Needed to properly, explicitly lay out all my thoughts about AI, and back them up convincingly, because it would be a lot of work and people have made it a touchy subject to not be an extremist-anti about and again there are too many other things to focus on. so here's a not-as-deep-as-it-could-be version.
to start, what DRIVES ME UP THE WALL is when people try to carve definitions of Real Art around AI to exclude it, inadvertently throwing storied art scenes under the bus. it's become a ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐จ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฅ๐จ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ค๐ฆ๐ด๐ด๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ that Real Art can encompass repurposement/curation/new presentation, like there's been a conservative backslide in my circles about What Can Be Art. people who listen to/create plunderphonics and mashcore albums are suddenly up in arms about even ๐ข๐ณ๐ต ๐ด๐ต๐บ๐ญ๐ฆ ๐ช๐ฎ๐ช๐ต๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ (you're talking about genres!!!!!) and saying they're rooting for THE FUCKING RIAA on this one. please do not make it popular to prop up the Classic-flavored powers that would gladly serve to limit the freedoms of human artists and squeeze them for profits in their own ways and call it a win for human artists.
I credit AI text and art generation for helping to inspire me to start trying to write and draw things again โ the Old Fashioned ways, the Hard ways, the ways that take Effort, the ways some people evidently think they inherently like more and see as more valid despite every example of artistic expression with beauty and merit that required little effort to bring to form. I'm not a stranger to putting in effort and caring about details, as you might discern from ๐ด๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฆ ๐ฐ๐ง my past works made via ๐ด๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฆ creative processes (though obviously, within some works, it can be hard to tell what is or isn't high-effort/deeply-conceptualized). like, *gestures at how much I'll write for even Bluesky, character limits be damned*
clearly, I don't worship only a narrow range of processes. sometimes, I do hate Doing Art the ways I choose to, and won't romanticize โThe Artistic Processโ (Singular???), because it's annoying and frustrating to have a vision that far outpaces what you've made tangible and then sit there for hours and hours tweaking parameters and tracing over a vision that keeps changing with some parts falling out of focus only to come up short of it, because that's all you can do. I do see AI as having future potential to liberate us from tedium, and help bridge the very-human vision of a mindโs eye to reality faster, as ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ฆ ๐ฐ๐ฑ๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ added to our existing toolboxes. yes, right now it's being abused and used for evil and produces junk, the technology is not ready for general professional use, but it's ๐ฆ๐น๐ต๐ณ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ญ๐บ shortsighted to suggest that each pain point with it (from quality to ethics to resource consumption) will not be meaningfully addressed.
consider that as a Very Disabled Person, I worry about my mortality to the point that I wonder if it's foolishly optimistic to want to be practicing new skills, with hopes of seeing what I want brought into the world, to a certain standard. it's a comforting thought that before too long, we'll probably have sophisticated-enough prompt interpretation for me to construct things closer to my visions than I could otherwise manage, meanwhile continuing to refine my own skills with all my possibly-foolish optimism.
I have something to say about AI vocals with regards to disability, but I wanna do so alongside more about vocals in general ~๐๐ท๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ต๐ถ๐ข๐ญ๐ญ๐บ~
to start, what DRIVES ME UP THE WALL is when people try to carve definitions of Real Art around AI to exclude it, inadvertently throwing storied art scenes under the bus. it's become a ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐จ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฅ๐จ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ค๐ฆ๐ด๐ด๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ that Real Art can encompass repurposement/curation/new presentation, like there's been a conservative backslide in my circles about What Can Be Art. people who listen to/create plunderphonics and mashcore albums are suddenly up in arms about even ๐ข๐ณ๐ต ๐ด๐ต๐บ๐ญ๐ฆ ๐ช๐ฎ๐ช๐ต๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ (you're talking about genres!!!!!) and saying they're rooting for THE FUCKING RIAA on this one. please do not make it popular to prop up the Classic-flavored powers that would gladly serve to limit the freedoms of human artists and squeeze them for profits in their own ways and call it a win for human artists.
I credit AI text and art generation for helping to inspire me to start trying to write and draw things again โ the Old Fashioned ways, the Hard ways, the ways that take Effort, the ways some people evidently think they inherently like more and see as more valid despite every example of artistic expression with beauty and merit that required little effort to bring to form. I'm not a stranger to putting in effort and caring about details, as you might discern from ๐ด๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฆ ๐ฐ๐ง my past works made via ๐ด๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฆ creative processes (though obviously, within some works, it can be hard to tell what is or isn't high-effort/deeply-conceptualized). like, *gestures at how much I'll write for even Bluesky, character limits be damned*
clearly, I don't worship only a narrow range of processes. sometimes, I do hate Doing Art the ways I choose to, and won't romanticize โThe Artistic Processโ (Singular???), because it's annoying and frustrating to have a vision that far outpaces what you've made tangible and then sit there for hours and hours tweaking parameters and tracing over a vision that keeps changing with some parts falling out of focus only to come up short of it, because that's all you can do. I do see AI as having future potential to liberate us from tedium, and help bridge the very-human vision of a mindโs eye to reality faster, as ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ฆ ๐ฐ๐ฑ๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ added to our existing toolboxes. yes, right now it's being abused and used for evil and produces junk, the technology is not ready for general professional use, but it's ๐ฆ๐น๐ต๐ณ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ญ๐บ shortsighted to suggest that each pain point with it (from quality to ethics to resource consumption) will not be meaningfully addressed.
consider that as a Very Disabled Person, I worry about my mortality to the point that I wonder if it's foolishly optimistic to want to be practicing new skills, with hopes of seeing what I want brought into the world, to a certain standard. it's a comforting thought that before too long, we'll probably have sophisticated-enough prompt interpretation for me to construct things closer to my visions than I could otherwise manage, meanwhile continuing to refine my own skills with all my possibly-foolish optimism.
I have something to say about AI vocals with regards to disability, but I wanna do so alongside more about vocals in general ~๐๐ท๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ต๐ถ๐ข๐ญ๐ญ๐บ~
๐ฏ/๐ฐ as a Very Disabled Virgin With Sex-Positive Views Who Recognizes The Value Of Erotic Artists, it's also annoying when people invoke sexuality in trying to demean AI users, making people out to be dull and pathetic for seeking quick, bespoke titillation. there are arguments to be made for facilitating the creation of images and literature with queer themes that see little representation, and scenarios that better cater to those with particular needs due to trauma, who can't simply find a lot of what they want, possibly not without sifting through content that may contain PTSD triggers.
if one thinks of AI art as stealing away audiences... anecdotally, I've used generators that recognize the names and styles of small artists. putting their names in my prompts has kept them and their styles at the forefront of my mind, even while someone's genuine output may have been in a lull. I don't want less of what I like. when it comes to cutting into the profits of those taking commissions... I just brought up demographics you see begging for help paying for rent and groceries as primary benefactors of AI art, and I would still personally prefer to support the artists I like when I can. and regarding erasure of influences... the nature of art is that we all contribute to the greater โconversationโ. it'd be an absurd ask of any human artist to name everyone whose work ๐ต๐ฆ๐ค๐ฉ๐ฏ๐ช๐ค๐ข๐ญ๐ญ๐บ influenced an average piece.
mini-tangent re: supporting artists, it feels like I'm looking at scenes where everyone is basically a fan of each other and if they give each other money they're just circulating the same few dollars through services that gradually skim it away. is that in fact the nature of things? is it best for artists to just share works amongst each other freely? (kinda already do with Bandcamp codes)
of course it's an absurd failure of our society that talk of competition with cheap algorithms threatening the livelihoods of individuals within entire industries would even come about, because no one should have to perform tricks to earn treats like basic housing and necessities. I've long hoped AI could serve as a factor in finally at least clinching UBI, and it looks like thoughts of this are at least being entertained by people who might hopefully have influence?????
to cap this hole and pivot closer to the original point, I'm as uncertain as anyone about whatโs actually in our future, and I fear what roles altered content will play in the world of politics and everything, BUT now that we've all been written to Pandora's hard disk and are spinning around inside it at some unholy RPM, I'm still optimistic that the good that genAI can do for us will eventually be of high quality and actually serve us closer to the ways we want and come from locally-hosted instances without being gatekept or filtered by massive for-profit businesses that require oceans to cool their supercomputers that spend 80% of their processing time on negligible diminishing returns.
my old pinned skeet acknowledged, in a sort of offhand baity way, how I think there's potential for artistic merit within AI art. but I had forgotten that blocklists are made easy here. I figure I don't want to be baiting like that with a pinned post if it runs the risk of getting me snuffed out on more than an individual basis, by people who won't even check what I actually post, or see any nuance in how I actually feel about anything.
that style of blocking is something I see as a problem to begin with, which premade lists just severely exacerbate.
if one thinks of AI art as stealing away audiences... anecdotally, I've used generators that recognize the names and styles of small artists. putting their names in my prompts has kept them and their styles at the forefront of my mind, even while someone's genuine output may have been in a lull. I don't want less of what I like. when it comes to cutting into the profits of those taking commissions... I just brought up demographics you see begging for help paying for rent and groceries as primary benefactors of AI art, and I would still personally prefer to support the artists I like when I can. and regarding erasure of influences... the nature of art is that we all contribute to the greater โconversationโ. it'd be an absurd ask of any human artist to name everyone whose work ๐ต๐ฆ๐ค๐ฉ๐ฏ๐ช๐ค๐ข๐ญ๐ญ๐บ influenced an average piece.
mini-tangent re: supporting artists, it feels like I'm looking at scenes where everyone is basically a fan of each other and if they give each other money they're just circulating the same few dollars through services that gradually skim it away. is that in fact the nature of things? is it best for artists to just share works amongst each other freely? (kinda already do with Bandcamp codes)
of course it's an absurd failure of our society that talk of competition with cheap algorithms threatening the livelihoods of individuals within entire industries would even come about, because no one should have to perform tricks to earn treats like basic housing and necessities. I've long hoped AI could serve as a factor in finally at least clinching UBI, and it looks like thoughts of this are at least being entertained by people who might hopefully have influence?????
to cap this hole and pivot closer to the original point, I'm as uncertain as anyone about whatโs actually in our future, and I fear what roles altered content will play in the world of politics and everything, BUT now that we've all been written to Pandora's hard disk and are spinning around inside it at some unholy RPM, I'm still optimistic that the good that genAI can do for us will eventually be of high quality and actually serve us closer to the ways we want and come from locally-hosted instances without being gatekept or filtered by massive for-profit businesses that require oceans to cool their supercomputers that spend 80% of their processing time on negligible diminishing returns.
my old pinned skeet acknowledged, in a sort of offhand baity way, how I think there's potential for artistic merit within AI art. but I had forgotten that blocklists are made easy here. I figure I don't want to be baiting like that with a pinned post if it runs the risk of getting me snuffed out on more than an individual basis, by people who won't even check what I actually post, or see any nuance in how I actually feel about anything.
that style of blocking is something I see as a problem to begin with, which premade lists just severely exacerbate.
๐ฐ/๐ฐ I want to be Myself online, sharing what I have to offer, and I want what I share to find those who will benefit from it, even if they're otherwise broadly different from me. it's harder to do that if I have to worry and make concessions because some list-overseer might only see me for one small thing that they cannot under any circumstances tolerate someone even rarely acknowledging, and suddenly I'd not be a person to some of the people who'd appreciate what I ๐ข๐ค๐ต๐ถ๐ข๐ญ๐ญ๐บ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ท๐ฆ for them, and my sphere would become less diverse.
I also want to make art the way I see fit, and be up-front about my methods, which is complicated by people who do things like block everything with the term โAIโ โ if I technically use it for some relatively negligible element of a work, which probably won't even be called out, then honesty suddenly puts all my hours of Valid Perfect Human Effort that went into the rest in jeopardy.
I don't want to be a Brand, but I know that some sentiments are Brand Risks, so I rarely openly share them, so I haven't been directly challenged on much of anything that I've been uncertain and maybe uncomfortable about believing by people with differing and perhaps better-informed views, so I've felt like I've been pressured into greater personal stagnation by the unwelcoming and unforgiving dynamics of social media.
if I never speak of AI here again, is it bad enough I've done it now? just as bad as some cryptobro repeatedly trying to push people into holding their bag? if I made separate alt accounts for music and cat pictures and visual art and whatever else, would they all be grouped onto a list just because they're all run by an Objectionable? if my views change, will anyone respect that and unblock me, or is it bad enough that so many years of being artistically open-minded and then finding personal fun and fulfillment from my drop-in-the-ocean of AI usage led me to Feel Wrong About It for some length of time in the past?
maybe you disagree with me about some things I've expressed here, but hopefully, you can see that I'm someone who Thinks about things. I'm someone who will at least try to consider counterpoints fairly, if not spend entire days overthinking a dialogue with someone.
hopefully, you can see that art is important to me, and I think about the nature of it a lot, and ways to challenge conventions, and if you're exploring some strange new form of it, I'm probably open to that and willing to share it with others who I think might Get It. I even just created a community that I hope grows to encourage people to actively expound upon their creative processes so people can learn more about Doing Art together. I am not part of a league of enemies against artists because I think generative art is heading somewhere pretty cool.
my humanity runs much deeper than holding any particular belief that's someone's pet peeve.
social media doesn't feel low-stakes to me. this is where I have some capacity to live. I am not able-bodied enough to touch grass whenever I want. I touch bed and Internet-connected device, sometimes cat and/or hot chip.
I've kept this name and used many of the same platforms for a long time, through multiple distinct shifts in my personality. if I got under someone's skin when I was a teenager, with a less-open mind and a greater penchant for posting bait, and they blocked and forgot me then, they blocked every shade of who I became later.
an abusable site feature coded to be indifferent to a core aspect of my human nature โ my capacity for growth โ feels like a poison in the air I breathe.
I also want to make art the way I see fit, and be up-front about my methods, which is complicated by people who do things like block everything with the term โAIโ โ if I technically use it for some relatively negligible element of a work, which probably won't even be called out, then honesty suddenly puts all my hours of Valid Perfect Human Effort that went into the rest in jeopardy.
I don't want to be a Brand, but I know that some sentiments are Brand Risks, so I rarely openly share them, so I haven't been directly challenged on much of anything that I've been uncertain and maybe uncomfortable about believing by people with differing and perhaps better-informed views, so I've felt like I've been pressured into greater personal stagnation by the unwelcoming and unforgiving dynamics of social media.
if I never speak of AI here again, is it bad enough I've done it now? just as bad as some cryptobro repeatedly trying to push people into holding their bag? if I made separate alt accounts for music and cat pictures and visual art and whatever else, would they all be grouped onto a list just because they're all run by an Objectionable? if my views change, will anyone respect that and unblock me, or is it bad enough that so many years of being artistically open-minded and then finding personal fun and fulfillment from my drop-in-the-ocean of AI usage led me to Feel Wrong About It for some length of time in the past?
maybe you disagree with me about some things I've expressed here, but hopefully, you can see that I'm someone who Thinks about things. I'm someone who will at least try to consider counterpoints fairly, if not spend entire days overthinking a dialogue with someone.
hopefully, you can see that art is important to me, and I think about the nature of it a lot, and ways to challenge conventions, and if you're exploring some strange new form of it, I'm probably open to that and willing to share it with others who I think might Get It. I even just created a community that I hope grows to encourage people to actively expound upon their creative processes so people can learn more about Doing Art together. I am not part of a league of enemies against artists because I think generative art is heading somewhere pretty cool.
my humanity runs much deeper than holding any particular belief that's someone's pet peeve.
social media doesn't feel low-stakes to me. this is where I have some capacity to live. I am not able-bodied enough to touch grass whenever I want. I touch bed and Internet-connected device, sometimes cat and/or hot chip.
I've kept this name and used many of the same platforms for a long time, through multiple distinct shifts in my personality. if I got under someone's skin when I was a teenager, with a less-open mind and a greater penchant for posting bait, and they blocked and forgot me then, they blocked every shade of who I became later.
an abusable site feature coded to be indifferent to a core aspect of my human nature โ my capacity for growth โ feels like a poison in the air I breathe.
