Luckily we can do both. Push for better air quality, but don’t dismiss achievements that happen in other areas at the same time.

Maybe some do, but mine just looks like this:

They are, but their stems and centre piece are plastic, which just ends up in landfill or litter. A reusable brooch is more environmentally friendly, but at least now they have paper stems and (im assuming) paper centre pieces so when they get thrown away they’re not so bad.

One thing I do find nuts is that the poppys have only just moved to paper stems. Every year they’d be busy handing these things out only for the plastic stem and centre to end up in landfill. I bought one of the reusable metal brooch versions a while ago, and just wear that each year, but it’s sad that the disposable nature of them wasn’t taken into consideration when they were designed.

I find it crazy that Black Ops, a series that’d surely sell gangbusters with minimal marketing thanks to word of mouth, gets a marketing budget bigger than the GDP of a small country. Yet a new IP that noone has heard of yet gets a far smaller budget. It seems completely back to front, to me.

BROTHER, MAY I HAVE SOME ICE CREAM?

Give her a medal

I’m not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that fan art cannot, by it’s very nature, by classed as original and therefore shouldn’t be able to be sold?

I have yet to meet any artist with this kind of deep anti-AI sentiment

Unfortunately this isn’t the case. Just look at the anti AI discourse from people like Steven Zapata or Karla Ortiz, or the discussion on platforms like Mother’s Basement or Art Cafe. There are plenty of artists who absolutely believe that AI art is worthless, without merit and is coming to destroy ‘real artists’.

I think that’s an overly simplistic description of how LLMs work, but I take your point. My response would be: how is a LLM trained on other artists work any different to a human artist taking inspiration from other human artists? Is an artist who creates fan art of Batman also derivative? In your argument it’s a clear breach of copyright, so should we be going after anyone who has ever drawn a picture of Batman as having broken the law?

You forgot to mention ‘AI slop’…

Well said. These anti AI arguments tend to be a prime example of protectionism. ‘Technology is great until it comes for my area of expertise, in which case my area of expertise must be protected at all costs because my work has greater value’.

Belisarius Cawl says Hi.

All of which should be done by human beings. Period.

Currently, maybe. But technology is fantastic at accuracy, better than humans in many regards. Gemini might have a way to go before it gets there, but it or its successors will get there and it’s moving fast.

Productivity is irrelevant here

I’m not sure it is. Productivity also refers to efficiency of services. If AI can make the services of the National Archives more productive for its staff and/or the public then surely that’s a good thing?

I have to say this is my concern as well. Deregulation rarely works well for the environment or climate because it’s shorthand for ‘letting businesses do what they want’ and businesses don’t tend to care about anything other than profit.

🎵 Tesla Optimus! Humans in disguise! 🎵

Maybe they should turn that mirror on themselves. Take a long look at the ‘non decent humans’ within their own ranks:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/4/23901575/ubisoft-executives-arrest-sexual-harassment-investigation

Second recommendation for Affinity Photo as a Photoshop replacement. 👍

Oh for sure. How we regulate AI (including how we power it) is really important, definitely.

Typical lack of nuance on the Internet, sadly. Everything has to be Bad or Good. Black or White. AI is either The best thing ever™ or The worst thing ever™. No room for anything in between. Considering negative news generates more clicks, you can see why the media tend to take the latter approach.

I also think much of the hate is just people jumping on the AI = bad band-wagon. Does it have issues? Absolutely. Is it perfect? Far from it. But the constant negativity has gotten tired. There’s a lot of fascinating discussion to be had around AI, especially in the art world, but God forbid you suggest it’s anything but responsible for the total collapse of civilisation as we know it…