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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   30156 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 12, 2024

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Is an artist allowed to paint a picture of Mickey Mouse murdering Hillary Clinton in negligee with the soles of her feet showing? Should the paint manufacturers limit the scope of output?

Currently the GenAI companies are not selling “paint” but offering painting services. You are telling them you want them to draw a picture of Mickey Mouse murdering Hillary in negligee with her feet showing, you are not drawing it yourself. The painter offering the painting service can certainly refuse requests that they feel to be problematic.

I don't think that's quite right. The "them" you are telling is a tool, not a person. It shouldn't be expected to exercise any more discretion than your paintbrush does. It's more like they're letting you rent their super-cool paintbrush that can paint whatever you want, including Mickey Mouse and Hillary Clinton.

At no point does another person's discretion come into it. I don't see the argument that they should be made to prevent you from painting those things any more than a brush manufacturer.

I mean, that battle had been fought and lost already. Software-as-a-service is the most prevalent thing now and no company will categorize this as you renting their software.

I buy software licenses for my team. A couple years ago a salesman for a major vendor of engineering software told me that their permanent licenses were being phased out and from now on only yearly subscriptions would be offered.

I got a few more permanent licenses using the excuse of available capital expense budget. The salesman told me they will never again allow that.

We've built such a fragile system. These license management tools are sensitive and prone to breaking under the very best of circumstances. No possibility these licenses are accessible on old hardware 10 years from now.

Something robust and important has been thrown away.

Yeah, good point. Something like a tattoo artist comes to mind.

What if I want a baker to do the picture in icing on a cake ... in Colorado?

Then it goes to the Supreme Court for the umpteenth time.

More interesting is not the principle, but the ability.

Paint can't be made to only draw ideologically agreeable figures. AI's ability to be ideologically loyal is still up in the air, but it may very well be.

Dispense yourself of the illusions that people won't grasp at this power because it would violate customary norms of an old order. They already ignored this for so many things. Ask RMS.

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