[-] Architeuthis@awful.systems 11 points 1 month ago

404 added an update that the dataset was removed:

Update: Following the publication of this article on Tuesday evening, van Strien removed the dataset. "I've removed the Bluesky data from the repo," he wrote on Bluesky. "While I wanted to support tool development for the platform, I recognize this approach violated principles of transparency and consent in data collection. I apologize for this mistake."

[-] Architeuthis@awful.systems 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I like how he even had someone with art expertise literally explain it to him and he writes it off as “lol she must have super artist vision for details.”

I'll quote her since it's by far the only worthwhile part of the article:

When real pictures have details, the details have logic to them. I think of Ancient Gate being in the genre "superficially detailed, but all the details are bad and incoherent". The red and blue paint and blank stone feel like they're supposed to evoke worn-ness, but it's not clear what style this is supposed to be a worn-down version of. One gets the feeling that if all the paint were present it would look like a pile of shipping containers, if shipping containers were only made in two colors.

It has ornaments, sort of, but they don't look like anything, or even a worn-down version of anything. There are matchy disks in the left, center, and right, except they're different sizes, different colors, and have neither "detail which parses as anything" nor stark smoothness. It has stuff that's vaguely evocative of Egyptian paintings if you didn't look carefully at all. The left column has a sort of door with a massive top-of-doorway-thingy over it. Why? Who knows? The right column doesn't, and you'd expect it to. Instead, the right column has 2.5 arches embossed into it that just kind of halfheartedly trail off.

I'm not even sure how to describe the issues with the part a little above the door. It kind of sets a rhythm but then it gets distracted and breaks it. Are these semi-top protruding squares supposed to be red or blue? Ehh, whatever. Does the top border protrude the whole way? Ehh, mostly. Human artists have a secret technique, which is that if they don't know what all the details should be they get vague. And you can tell it's vague and you're not drawn to go "hmm, this looks interesting, oh wait it's terrible".

I think part of the problem with AI art is that it produces stuff non-artists think look good but which on close inspection looks terrible, and so it ends up turning search results that used to be good into sifting through terrible stuff. Imagine if everyone got the ability to create mostly nutritional adequate meals for like five cents, but they all were mediocre rehydrated powder with way too much sucralose or artificial grape flavor or such. And your friends start inviting you over to dinner parties way more often because it's so easy to deal with food now, but practically every time, they serve you sucralose protein shake. (Maybe they do so because they were used to almost never eating food? This isn't a perfect analogy.) Furthermore, imagine people calling this the future of food and saying chefs are obsolete. You'd probably be like "wow, I'm happy that you have easy access to food you enjoy, and it is convenient for me to use sometimes, but this is kind of driving me crazy". I feel like this is relevant to artist derangement over AI art, though of course a lot of it is economic anxiety and I'm a hobbyist who doesn't feel like a temporarily embarrassed professional and thus can't relate.

according to someone who goes by Ilzo on the socials.

image in question: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GQ3wnEZWAAA_mY8?format=jpg

[-] Architeuthis@awful.systems 11 points 4 months ago

SV Scientology, they can't land you a leading role in a summer blockbuster but they sure as hell can put you in the running for AI policy related positions of influence or for the board of a company run by one of their more successful groomings. Their current most popular product is court philosophers for the worst kind of aspiring technofeudalist billionaire.

If this gets them interested you'll eventually get your chance to do a deep dive to any details of cosmist lore you find relevant.

[-] Architeuthis@awful.systems 10 points 5 months ago

This feels like someone setting up a novel-length strawman.

[-] Architeuthis@awful.systems 11 points 5 months ago

I'm not a native english speaker, how else was he supposed to pronounce it?

[-] Architeuthis@awful.systems 11 points 9 months ago

An interesting read in general but the writers proclaiming themselves ethical hackers in the opening paragraph only to turn into wittle birthday boys as soon as it turned out their uh experiment caused major disruptions was mildly off putting.

[-] Architeuthis@awful.systems 11 points 10 months ago

Imo because the whole topic of superforecasters and prediction markets is both undercriticized and kaleidoskopically preposterous in a way that makes it feel like you shouldn't broach the topic unless you are prepared to commit to some diatribe length posting.

Which somebody should, it's a shame there is yet no one single place you can point to and say "here's why this thing is weird and grifty and pretend science while striclty promoted by the scientology of AI, and also there's crypto involved".

[-] Architeuthis@awful.systems 11 points 10 months ago

Basically their only hope is that an AI under their control takes over the world.

They are pretty dominant in the LLM space and are already having their people fast tracked into positions of influence, while sinking tons of cash into normalizing their views and enforcing their terminology.

Even though they aren't trying to pander to religious americans explicitly, their millenialism with the serial numbers filed off worldview will probably feel familiar and cozy to them.

[-] Architeuthis@awful.systems 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

clicked one of the livejournal links at random:

Personally, I'd have liked to see him touch on some of the more interesting heresies in our culture, like:

  1. Children are sexual creatures

aaaand I'm out.

[-] Architeuthis@awful.systems 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's from today's acx, apparently they offered free samples to the siskind household.

edit: this is not sarcasm.

[-] Architeuthis@awful.systems 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah, once you get past the compsci word salad things like this start to turn up:

Student: But I can't be racist, I'm black! Can't I just show the compiler a selfie to prove I've got the wrong skin color to be racist?

Truly incisive social commentary, and probably one of those things you claim it's satire as soon as you get called on it.

[-] Architeuthis@awful.systems 11 points 1 year ago

Enshittification

Once [a company] can make more money by screwing its customers, that screw-job becomes a fait accompli.

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Architeuthis

joined 2 years ago