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In contrast to others, I just want to say that I applaud the decision to take a moral stance against AI, and I wish more people would do that. Saying "well you

by BrenBarn 11mo ago

In contrast to others, I just want to say that I applaud the decision to take a moral stance against AI, and I wish more people would do that. Saying "well you have to follow the market" is such a cravenly amoral perspective.

jstummbillig 11mo ago
No, of course you don't have to – but don't torture yourself. If the market is all AI, and you are a service provider that does not want to work with AI at all then get out of the business. If you found it unacceptable to work with companies that used any kind of digital database (because you found centralization of information and the amount of processing and analytics this enables unbecoming) then you should probably look for another venture instead of finding companies that commit to pen and paper.
- bayindirh 11mo ago
  > If the market is all AI, and you are a service provider that does not want to work with AI at all then get out of the business. Maybe they will, and I bet they'll be content doing that. I personally don't work with AI and try my best to not to train it. I left GitHub & Reddit because of this, and not uploading new photos to Instagram. The jury is still out on how I'm gonna share my photography, and not sharing it is on the table, as well. I may even move to a cathedral model or just stop sharing the software I write with the general world, too. Nobody has to bend and act against their values and conscience just because others are doing it, and the system is demanding to betray ourselves for its own benefit. Life is more nuanced than that.
  - jstummbillig 11mo ago
    Good on you. Maybe some future innovation will afford everyone the same opportunity.
    - balamatom 11mo ago
      Maybe one day we will all become people again! (But only all of us simultaneously, otherwise won't count! ;)))) The number of triggered Stockholm Syndrome patients in this comment section is terminally nauseating.
    - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
      That future innovation is called "policy that doesn't screw over the working class". Not that innovative, but hey. If it let's someone pretend it is and fixes the problem, I'm all for it.
      - jstummbillig 11mo ago
        That future innovation is in fact higher productivity. Equality is super important but we are simply not good enough yet at what we do, societally, for everyone everywhere to live as good a life as we enjoy, regardless of how we distribute.
  - fragmede 11mo ago
    How large an audience do you want to share it to? Self host photo album software, on hardware you own, behind a password, to people you trust.
    - bayindirh 11mo ago
      Before that AI craze, I liked the idea of having a CC BY-NC-ND[0] public gallery to show what I took. I was not after any likes or anything. If I got professional feedback, that'd be a bonus. I even allowed EXIF-intact high resolution versions to be downloaded. Now, I'll probably install a gallery webapp to my webserver and put it behind authentication. I'm not rushing because I don't crave any interaction from my photography. The images will most probably be optimized and resized to save some storage space, as well. [0]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
- johnnyanmac 11mo ago
  This metaphor implies a sort of AI inevitably. I simply don't believe that's the case. At least, not this wave of AI. The people pushing AI aren't listening to the true demand for AI. This, its not making ita money back. That's why this market is broken and not prone to last.
_ttg 11mo ago
nobody is against his moral stance. the problem is that he’s playing the “principled stand” game on a budget that cannot sustain it, then externalizing the cost like a victim. if you're a millionaire and can hold whatever moral line you want without ever worrying about rent, food, healthcare, kids, etc. then "selling out" is optional and bad. if you're joe schmoe with a mortgage and 5 months of emergency savings, and you refuse the main kind of work people want to pay you for (which is not even that controversial), you’re not some noble hero, you’re just blowing up your life.
- BrenBarn 11mo ago
  > he’s playing the “principled stand” game on a budget that cannot sustain it, then externalizing the cost like a victim No. It is the AI companies that are externalizing their costs onto everyone else by stealing the work of others, flooding the zone with garbage, and then weeping about how they'll never survive if there's any regulation or enforcement of copyright law.
  - wonderwonder 11mo ago
    The ceo of every one of those Ai companies drives an expensive car home to a mansion at the end of the workday. They are set. The average person does not and they cannot afford to play the principled stand game. Its not a question of right or wrong for most, its a question of putting food on the table
averageRoyalty 11mo ago
I'm not sure I understand this view. Did seamstresses see sewing machines as amoral? Or carpenters with electric and air drills and saws? AI is another set of tooling. It can be used well or not, but arguing the morality of a tooling type (e.g drills) vs maybe a specific company (e.g Ryobi) seems an odd take to me.
- hackable_sand 11mo ago
  Man, y'all gotta stop copying each other homework.
  - _vqpz 11mo ago
    It's said often because it's very true. It's telling that you can't even argue against it and just have to attack the people instead.
    - hackable_sand 11mo ago
      Propaganda is true
- DamnInteresting 11mo ago
  Plagiarism is also "another set of tooling." Likewise slavery, and organized crime. Tools can be immoral.
aylmao 11mo ago
I understand this stance, but I'd personally differentiate between taking the moral stand as a consumer, where you actively become part of the growth in demmand that fuels further investment, and as a contractor, where you're a temporary cost, especially if you and people who depend on you necessitate it to survive. A studio taking on temporary projects isn't investing into AI— they're not getting paid in stock. This is effectively no different from a construction company building an office building, or a bakery baking a cake. As a more general commentary, I find this type of moral crusade very interesting, because it's very common in the rich western world, and it's always against the players but rarely against the system. I wish more people in the rich world would channel this discomfort as general disdain for the neoliberal free-market of which we're all victims, not just specifically AI, for example. The problem isn't AI. The problem is a system where new technology means millions fearing poverty. Or one where profits, regardless of industry, matter more than sustainability. Or one where rich players can buy their way around the law— in this case copyright law for example. AI is just the latest in a series of products, companies, characters, etc. that will keep abusing an unfair system. IMO over-focusing on small moral cursades against specific players like this and not the game as a whole is a distraction bound to always bring disappointment, and bound to keep moral players at a disadvantage constantly second-guessing themselves.
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 11mo ago
  << over-focusing on small moral cursades against specific players like this and not the game as a whole Fucking this. What I tend to see is petty 'my guy good, not my guy bad' approach. All I want is even enforcement of existing rules on everyone. As it stands, to your point, only the least moral ship, because they don't even consider hesitating.
  - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
    Collective bargaining helps a lot there. But that's not really a popular topic here, so the infighting continues. I'm all down once we all to backed in a corner to refuse, though.
- probably_wrong 11mo ago
tim333 11mo ago
Yeah but the business seems to be education for web front end. If you are going to shun new tech you should really return to the printing press or better copying scribes. If you are going to do modern tech you kind of need to stick with the most modern tech.
- Dumblydorr 11mo ago
  Printing press and copying scribes is a sarcastic comment, but these web designers are still actively working and their industry is 100s of years from the state of those old techs. The joke isn’t funny enough nor is the analogy apt enough to make sense.
  - infecto 11mo ago
    No it is a pretty good comparison. There is absolutely AI slop but you have to be sticking your head in the sand if you don’t think AI will not continue to shape this industry. If you are selling learning courses and are sticking your head in the sand, well that’s pretty questionable.
    - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
      >but you have to be sticking your head in the sand if you don’t think AI will not continue to shape this industry. Maybe ot will. I'm still waiting for the utility. Right now it's just a big hype bubble, so wake me when it pops.
      - infecto 11mo ago
        It’s almost a trope. You have one one end of the spectrum people like yourself who have nothing to say but it’s a hype bubble and there is no utility. On the other end you have folks making YouTube videos that they are building 100 apps in a day using LLMs. The truth is somewhere in the middle and I think to dismiss it like yourself is missing the boat that is sailing off.
Glemkloksdjf 11mo ago
I find this very generic what you are saying and they. What stance against AI? Image generation is not the same as code generation. There are so many open source projects out there, its a huge difference than taking all the images. AI is also just ML so should i not use image bounding box algorithm? Am i not allowed to take training data online or are only big companies not allowed to?
Aurornis 11mo ago
> Saying "well you have to follow the market" is such a cravenly amoral perspective. You only have to follow the market if you want to continue to stay relevant. Taking a stand and refusing to follow the market is always an option, but it might mean going out of business for ideological reasons. So practically speaking, the options are follow the market or find a different line of work if you don’t like the way the market is going.
- afavour 11mo ago
  I still don’t blame anyone for trying to chart a different course though. It’s truly depressing to have to accept that the only way to make a living in a field is to compromise your principles. The ideal version of my job would be partnering with all the local businesses around me that I know and love, elevating their online facilities to let all of us thrive. But the money simply isn’t there. Instead their profits and my happiness are funnelled through corporate behemoths. I’ll applaud anyone who is willing to step outside of that.
  - Aurornis 11mo ago
    > It’s truly depressing to have to accept that the only way to make a living in a field is to compromise your principles. Of course. If you want the world to go back to how it was before, you’re going to be very depressed in any business. That’s why I said your only real options are going with the market or finding a different line of work. Technically there’s a third option where you stay put and watch bank accounts decline until you’re forced to choose one of the first two options, but it’s never as satisfying in retrospect as you imagined that small act of protest would have been.
    - afavour 11mo ago
      I don't think we're really disagreeing here. You're saying "this is the way things are", I'm saying "I salute anyone who tries to change the way things are". Even in the linked post the author isn't complaining that it's not fair or whatever, they're simply stating that they are losing money as a result of their moral choice. I don't think they're deluded about the cause and effect.
wonderwonder 11mo ago
Its cravenly amoral until your children are hungry. The market doesn't care about your morals. You either have a product people are willing to pay money for or you don't. If you are financially independent to the point it doesn't matter to you then by all means, do what you want. The vast majority of people are not.
- johnnyanmac 11mo ago
  I assume they are weathering the storm if they are posting like this and not saying "we're leaving the business". A proper business has a war chest for this exact situation (though I'm unsure of how long this businesses has operated)
satvikpendem 11mo ago
Well if they're going to go out of business otherwise...
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
Aperocky 11mo ago
AI is amoral is an opinion. Following the market is also not cravenly amoral, AI or not.
- johnnyanmac 11mo ago
  If the market is immoral, following it is immoral. And it seems like more of society is disagreeing that AI is moral.

jstummbillig 11mo ago

No, of course you don't have to – but don't torture yourself. If the market is all AI, and you are a service provider that does not want to work with AI at all then get out of the business. If you found it unacceptable to work with companies that used any kind of digital database (because you found centralization of information and the amount of processing and analytics this enables unbecoming) then you should probably look for another venture instead of finding companies that commit to pen and paper.

bayindirh 11mo ago
> If the market is all AI, and you are a service provider that does not want to work with AI at all then get out of the business. Maybe they will, and I bet they'll be content doing that. I personally don't work with AI and try my best to not to train it. I left GitHub & Reddit because of this, and not uploading new photos to Instagram. The jury is still out on how I'm gonna share my photography, and not sharing it is on the table, as well. I may even move to a cathedral model or just stop sharing the software I write with the general world, too. Nobody has to bend and act against their values and conscience just because others are doing it, and the system is demanding to betray ourselves for its own benefit. Life is more nuanced than that.
- jstummbillig 11mo ago
  Good on you. Maybe some future innovation will afford everyone the same opportunity.
  - balamatom 11mo ago
    Maybe one day we will all become people again! (But only all of us simultaneously, otherwise won't count! ;)))) The number of triggered Stockholm Syndrome patients in this comment section is terminally nauseating.
  - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
    That future innovation is called "policy that doesn't screw over the working class". Not that innovative, but hey. If it let's someone pretend it is and fixes the problem, I'm all for it.
    - jstummbillig 11mo ago
      That future innovation is in fact higher productivity. Equality is super important but we are simply not good enough yet at what we do, societally, for everyone everywhere to live as good a life as we enjoy, regardless of how we distribute.
- fragmede 11mo ago
  How large an audience do you want to share it to? Self host photo album software, on hardware you own, behind a password, to people you trust.
  - bayindirh 11mo ago
    Before that AI craze, I liked the idea of having a CC BY-NC-ND[0] public gallery to show what I took. I was not after any likes or anything. If I got professional feedback, that'd be a bonus. I even allowed EXIF-intact high resolution versions to be downloaded. Now, I'll probably install a gallery webapp to my webserver and put it behind authentication. I'm not rushing because I don't crave any interaction from my photography. The images will most probably be optimized and resized to save some storage space, as well. [0]: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
johnnyanmac 11mo ago
This metaphor implies a sort of AI inevitably. I simply don't believe that's the case. At least, not this wave of AI. The people pushing AI aren't listening to the true demand for AI. This, its not making ita money back. That's why this market is broken and not prone to last.

_ttg 11mo ago

nobody is against his moral stance. the problem is that he’s playing the “principled stand” game on a budget that cannot sustain it, then externalizing the cost like a victim. if you're a millionaire and can hold whatever moral line you want without ever worrying about rent, food, healthcare, kids, etc. then "selling out" is optional and bad. if you're joe schmoe with a mortgage and 5 months of emergency savings, and you refuse the main kind of work people want to pay you for (which is not even that controversial), you’re not some noble hero, you’re just blowing up your life.

BrenBarn 11mo ago
> he’s playing the “principled stand” game on a budget that cannot sustain it, then externalizing the cost like a victim No. It is the AI companies that are externalizing their costs onto everyone else by stealing the work of others, flooding the zone with garbage, and then weeping about how they'll never survive if there's any regulation or enforcement of copyright law.
- wonderwonder 11mo ago
  The ceo of every one of those Ai companies drives an expensive car home to a mansion at the end of the workday. They are set. The average person does not and they cannot afford to play the principled stand game. Its not a question of right or wrong for most, its a question of putting food on the table

averageRoyalty 11mo ago

I'm not sure I understand this view. Did seamstresses see sewing machines as amoral? Or carpenters with electric and air drills and saws? AI is another set of tooling. It can be used well or not, but arguing the morality of a tooling type (e.g drills) vs maybe a specific company (e.g Ryobi) seems an odd take to me.

hackable_sand 11mo ago
Man, y'all gotta stop copying each other homework.
- _vqpz 11mo ago
  It's said often because it's very true. It's telling that you can't even argue against it and just have to attack the people instead.
  - hackable_sand 11mo ago
    Propaganda is true
DamnInteresting 11mo ago
Plagiarism is also "another set of tooling." Likewise slavery, and organized crime. Tools can be immoral.

aylmao 11mo ago

I understand this stance, but I'd personally differentiate between taking the moral stand as a consumer, where you actively become part of the growth in demmand that fuels further investment, and as a contractor, where you're a temporary cost, especially if you and people who depend on you necessitate it to survive. A studio taking on temporary projects isn't investing into AI— they're not getting paid in stock. This is effectively no different from a construction company building an office building, or a bakery baking a cake. As a more general commentary, I find this type of moral crusade very interesting, because it's very common in the rich western world, and it's always against the players but rarely against the system. I wish more people in the rich world would channel this discomfort as general disdain for the neoliberal free-market of which we're all victims, not just specifically AI, for example. The problem isn't AI. The problem is a system where new technology means millions fearing poverty. Or one where profits, regardless of industry, matter more than sustainability. Or one where rich players can buy their way around the law— in this case copyright law for example. AI is just the latest in a series of products, companies, characters, etc. that will keep abusing an unfair system. IMO over-focusing on small moral cursades against specific players like this and not the game as a whole is a distraction bound to always bring disappointment, and bound to keep moral players at a disadvantage constantly second-guessing themselves.

A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 11mo ago
<< over-focusing on small moral cursades against specific players like this and not the game as a whole Fucking this. What I tend to see is petty 'my guy good, not my guy bad' approach. All I want is even enforcement of existing rules on everyone. As it stands, to your point, only the least moral ship, because they don't even consider hesitating.
- johnnyanmac 11mo ago
  Collective bargaining helps a lot there. But that's not really a popular topic here, so the infighting continues. I'm all down once we all to backed in a corner to refuse, though.
probably_wrong 11mo ago

tim333 11mo ago

Yeah but the business seems to be education for web front end. If you are going to shun new tech you should really return to the printing press or better copying scribes. If you are going to do modern tech you kind of need to stick with the most modern tech.

Dumblydorr 11mo ago
Printing press and copying scribes is a sarcastic comment, but these web designers are still actively working and their industry is 100s of years from the state of those old techs. The joke isn’t funny enough nor is the analogy apt enough to make sense.
- infecto 11mo ago
  No it is a pretty good comparison. There is absolutely AI slop but you have to be sticking your head in the sand if you don’t think AI will not continue to shape this industry. If you are selling learning courses and are sticking your head in the sand, well that’s pretty questionable.
  - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
    >but you have to be sticking your head in the sand if you don’t think AI will not continue to shape this industry. Maybe ot will. I'm still waiting for the utility. Right now it's just a big hype bubble, so wake me when it pops.
    - infecto 11mo ago
      It’s almost a trope. You have one one end of the spectrum people like yourself who have nothing to say but it’s a hype bubble and there is no utility. On the other end you have folks making YouTube videos that they are building 100 apps in a day using LLMs. The truth is somewhere in the middle and I think to dismiss it like yourself is missing the boat that is sailing off.

Glemkloksdjf 11mo ago

I find this very generic what you are saying and they. What stance against AI? Image generation is not the same as code generation. There are so many open source projects out there, its a huge difference than taking all the images. AI is also just ML so should i not use image bounding box algorithm? Am i not allowed to take training data online or are only big companies not allowed to?

Aurornis 11mo ago

> Saying "well you have to follow the market" is such a cravenly amoral perspective. You only have to follow the market if you want to continue to stay relevant. Taking a stand and refusing to follow the market is always an option, but it might mean going out of business for ideological reasons. So practically speaking, the options are follow the market or find a different line of work if you don’t like the way the market is going.

afavour 11mo ago
I still don’t blame anyone for trying to chart a different course though. It’s truly depressing to have to accept that the only way to make a living in a field is to compromise your principles. The ideal version of my job would be partnering with all the local businesses around me that I know and love, elevating their online facilities to let all of us thrive. But the money simply isn’t there. Instead their profits and my happiness are funnelled through corporate behemoths. I’ll applaud anyone who is willing to step outside of that.
- Aurornis 11mo ago
  > It’s truly depressing to have to accept that the only way to make a living in a field is to compromise your principles. Of course. If you want the world to go back to how it was before, you’re going to be very depressed in any business. That’s why I said your only real options are going with the market or finding a different line of work. Technically there’s a third option where you stay put and watch bank accounts decline until you’re forced to choose one of the first two options, but it’s never as satisfying in retrospect as you imagined that small act of protest would have been.
  - afavour 11mo ago
    I don't think we're really disagreeing here. You're saying "this is the way things are", I'm saying "I salute anyone who tries to change the way things are". Even in the linked post the author isn't complaining that it's not fair or whatever, they're simply stating that they are losing money as a result of their moral choice. I don't think they're deluded about the cause and effect.

wonderwonder 11mo ago

Its cravenly amoral until your children are hungry. The market doesn't care about your morals. You either have a product people are willing to pay money for or you don't. If you are financially independent to the point it doesn't matter to you then by all means, do what you want. The vast majority of people are not.

johnnyanmac 11mo ago
I assume they are weathering the storm if they are posting like this and not saying "we're leaving the business". A proper business has a war chest for this exact situation (though I'm unsure of how long this businesses has operated)

satvikpendem 11mo ago

Well if they're going to go out of business otherwise...

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

Aperocky 11mo ago

AI is amoral is an opinion. Following the market is also not cravenly amoral, AI or not.

johnnyanmac 11mo ago
If the market is immoral, following it is immoral. And it seems like more of society is disagreeing that AI is moral.