In the news

Could this impact useful AI - like the stuff that reduces bullshit work?

Or is it only a risk to people knocking up fake news and putting musicians out of work?

By useful AI, do you mean Glorified Auto-complete/LLM IntelliSense or whatever, or some other technique that definitely isn't actually AI until someone's trying to get paid for it?

I mean things ranging from Co-Pliot style write up all your meeting notes then auto-input calendar entries and tasks based on the agreed next steps in that meeting, through to "build me a bridge" general AI.

"Draw a picture of the pope in a puffa jacket" or "make me a popular TV show so we don't have to pay anyone" strikes me as fucking pointless, and the opposite of what we should be using AI for.

Not to go off on a generalised rant, but I swear these tech bros seem to have seem to have an inbuilt predisposition to making society worse. I wish they'd have just gone in to the tabaco, arms, or marketing industries like people with no morals use to.

Not to go off on a generalised rant, but I swear these tech bros seem to have seem to have an inbuilt predisposition to making society worse. I wish they'd have just gone in to the tabaco, arms, or marketing industries like people with no morals use to.

Not sure that is a fair description of @velocio or @hippy

Oh, I dunno....

I'm barely tech and certainly not a "bro".

marketing industries

Shit. He's onto me.

Balances out though; the wife works for a bank.

Yeah Bro!

starts hawking crypto

I posted about that in the AI thread. Seems a bit tenuous as a case really. If someone gives me 10 Cormac McCarthy books and says "read these and write something in the same style" I haven't violated any copyright by doing that unless I print sections of it verbatim. Even that is allowed in some circumstances. I'm a human, not a machine, so that's a distinction, but the basic idea of copyright is the same, you don't own a style and you can't stop someone parsing your work and then using it to do something else

Seems like we need to update copyright laws now that generative "AI" is here essentially. Both attribution when someone uses one to generate something, and use of copyrighted material in training them, are areas where there's a bit of a hole in the law. Personally I'm not sure where the line on copyright infringement should fall really but few people have any sympathy for these big companies who aggressively pursue people for copyright stuff. Just like with Spotify, YouTube, etc. it's big businesses who will win out of the case and your average artist won't see a penny.

When I was playing around with Dall-E I noticed that it wouldn't output anything related to Disney/Marvel/Lucasfilm. Assume there has been some legal accommodation/threats there.

disney are quite famous for aggressive legal defence of their copyrights

Quickest way to lose your investment is to piss off the mouse. Copyright laws in the US are ridiculous, and Disney’s lawyers are vicious.

Steamboat Willy is now in public domain though so plenty of fun to be had with that.

I was playing with Midjourney and trying to get it to turn a photo of my puppy into a 'disney' style cartoon and I just couldn't get it to work - hadn't thought it might have been legally restricted but I guess it's possible - although as explained here recently 'in the style of' is not copyright infringement and pastiche is a protected act. I did manage to create this monstrosity, which still haunts my dreams, when I included 'beauty and the beast' as a reference point in a prompt.

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challenging wank but worth it in the end

Was going to say that.

Can someone explain the Taylor swift us football player thing as I am missing something. Such as why is it an issue

There are several class actions going through at the moment and the photography trade associations are on the case too especially as the list of artists/photographers names to be plagiarised/harvested from the internet was leaked recently.
It could go either way but it will have to go in favour of the originators of the content otherwise there will never be any original works of art/literature/photography/music created and A.I will produce never ending derivative works until it can only plagiarise itself.

This is a good outline: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/jan/31/taylor-swift-travis-kelce-super-bowl-rightwing-conspiracy-biden

Relatedly, Swift is a billionaire dating a mere millionaire, but is somehow still being accused of being a gold digger. 🤷‍♂️

Duplicate.

Corrosive substance attack in Lambeth injures 9, including two young girls.

https://news.met.police.uk/news/investigation-launched-after-suspected-corrosive-substance-thrown-at-people-in-clapham-478825

What’s the recommended first aid in that case? Brush off if powder, dowse affected skin in as much running water as possible, and call ambulance? At work we used to keep cling film for fire injuries, presumably not a good idea for corrosives in case it traps the substance in against the skin?

I was taught to use a much water as humanly possible to wash it off. Bear in mind that it is in the skin and clothes, so you will need to keep on rinsing it to try to negate the action of the acid in the skin. The clingfilm is to prevent dirt and bacteria getting to the damaged skin after it's been thoroughly rinsed. And in this weather, do not forget the risk of using so much water that the core body temperature gets dangerously cold - keep the rest of the body covered. Finally, treat for shock while you are waiting for paramedics.

^ this - if in doubt, copious water - and we're talking bottles and bottles and bottles if that's what's available. That's why they have emergency showers in laboratories. I had to use one after conc. sulphuric acid spill on my lab coat/jeans, years ago - can confirm no scarring, but that was after an immediate dousing and I was very, very lucky. Walking out of the lab in my pants was a bit embarrassing... (you get undressed in the shower too, to remove contaminated clothing that might cause further issues with hot spots in the folds/seams/etc.)

Imbolc, anyone?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imbolc