PSA: lemmy.dbzer0.com labels anyone who shows any dislike for AI as a "right-wing neoliberal"

Locking this thread. I think it'd be good to add some civility-related rules to the sidebar. As folks know, this community has a lot of mods, and I don't want to make too many of such decisions unilaterally, so to any of the other /c/fuck_ai mods who want to be involved in that discussion, please DM me. Worst case, we'll set up a place to talk through the specific language. But if I don't hear anything, I'll probably just add something to the sidebar.
In the meantime, quit it with the direct attacks on other users. If you can't make your point civilly, make it elsewhere.
I'd also like to thank db0 for dropping in to speak for the dbzer0 instance.

Ugh, that's disappointing. The screendumped list of arguments that "leftists are per definition pro-AI" is reductive and cherrypicked. I guess they can get into the sea with the rest of the "AI" bros.
To be perfectly clear, I don't think the copyright system is anywhere near perfect, especially not the way it has been expanded to benefit corporations rather than actual creators. But it is really the only available legal protection against the gross ethical infringement on human artistry that the "AI" corpos have committed to tran their models.
I'm as black and red as they come — as well as an artist and arts teacher — and that litany of BS arguments does not represent me in the least. I would and have made art without certainty of compensation. That doesn't make my art or anyone else's up for grabs to create piss poor replacements for our skill and craft.
"GenAI" is not a threat to human creativity in itself— it only reproduces lowest common denominator results from the material it's trained upon. But the fact that indiscriminate morons actually think those statistically miscalculated songs, texts or images are as good as what people make? That's the real existential crisis.
- I completely share your sentiments. Especially about copyright. It's a really shitty and fucked up system, but it's the only tool available for people to use for protection.
  For AI, it's important to repudiate all of the bad uses of AI so that we can distill out any possible good uses for it.
  
  In terms of "AI", I find the scare quotes important because we absolutely do not have actual AI, only a misleading hype phrase to sell a miserably underperforming product. I'm with Ted Chiang that what we do have is applied statistics.
  But I agree that there are reasonable, constructive uses. Primarily in, yes, statistics and language research, but that's not where we see the technology making its most hyped inroads. Probably because they're neither sexy or profitable enough to return the investments that have gone into developing these contraptions.
  The most infuriating thing to me is that the companies behind are willing to not just steal creatives' work in the mad dash for profitability, but also diminish the standing of our crafts and raze our already limited fields of income to do so.
  And then some tw—t on an online forum decides that """AI""" is the required tool for a socialist revolution? Excuse me while I go punch a wall.

Getting reports over content in different instances. -_-
If someone comes here pushing AI slop then yeah I'm not opposed to whipping out the banhammer, but I don't really care what folks are posting elsewhere, and I'd rather not see Fuck AI become focused on drama in other communities.
Up or downvote as you see fit, but please don't use the report button as an 'extra big-ass downvote!'
- Up or downvote as you see fit, but please don't use the report button as an 'extra big-ass downvote!'
  What am I supposed to do when somebody says something I don't like online?!
  That shit needs to be taken down ASAP, chop chop, champ!
- When an instance admin is pushing an "AI or else" attitude, I consider that relevant. Though, it does have a significant drama element to it. If that's still not acceptable in spite of apparent relevance, just let me know and I'll excuse myself.
  
  I don't have an issue with the topic you posted in-and-of-iteself. It's not like we have clear-cut rules here beyond the name of the community, to which absolutely it's relevant.
  What bugs me is how heated people are getting over an incident that's not even in this community. I'm not going to take mod action here over posts in another community, and it seems silly/petty that the conversation about it here is generating so many user reports.
  And I mean, look at my own post history - I get heated about shit too. I get it. We -self included- need to just take a fuckin' chill pill sometimes.

Hey y'all, dbzer0 admin there. We're not anti Genai as a technology in general but we're absolutely anti-corporate genai. I believe the only valid way to use genai is if all weights are open source and all output is in the commons. I generally hate the current techbro Ai bubble and we have no stake in it. However I will defend proles using genai for their own entertainment as much as I will defend proles using piracy likewise. We think the world is would be better without copyrights. AMA.
- I believe that as it currently stands, AI is too closely tied to big corporations, especially for the average person. So, without specifically including the caveat of "this thing was generated using an open source, locally run model" or something along those lines, it's reasonable to assume it was generated by using big corp-run AI giving them more data and power over the individuals. I also think giving too much credence to AI gives the big techbro AI bubble more value and power. Additionally, AI makes it exceedingly easy for low-quality or nefarious content to proliferate and effectively choke-out thoughtful content, similar to how misinformation/disinformation takes over factual information. Like I mentioned, I agree that 'AI is just a tool', but that doesn't exclude it from being extremely frequently abused, which then puts a sour taste in my mouth. I could go on for why I tend to dislike AI in general while acknowledging what possible benefits there may be for it. None of my reasoning is founded on any of the claims db0 users were trying to force onto me.
  According to your fellow admin and other very loud and rude users from db0 (whose behaviors have been validated by the same admin), that makes me a "right-wing neoliberal". Instead of engaging in a discussion about it, those people instead berated me and kept pushing the same idea.
  /--edit--/
  To add to this, I think a big contention point is that there is no rule against stating that you don't like AI or reasons to dislike AI, but the user's hostility were a reaction as if that were the case. If there were an instance or community rule for that, then these reactions would be understandable (though, still an overreaction IMO).
  
  It seems to me that if you go to a community and are rude about the memes being shared you should be able to take some rudeness back.
  
  I also think giving too much credence to AI gives the big techbro AI bubble more value and power. Additionally, AI makes it exceedingly easy for low-quality or nefarious content to proliferate and effectively choke-out thoughtful content, similar to how misinformation/disinformation takes over factual information.
  You say two contradictory things -- that we shouldn't give AI credence, but also that it's dangerous.
- It's weird to see the doublethink of people here.
  "We don't want corporations to control everything! They have too much power!"
  "Exactly, we should ignore their requests and the copyright system they made!"
  "Yeah! Copyright doesn't help us! Pirate everything!"
  "We can use their tools to dismantle them! Including AI!"
  "Woah, I don't know if I actually agree with copyright being abolished... Maybe copyright is actually good when companies get to abuse the laws they made... I'm for copyright abolishment in everything but using tools."
  How much do you want to bet that the people who think being Anti-AI is somehow revolutionary, shares memes and media without permission of the copyright holder of the images and media? Disney would love to enforce that sharing a meme with any of their IP is a crime and you must pay to do it.
  The hypocrisy of these people never gets old. They'll advocate for piracy and soulseek but the moment you ask a open source, single instance AI thing to make a meme, its suddenly an affront to mankind.
  
  i think you misunderstand entirely.
  it’s not about copyright, it’s about stealing other people’s work and pretending like it’s your own, as well as selling it as your own….
  as well as, it dilutes and drowns out real artists with infinite low-quality slop….
- We think the world is would be better without copyrights.
  Why on earth would you think a lack of copyright would be better for anyone (especially the labourers who actually create shit) while we all still have to live in this capitalist hellscape? Maybe in a perfect world we could do without it; but we sure as hell do not live in a perfect world.
  
  Because copyrights are a form of enclosure and they are there to benefit the rich. It's part of the hellscape and their primary purpose is to introduce artificial scarcity so that human culture can be monetized for their benefit.
  
  Ideas can’t be owned, and copyright and intellectual property are capitalist nonsense. If you don’t want to share an idea, don’t bring it into the world. Because once you do, it collectively belongs to the human condition.

As an Anarcho-Syndicalist (basically as far left as you can possibly get), multiple things can be simultaneously true:
Private property is theft as is copyright
Art should be publically funded
Capitalism is fundamentally evil
AI is theft
Tech bros are bootlickers
AI is a fundamentally reactionary tool, it does not serve the worker and does little more than serve the capitalist. It feeds off of real work that real workers do so that capitalists can claim that they can do work like real workers. However they cannot, only a true worker can make art and music. Art and music comes from what fundamentally makes us human, thats why AI and Capitalists cannot make art.
DOWN TO REACTION, DOWN TO THE DECEIVERS, DOWN TO THE TYRANTS
- I think a key point here is that none of the admins or mods of dbz0 have claimed its real art, or that something else is lesser art, as far as I can see. I may be completely wrong, and I'll amend that claim if so.
  However they cannot, only a true worker can make art and music. Art and music comes from what fundamentally makes us human, thats why AI and Capitalists cannot make art.
  Indeed. My favorite musicians are in fact human. Art is not made for money, art is made to express something, something intangible. I think the moment people get into a "who would pay for this" instantly lose the argument, as art should not be profit focused.
  I don't sing in the shower because I think it'll be a smash hit on TikTok or whatever, I do it because its fun to sing in the shower.
- Hey I would appreciate it if you didn't use all caps like trump, makes me want to not be associated with you even as a sympathetic left-liberal.
  
  SORRY, DIDN'T HEAR YOU.
  
  Man wants to be in all caps, let him be in all caps. You do you and then appreciate that other people are different and still good people.
  
  ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME

So checks notes people who are against capitalist corporate Generative AI LLM's because they're just thieving all and sundry and ignoring any laws that might stop them are checks notes pro-capitalism Alt-Right supporters who... Checks notes a third time support Trump and all the capitalist companies bolstering his presidency in order to prevent regulations of Generative AI LLM's.
Did I get that right?
- Did I get that right?
  No.

$5 says they used an LLM to make that response

The db0 instance has been the #1 disappointment for me on Lemmy.
If you count yourself as a leftist and advocate of electronic freedoms… but you find yourself on the opposing side against Robert Evans, Molly White, and Cory Doctorow, you might wanna reconsider whether you’ve been scammed into a libertarian tech bro version of Freedom™.
- Tech bro is a snappy phrase, so it consumes more than it should. What snappy phrase encompasses Cory Doctorow? I want that label.
- Nonsense. If people used genai the way we suggest in dbzer0, AI techbros would be in ruins. We're also generally in the same camp as those people you mention (even though they're still libs) but we still have disagreements since, well, we're not libs and don't think there's any merit to things like copyrights.

AI doesn't work without the availability of highly scalable compute, such as AWS or Azure. "Means of production" is a questionable concept when applied to digital things, since there isn't scarcity, and "goods" can be infinitely copied once produced. If anything, encouraging usage of AI in its current form increases our dependence on large corporations and the infrastructure that only they can build and subsidize.
I thought that point was rather questionably argued.
- You can run that shit locally if you want to shell out hundreds or thousands of dollars for a high end GPU, but I agree with your overall point.

Er... "AI: The New Aesthetics of Fascism"

Point 7 is telling.
;tldr they ban anti-AI because they're in the AI game.
- That implies they profit from it. I doubt that's the case.
  
  Yeah the horde isnt a paid thing
- seize means of production is funny af, any ai thats opensource controlled by the average person will never compete with corporate resources, or rich ppl, we arent seizing anything, training our replacements we wont be able to use the top tier models well be priced out hard
  
  What do we get, mediocre art, there is already so much art out there that I get an exestential crisis about not being able to read all the books I want to read before I die. Forget tv and movies, I dont need ai generation ruining my feeds, making it harder to find books or animations. This is the most frustrating thing, getting into blender and animation just for every hashtag result being filled with ai. Took me forever to find ppl to follow in the sea of ai trash. You know its not ai when it appeals to the eyes for more than 5 seconds.
- Yep, lmao. It was well written and made some points, then the advertisement came and all credibility disappeared.
  
  It was well written and made some points
  Gonna have to disagree with you on both parts of that.

Do you happen to have any evidence at all that they "delete any comments that complain about AI"? Because it seems unlikely, given that the only thing you came up with to support that statement is a comment expressing opinions about AI with which you presumably disagree.
- I've blocked the instance at this point, but that comment thread was on yepowertrippinbastards in response to a thread that got practically nuked.
  Here's the thread: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/43418415
  
  Although the removed comments are not showing up in the moderation log, I see that your tireless devotion to the topic over the past 24 hours has provided us with at least one screencap of what seems to be one of the deleted comments. It was pretty low-quality, mildly insulting, and not worth thinking about for more than the 5 seconds its author did. Anyway good luck with your crusade.

Well that's disappointing

I'm banned from a lot of dbzer0 for the sin of downvoting AI slop
- wait, you can't have been banned from there from just downvoting slop…
  
  According to modlogs that's the case
  
  Based on the screenshot, they were mostly banned from GenAI communities.
  Which seems like a rational response, because they don't want GenAI images in their feed, and now those communities won't be in their feed.(edit- maybe not lol, I should learn more about activitypub)
  As much as a downvote feels like a "fuck you" button, it's not really productive to downvote a community's content on principle. That's what the block button is for.

That’s too bad. I joined because of piracy. But they are a bit rigid in their ideologies as one would expect from a niche tech community but this is too much. Where should I go next?
- You're pro-copyright in matters of AI but anti-copyright in matters of piracy? Weird.
  EDIT: If you're pro-copyright then you shouldn't be pirating media, you're stealing from the hard working and poor creatives at Disney and Universal Studios! That's evil and bad to copy a 1s and 0s! If you're anti-copyright, why do you care about what people do in their spare time?
  
  You're pro-copyright in matters of AI but anti-copyright in matters of piracy?
  Sure, yeah. All seems above board.

Link to the thread, dont post a screenshot
- I blocked the instance, but I had already taken a screenshot.
  But I went out of my way to get this for you:
  https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/43426671/18476015

Yeah its annoying, youd think piracy ppl would be anti ai generation since we grew up pirating adobe, autodesk, etc. programs, or at least I thoight that was common among pirates, I started with flash
- new gen pirates just go for movies, tvshows, and games
  
  Well thats because we have Foss alternatives that are better than the adobe suite crap
  
  They are anti copyright and anti corporations. With that in mind, saying it's stealing is silly to them since they mostly don't consider pirating stealing and pirating isn't hyper transformative like AI is.
  There is also the fact that 99% of the data is owned by corporations (Getty, Instagram, Reddit, publishing houses, record companies, etc). The anti-AI movement will never actually stop AI, but they might stop open source AI which only benefits the corporations.

This may be a mistake. But I'm going to make an attempt at good faith discussion.
I am 1000% anti bougie AI. And would be a proud Luddite, marching into the data centers with a hammer to smash the servers and power distribution. AI used to displace, exclude, or oppress people. Or AI that is a detriment to the environment. That is the problem.
Or is it this community stance that all AI regardless of what it is or what it does is somehow bad. Say if you could run your own natural language AI assistant efficiently on a piece of hardware that you own. To help you stay organized or assist with simple verbal tasks. Is that also bad? Because otherwise everything @Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com said seems pretty reasonable.
- That is like saying that DDT can be used to exterminate malaria-carrying mosquitoes, therefore it should be unregulated and widely accessible and anyone saying otherwise is a ratlicker.
  
  Not at all. Again I literally said I would happily go Luddite on the data centers of the bougie wealthy that would use a tool like artificial intelligence to harm or oppress people and the environment. That's literally a form of Regulation against the negative impacts. If a tool can exist without the negative impacts. Then where is the problem?
- @Eldritch More than one way to be a luddite https://sightlessscribbles.com/posts/6593/
  
  Not in the historical sense. When I use it, I mean it in the sense of the actual luddites. Who are not against automation, machine, or the automated looms they smashed. They were against the wealthy using tools to steal their livelihood from them and cut them out. In that sense this modern day machine learning stuff is exactly analogous. And that is the reference from which my usage should be understood.
  The meaning of things absolutely can change over time with culture. And indeed the wealthy have tried to redefine and portray the luddites as simply being anti-technology and not anti-wealthy. Which they were not
  Also know. My acceptance of machine learning/ai is not an Embrace of or defense of tech bros crypto bros or any other sort of bros. If it's not clear already I think those people should not exist and my general position in response to them while it may be reactionary is a solid fuck the AI bros. Fuck they're unethical harvesting and trying to use it against us. They 100% are problematic and should not be a part of this equation. We as a society should never have left such a class of people exist in the first place.
- Here's my response to their points:
  That's an opinion, not a fact. And while I agree that in many circumstances there are plenty of reactionary responses, it does not get anywhere close to 100%.
  Irrelevant to the point.
  You're conflating an "anti-AI movement" with just not liking AI.
  I never made any claims about banning AI or even fighting against it, really. Not sure why you're ascribing that to me, and it doesn't provide any argument to the main claim that "disliking AI is always from right-wing capitalism".
  While I get your overall point here and mostly agree that AI is 'just a tool', the rest of your point is based on banning, which is not part of the discussion. Also, it's a pretty false equivalent argument, but I assume you're not expecting it to be a 1:1 comparison, just trying to make the point that it's just a tool and should not be labeled as inherently bad.
  Once again, you're conflating an "anti-AI movement" with just not liking AI. I don't know if there' some big coordinated "anti-AI movement" that makes that argument in particular and I've somehow never heard of it or seen any evidence of, but it seems to me you've created a fake, absurd strawman.
  That's great and helps obviate one of my main issues with AI.
  In total, you've made zero arguments for the logic that any sentiment of disliking AI should be met with hostility and all comes from a source of “right-wing liberals”. All I see is unfounded attempts of vilifying people who simply disagree with you by shoving a label onto them.
  Personally, I can see some use for AI in very specific cases, and it still needs to be babied and the result double checked. But yeah, AI being mostly controlled by big corporations is a major part of the AI problem.
  
  The first point i s a fact not an opinion. Example. I am an anarchist, and that makes you what? It makes you nothing. You are you and who or what I decide to be shouldn't and generally doesn't directly impact that. Now let's say you had a bad experience with an anarchist. And as a result you have chosen to be anti anarchist. That is a reaction, and by definition reactionary. That's all it really means. Nothing nefarious Etc.
  Point two. I absolutely see it from a leftist point of view. But yes that's not going to hold true for everyone even if I wish it did.
  With point three. And most of the rest. I think they were trying to express their understanding and seek clarification on your part much as I have. What IS anti AI. Is it purely reactionary and without thought. Or is it more considered, focused on the dangers posed by authoritarians and fascists empowered by those tools. I'm leaning towards thinking its generally the latter. However it seems one or both of you might be talking passed the other. I doubt you disagree as much as you think you might.
- News Flash!
  AI fan says deranged arguments made by another AI fan are "pretty reasonable".
  In other news water is wet and the sun is hot.
  
  That's pretty reductionist and rude. It's the same kind of shitty attitude that I'm calling them out for, and then you're just doing the same thing here.

TIL even the right-wing neoliberals hate AI.

Thank you for the validation. I’ve been really depressed lately with all the problems I’ve had with my government and my workplace dumping me and just everything else, and the hostility I had been getting from some sides of Lemmy was really exacerbating things. I also want to reiterate my point that some Lemmings don’t get which is that propaganda is still propaganda even if the views and message are both morally correct; it was the use of AI as an imitation of an honest human messenger that I considered “disinfo” or at the very least disingenuous. A lot of other Lemmings also thought my gripe was singularly with how AI art steals (“pirates” as one critic put it) from human artists to make its images, which is not the particular condemnation I was making in that case. Again, I really appreciate the support.
- I do think the comment was somewhat instigative, but I don't agree with how it was handled. I think it was an overreaction and that admin's behavior elsewhere gives that a significant amount of validation.
  
  The db0 post was a crosspost that itself was a Reddit mirror, and upon further investigation that Reddit post was also a crosspost with the Reddit watermark and the profile silhouette already overlaid on it. The db0 admin was several layers removed from involvement with its creation (and probably several more layers than we can directly deduce), and they had not yet acknowledged that it was AI generated. They had a hand in spreading disingenuousness in the fediverse, knowingly or unknowingly, which was the contradiction with their other mod role that I was pointing out. You can’t be both anti-disinfo and pro-AI as a conduit for messaging in media (unless you at the absolute very least include a disclosure about usage of the latter).

Wow that's silly of them, they can as well add the label Luddite.
I use AI at work and it does an mediocre/acceptable job when I find the right prompt.
The technology is still in its infancy and we still need to spend decades learning how to get something out of it.

this pretty much solidifies my belief that the dbzero0 instance is a grassroots left wing qanon Russian troll farm that's desperately attempting to divide us further.
been blocking any dbzero user as they make themselves obvious.
- That's a pretty narrow view. I joined db0 for piracy discussion. Not everyone subscribes to all aspects of the instance next to their username.
  
  like I said, as long as they "make themselves obvious".
  you seem like a level headed user, however there have been some folks from your instance that tend to instigate. those are the ones I block.
- "We're consistent in being anti-copyright, from all companies and corprations."
  "Wow, psyop much? Weirdos, having moral consistency."
  
  I hear OpenAI is pretty anti-copyright as well. Weird how you agree on that.
- Nah, most of 'em are okay on any topic that's not directly related to genAI. It's just that their takes on this one issue are completely abysmal.

ONE OF US
ONE OF US

Lol, rather than have a point you just say "completely insane comment"
- I literally did make many points in response to that comment. But the comment itself does stand up to that description.
  Additionally, it seems we've got a db0 brigade. Gross.

Haha weird robo-loving freaks

ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME