Yeah, thanks for the heads up. I've proposed in !div0_governance@lemmy.dbzer0.com to update the instance rules to disallow anti-genAI trolling in communities where genAI is allowed. They can take their pro-copyright-rentseeking campaign elsewhere. Don't know why they thought it would fly here.

I've got no real problem with folks taking that position tbh, but it's not ok to dogpile posts on our communities like has happened here. I'm also somewhat sympathetic to the argument that GenAI is having an impact on artists' livelihoods. But they haven't connected the dots that this is only an issue because of greedy corporations trying to fuck over artists. They are directing all their anger towards GenAI instead of the real source of the problem. By all means advocate for greedy corporations to stop using AI to increase their profits at the expense of artists. But to come into a leftist space and demand that we stop using AI too is at best tokenistic, and at worst just serves to obfuscate the fundamental problem.

The users engaged in trolling here and tying to excuse it as "activism" should think harder about who they are fighting with and why. Even if we did capitulate and ban genAI, that would have zero impact on artists, because we don't pay for artists in the first place. It's nothing but virtue signalling and tokenism. The Luddites didn't go around breaking into peoples houses and smashing their spinning wheels. They went to factories owned by rich men and companies to destroy machinery in order to disrupt production and fight for workers rights and safety. Good on them too! If the anti genAI brigade were fighting against Getty's (or Adobe, etc.) use of AI that might actually have a useful leftist purpose, and the analogy with the Luddites would work. Instead they are here causing a nuisance in a leftist community, over some random crossposted GenAI meme. Good work guys - job done I guess, the capitalists must be quaking in their boots right now because of your "activism".

I agree with you in the sense that that corporations are stealing jobs from artists by usurping content creators on their massive platforms and replacing them with highly profitable (because they don't have to pay anyone) GenAI images. That's not a problem with GenAI though, it's a problem with corporations and capitalism which prioritize profit above all else.

And the question of fighting for the rights of artists to rent seek an income based on 100 year+ IP rights (or whatever ridiculous number it is nowadays) is hard to square with a leftist position. Aren't we supposed to be against that sort of thing?

I agree the ethics of corporate ai are problematic from an environmental and use case perspective, but not from a copyright perspective. Ethically, copyleft makes a lot more sense. Copyright only serves capitalism and is a fundamentally neoliberal concern.

Other non-US countries also exist.

I notice you aren't disputing the facts here, just the source.

This article touches on many of the same talking points if it's more to your liking in terms of "credibility" rating. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/aoc-dnc-speech-gaza/

If you read the article it actually argues that we shouldn't give up on AOC, despite the lie, because although it was disingenuous, that's just the nature of politicians. She's still one of the best the Dems have got. I don't know why folks are going into deflection and denial mode over it, it was an obvious lie at the time and now it's confirmed. The Dems don't get a free pass here, any more than the orange man.

Nobody complains when I post one of thousands of fact checks on shit Donald trump says, but the Dems are real touchy.

1. Being anti-AI is an intrinsically reactionary position to hold.
2. Leftists should be trying to seize the means of production, not trying to destroy them.
3. The anti-AI movement puts heavy emphasis on the impact on artists, but most leftists don't believe in copyright or the ownership/privatization of ideas and that includes things like art. Artists absolutely should be publicly funded and properly compensated for their work. But simply fighting against AI tooling will accomplish nothing, and arguably serves to perpetuates copyright rent-seeking by corporations and individuals.
4. Fighting against or banning the use of AI tools in leftist spaces will accomplish nothing, except to give the capitalists an advantage over leftists. The genie is already out of the bottle. AI tooling, although incredibly annoying in some aspects (such as when it gets inserted into fucking notepad) is also extremely powerful and useful for certain applications. Why would we want to fight with a hand tied behind our backs over some romantic idyll of pre-gen AI times?
5. A hammer can be a tool or a weapon. Same with AI. Nobody is talking about banning hammers, despite the fact they are often used as weapons or for nefarious purposes.
6. The anti-AI movement is primitivist and regressive in nature. It hearkens back to the "good old days" when artists were well compensated by rich patrons, and artisans and skilled craftsmen filled every small town. It's a fantasy that never really existed, and one that will never exist under capitalism.
7. FOSS AI projects are available such as Db0's AI Horde which seeks to democratic access to GenAI. There is no requirement to use corporate tooling.

Sure but what is a good or bad meme is extremely subjective. Bad memes from an artistic perspective often do very well in getting the message across. I mean I sort of get what you are saying but I think there's a lot of subjectivity involved. If we look at the post numbers, the ratio is the same as earlier. +671 to -122 = so downvotes are only 18% of where the upvotes are sitting, which isn't bad considering all the brigading. And anyway, we have a good mix of different types of memes. Only a small handful use genAI. It's completely been blown out of proportion by a very vocal minority.

Tbh that just shows Drag doesn't understand leftism very deeply.

1. Being anti-AI is an intrinsically reactionary position to hold.
2. Leftists should be trying to seize the means of production, not trying to destroy them.
3. The anti-AI movement puts heavy emphasis on the impact on artists, but most leftists don't believe in copyright or the ownership/privatization of ideas and that includes things like art. Artists absolutely should be publicly funded and properly compensated for their work. But simply fighting against AI tooling will accomplish nothing, and arguably serves to perpetuates copyright rent-seeking by corporations and individuals.
4. Fighting against or banning the use of AI tools in leftist spaces will accomplish nothing, except to give the capitalists an advantage over leftists. The genie is already out of the bottle. AI tooling, although incredibly annoying in some aspects (such as when it gets inserted into fucking notepad) is also extremely powerful and useful for certain applications. Why would we want to fight with a hand tied behind our backs over some romantic idyll of pre-gen AI times?
5. A hammer can be a tool or a weapon. Same with AI. Nobody is talking about banning hammers, despite the fact they are often used as weapons or for nefarious purposes.
6. The anti-AI movement is primitivist and regressive in nature. It hearkens back to the "good old days" when artists were well compensated by rich patrons, and artisans and skilled craftsmen filled every small town. It's a fantasy that never really existed, and one that will never exist under capitalism.
7. FOSS AI projects are available such as Db0's AI Horde which seeks to democratic access to GenAI. There is no requirement to use corporate tooling.

Given my comment got half the upvotes of the post, I could make the argument that half of the people in here agree with me saying it was a bit rubbish.

Not how math works i'm afraid. At most that would be 25%, and a bunch of them probably just like the other meme.

100% agree with you - it's the very definition of reactionary. And in order to buy into the anti-AI argument you have to accept the argument that IP property rights are legitimate, so it's essentially a neo-liberal position. Property rights are the foundation of right wing politics. That's why we have copyleft.

Propaganda is still propaganda even if the views and message are both factually and morally correct.

The whole point of lefty memes is to post (occasionally) entertaining leftist messages in a meme format for folks who appreciate them. Under your definition they would all be considered propaganda, even though they are clearly posted in a "Lefty Memes" community and factually accurate? I'd get your point if it was masquerading as a general memes community and we only allowed leftist content.

It wasn’t a troll comment; it was earnestly pointing out a contradiction of values.

You made a comment inferring "pirates" who use genAI are monsters. If that is a good faith comment, then I'd hate to see your bad faith comments.

It doesn’t make sense to demean falsehoods to one crowd and turn and peddle synthetic messages to another crowd.

Falsehoods? Synthetic messages? I saw the post, liked the message, and crossposted it to lefty memes. End of story. The rest is all happening in your head somewhere. Who or what originally created it is largely irrelevant to me because it's a memes community, they are all copied from somewhere. I simply post or crosspost things I think the community will like and are aligned with leftist ideas.

Also I think at this stage we really need to add an instance wide rule that anti-genAI comments on posts containing genAI on this instance will be removed and multiple violations will result in community bans. It's becoming a real problem lately.

It does the community no good to allow anti ai warriors to start brigading every post containing so called “ai slop”. It’s just a new pointless diversion for keyboard warriors to fight over, accomplishing nothing in the process but derailing any meaningful discussion on the content of the OP. There are other ways to fight back against corporate power, such as making access to genAI technology free and open source, like db0s ai horde project.

We already had the Murdoch one posted before. Its not a zero sum game.

It's a memes community not fine art ffs

This is a discussion for governance. It does nobody any good to allow anti ai warriors to start brigading every post containing so called "ai slop". It's just a new pointless diversion for keyboard warriors to fight over, accomplishing nothing in the process but derailing any meaningful discussion on the content of the OP. There are other ways to fight back against corporate power, such as making access to genAI technology free and open source, like db0s ai horde project.

If you can't see how those statements violate rule 1 of this community then I don't know what to tell you.

Have you ever heard the expression "can't see the forest for the trees"? I mean I like Marshall McLuhan and all, but if all you are talking about is the medium then you've kind of missed the whole point of the post, which was the message.