this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Sooo the game will be cheaper then right guys? Less costs and overhead, means cheaper to produce product right?? No, we know that's not happening. Fuck you and your bullshit. This is an instant avoid for me.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Their previous edition of this game used public domain art, which was literally free for them. Were you avoiding that edition as well?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

False equivalency. Also you're not going to justify or normalize the existence of generative AI. Write your own code and make your own games.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

well I have started using Github copilot for programming, it does some things well and for example speeds up very well when I write unit tests because once you start with a pattern they are mostly repetitive with minor changes.

Should I start charging less for my work?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

once you start with a pattern they are mostly repetitive with minor changes

Can't you just turn those into a single parameterized test with the test cases described as data?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I mean of course if there is only a given set of variables that changes test-to-test then I do that.

But I meant tests, that are really similar, but the variable that changes or combination of changes is varied enough that you can't parametrize it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Some things you also shouldn't parameterize for the sake of overview and intuitiveness in understand.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

You mean the original terraforming mars card artwork weren't made by an AI?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Why didn't they call it "Terraforming Mores"??

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

translation: we are not interested in quality and want to make $$ by cutting all corners

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Their previous release used existing public domain art, were they already at the "not interested in quality and want to make $$ by cutting all corners" level when they did that?

[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They were,

But AI is industrial plagiarism. There's a big difference in the legality of using AI vs using publically licensed materials.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

But AI is industrial plagiarism.

You don't know how generative AI works. Or what plagarism means. Or possibly both.

BTW, what if these folks are using Adobe Firefly? It was trained entirely on licensed materials.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

If you pose the ignorance of a person replying, the custom should be to explain the concepts they do not understand.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I work in generative AI, specifically curated training sets.

The issue is training on "licensed materials". If that happened with all AI, no one would have a problem. But its disingenuous to suggest that's how most AI is currently being trained. A lot of materials have been scraped off of the web, especially for image generation, meaning some portion of the training data was used without the author's consent or, often, even their knowledge. It's important to note that scraping training data in this way usually breaks a TOS.

The amount of people I've seen supporting AI usage in this context is staggering, with one commenter even telling me it was about the "greed" of the artists, whose work may be in a training set without consent, wanting royalties for slightly changing a parameter with their art (that is, of course, a strawman fallacy).

To me, the only issue here is handling the ethics of what goes into training data and what doesn't. Authors should have the choice of their materials not being used. Adobe understood this, which is why Firefly being trained on explicitly licensed materials makes it a different beast, to which you allude.

But it's clear a lot of people don't understand why using data without consent is a bad thing in this context, and for that reason, some other people will choose not to support companies using it until the issue is resolved. It seems quite reasonable to me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The issue is training on “licensed materials”.

People usually say that's the issue, until you show them that it's possible to generate images and whatnot from models trained on "fully licensed" data. Then they come up with some other reason why evil AI is awful and evil. I've been involved in these debates for a long time now and those goalposts have well-worn tracks from how frequently they shift that way.

But it’s clear a lot of people don’t understand why using data without consent is a bad thing in this context

No, they don't agree that using data without consent is a bad thing. Saying "they don't understand" it is begging the question, in the literal sense. You're saying that people who disagree about that are simply being ignorant of some underlying "truth."

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, they don't agree that using data without consent is a bad thing.

If this developer doesn't mind taking data without consent, I hope they don't have an issue with people pirating their game. That's a slippery slope if I ever saw one.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

"Slippery slope" is also a fallacy. Training an AI and copying a game are two different things and it's entirely reasonable to hold the position that one is ok and the other is not.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're missing the point. Both are using data (work of the dev on a game, work of an artist on art) without consent.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not missing the point. Just because they're both "using data without consent" doesn't mean they're the same thing. Playing baseball and smashing someone's car both involve swinging a bat but that's where the similarity ends.

There are many ways that you can "use data without consent" that are perfectly legal.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Legal does not necessarily equate to ethical. And the law will eventually change (I think) to mitigate some of these shortcomings that AI training has highlighted.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Legal does not necessarily equate to ethical.

Of course not. But "ethical" is a matter of subjective debate. You say X is unethical, I say X is ethical, and ultimately there's no way to tell who's "right."

Law's different, the whole point of it is to have a system that sorts these things out.

And the law will eventually change (I think) to mitigate some of these shortcomings that AI training has highlighted.

So it's not currently illegal to train AIs like this? That's been my point this whole time. It's a different thing from the things that are currently illegal (such as "theft").

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Currently legal, but unethical. I never claimed it was illegal. (I did mention that scraping usually breaks a TOS, but that's definitely a legal grey area and moot if its publicly accessible data)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Unethical according to your personal opinion. My opinion on the ethics of the matter differ, and that's just as valid as yours. You don't get to declare "that's unethical" and then expect everyone to just fall in line with your belief. Way back at the root of this you said:

But it’s clear a lot of people don’t understand why using data without consent is a bad thing in this context,

Which, as I argued back then, suggests that you think that the notion that "using data without consent" is a bad thing that people who disagree with you just don't understand. No, they understand perfectly well. They just disagree with you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can you explicate why you believe it is ethical to use data without consent of the data creator?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because it's no different from what people have been doing since time immemorial - learning concepts and styles from things that they can see in public. To place restrictions on this is going to require a whole new category of intellectual property and it leads in very dubious directions.

"Intellectual property" is inherently a restriction of peoples' rights, and you need to have a very good reason to apply any such restriction that balances those restrictions with public benefits that derive from it. Copyright, for example, promotes the progress of science and the useful arts by making it "safe" to publish stuff rather than keeping it squirrelled away. Trademarks benefit people by making the providence of goods clear. Patents ensure that inventions aren't lost.

Rights are not restricted by default, they are unrestricted by default. When something new comes along it's up to the people who want to restrict it to make their case. The default state of the world should be freedom, not prohibition and control.

Trying to restrict the right to learn is an extremely dark place to be going. I strongly oppose that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks for your explanation.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

No problem. People often assume the worst about their opponents in debates (I succumb to that too, even though I try to avoid it), thank you for asking for an explanation of my position.