I've seen many actual legit digital artists getting hit with the cries of AI slop and even banned, when they have been making art for years before AI was even a thing. People actually can't tell the difference half the time when they think they can, and end up hurting real artists.

Not just artists. There seems to grow a kind of AI paranoia that suspects AI everywhere. Benign posts that are a little longer than usual or use a uncommon word: AI SLOP!!!!!1!!!1. Maybe the poster is just a non-native speaker or neurodivergent. I agree to most reasons to hate AI but calling it out everytime there is just the slightest hint is annoying at least

Not calling it out is akin to not calling out anything else unethical.

See a parent hitting their child? Shut up and move along.

AI data center being built in your neighbourhood? SHUT UP, JUST DONT USE IT.

Someone littering on your street? Stop whinging, just ignore it and it will eventually blow in to the ocean - all good!

If no one speaks up, then it just gets worse. Protest is fundamental to pushing back against the horse shit that corpos try and push down our throats every day. Someone less informed may take the lack of negative comments towards AI slop as it being OK and normal when it clearly isnt, therefore adding to the problem.

Hard disagree with your opinion and I think it comes across as corpo cuckery so you get an upvote I guess.

Your disclaimer is false. You said the post isn't about AI but it's entirely about AI. Because look, we all know that there's a backlash against AI. We all know that if you're planning an event, you probably shouldn't use AI if you aren't ready to piss off people who don't like it... That's the reality. Now, you could wish that reality were different, but it's not a big burden to say hey, don't have AI make the poster, just make it yourself. It's really not that hard.

Now, you also mentioned people who were accused of using AI when they didn't. Of course, that's not cool... But this is not a problem of reactions to AI. It's a problem of not fact checking. And if you came here telling us that people should fact-check better, or properly, than I think everyone would agree with you.

In summary, I think your post does the opposite of what you claim you want it to do. You don't want people to be divisive, but you've intentionally created a divisive set of guidelines. And then you've told people to shut up but you know they're not going to which means you're just looking for an argument... I guess this entire strategy bores me.

But you posted in the right place, so it's all good.

Now is not the time to be attacking each other

Fair point. How are we going to pull ourselves together and rise up against the ones causing actual societal damage?

The anti AI slop crowd needs to shut the fuck up

Ah, yeah that'll help. Call everyone sheep and make them sound stupid while you're at it.

Finally an actually unpopular opinion. Angry upvote. AI slop needs to die and I will not shut up

PieFed users: if you don’t want to see any AI generated images, go to https://piefed.social/user/settings/filters and set the “AI-generated posts” setting accordingly. Also if you see a slop image without an 'AI' tag, report it.

No need to abuse the poster about it.

https://piefed.social/c/piefed_meta@piefed.social/p/2304120/piefed-1-7-12-detects-ai-generated-images

dont blame the anti-slop crowd for the problems created by the stupid jerks destroying our only livable planet for profit

it's OUR fault that the dogshit that is getting plastered everywhere is causing a backlash?

unpopular for sure, despite its thoughtlessness, have an upvote

Upvoted for very unpopular opinion.

Yes, let's just ignore all the bad things happening around us. Great idea.

While I agree in spirit, I think when it's been shoved down our throats as aggressively as it has been for the past few years while nobody asked for it, a similarly radical reaction in the opposite direction is only natural. Fuck AI.

I dislike it too, but I strongly disagree, ai slop is much worse and you have to be loud because of how strongly it is forced upon us.

Feels like MLK's quote fits right here

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice

Ok, but you’re saying AI is a problem, but we shouldn’t call it out along with other issues? Nah, we’ll call out whats slop: slop.

Overall you’re saying it’s not actually about AI but it’s literally feeling pro ai, and none of us are conformists, especially when it comes from horrendous shit/actions to individual instigators.

AI slop has stopped being commentary on slop being bad and is now just the popular clique people want to be seen as being involved. It happens to a lot of things, unfortunately it usually eventually gets recognized in the same way you have here in a wider audience and starts to make the people with legitimate points look bad by association.

Well, I am stumped.

Do I downvote this because I disagree, thus telling OP that it isn't an unpopular opinion, or do I upvote the post because it is an unpopular opinion?

nah, fuck ai and anyone who uses it

Truly an unpopular opinion.

Fuck AI and everybody using it

People are stressed out and taking it out on each other. People are desperate for any kind of solidarity. The result is this. The revulsion with ai will die down as soon as it stops destroying lives on this scale.

(kinda replying to your the machines have won replies)

there are no 'machines' that will 'win' anything... the only way 'ai can win' is by normalising it, by forgetting the costs (environmental and human) of using it, as well as those who benefit from it's use (the people who stand to win something).

what you're calling for is exactly that (being complacant about it) and it's probably why people get upset..?

p.s. i do agree that we should approach each other with more love and understanding and probably inform more than shame. i'm truly believe most people are just lazy or curious, not actively malicious.

Yup, an unpopular opinion.

I'd argue there's absolutely no moral usage of it because it's a tool of the oligarchs to devaule workers further and further. AI media slop is a real problem, if you allow any of it then where is the line at which you stop then?

You're absolutely right. Whining about AI is not going to get people to stop using AI. I mean honestly if you really hate it, you should use it as much as humanly possible because of how insanely expensive it is. If everyone that whinged about AI slop spent an hour a day hitting the max limit on the free accounts of the main AI providers they'd be forced to reduce the usage of free accounts which would hinder the dumbasses using it instead of thinking.

Anyone can post Ai slop by accident. It's how you handle it. And if you do it on purpose, you know what side you're on. I'm fine with people acknowledging that they used something they didn't intent to.

To be fair, I wouldn't want people to stay silent about it, either.

I mean the event post is kind of a relatable example. But there is a good way to deal with it. Removing the human-written(?) text because of an attached image seems to be too much to me. We could ,though, just send some backlash. Have it stay there but the first post is always some "Slop image" comment with a healthy dose of upvotes.

I've been in similar situations before. You'd have an event that targets artists amongst other people. And for some reason the organizers think it needs to go with some slop image... But wtf? Don't they know lots of artists don't agree with the way those generative AI models are made? Why affront their target audience? What we did, wasn't boycott them. But we sure demanded an explanation. Which was: It was quicker to cook up something with AI, than talk to the humans who've drawn the promotion pictures in the time before.