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12/09/2024 6:49 pm  #1


AI backlash

So, there is some amazing drama going on in the gaming world right now, but the short version (so far) is this:

There's an upload-it-yourself indie gaming site called itch.io, which is like YouTube for games: users upload their creations and get free hosting plus an audience, while itch.io makes ad revenue. It's not as massive as, say, YouTube, but it is a very, very large site. About 5 days ago, a user uploaded a "game" that was more like a fan homage to a major studio game called Funko Fusion--i.e., the same folks who maintain the FunkoPop toys. And Funko apparently uses a bullshit AI program called BrandShield to prevent copyright infringement across the internet on their products.

So BrandShield flagged the page, and sent an alert to itch.io's domain registrar, not for DMCA (which would be appropriate for cease-and-desist copyright stuff), but for "fraud and phishing." The registrar messaged itch.io, and itch.io said "okay," and took down the game.

But somehow, the report didn't get deactivated, so now, 5 days later, having "not been responded to," the registrar took down the entirety of itch.io. Again, this is like all of YouTube being taken down because one guy posted a video with a Michael Jackson song in the background.

Now, it's important to note that almost everyone screwed up here: the registrar should have cleared the report, but also, this would not have happened if BrandShield had correctly filed the report as DMCA, rather than fraud, and Funko screwed up by using bullshit AI with automatic reporting in the first place.

Anyway, after hours of downtime and no one being willing to fix the problem, the owner of itch.io took to social media--which is a problem for Funko, because there is a TON of overlap between Funko's demographic, and itch.io's demographic. Calls were made, wheels got greased, and the site is now back up--but people are still talking, and now someone from Funko just called the itch.io guy's MOTHER about her son's "defamatory statements" about the Funko brand... which he's not interested in taking down until Funko admits that BrandShield is bad, and maybe agrees to stop using them.

At any rate, the line "This is not a joke, Funko just called my mom" has now become a meme on the gaming messageboards, with who-knows-how-much staying power, and I think it's fair to say this is going to be an ongoing PR nightmare for them for a while. All because they used shitty AI to make sure no one drew a picture of their little guys and put it on the internet.
 

 

12/09/2024 7:20 pm  #2


Re: AI backlash

Rich entitled snowflakes calling each other's  Mommy's on each other.


I Love my country, I fear the government.
 
 

12/09/2024 7:51 pm  #3


Re: AI backlash

It's not that. It's greedy corporations using AI bots to spew out dubious legal spam.

The Youtube channel Esoterica uses a short snippet of public domain classical music, from a public domain recording, as their theme song, but were copyright claimed--which on Youtube means the person making the claim gets your monetization. After this was resolved, he commissioned a brand new arrangement/recording of the song, to which he owns the copyright. A large, multinational music publishing corporation copyright claimed one of his new videos, for THE RECORDING THAT HE LITERALLY OWNS THE COPYRIGHT TO. Currently, any Yourtube creator could have any/all of their content and INCOME stolen unceremoniously by a brainless copyright bot.

Last edited by Flint (12/09/2024 7:52 pm)


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12/09/2024 9:11 pm  #4


Re: AI backlash

Wow, that’s some bullshit. I just can’t get by the energy usage as a human relying on the biosphere.


If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you. - Louis Brandeis
 

1/02/2025 1:45 pm  #5


Re: AI backlash

"Generative AI is a Parasitic Cancer" promises the title of an upcoming livestream, and that title about sums it up.

A new necessary maintenance task while consuming youtube is to click on anything that the algorithm seems to have aimed at your interests, listen for a few seconds to confirm an AI voiceover reading a nonsense script (they all immediately sound like a bad book report), then downvote and click "don't recommend channel" --it's a game of whack-a-mole that increases with each passing day.

Meta recently confirmed plans to flood Facebook and Instagram with armies of AI bots. You know, the thing that's already happened and everybody ƒucking hates? Now it's official! Who do they think asked for this?? We're not the customer.

 


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1/05/2025 12:05 pm  #6


Re: AI backlash

I think Clodfobble brought up the enshitification of the internet a while back. I'm trying not to go full Luddite here but what is the broader context? It feels like there is a monetization of human experience set on degrading all interactions. I saw an ESPN commercial for watching golfers on our screens playing golf on screens. Is this what we're becoming? Shitty AI in everything from classrooms to refrigerators, once useful Apps slowly ossifying with each update, Amazon dipping into that sweet sweet healthcare dime, billionaires kissing a felon's ring to keep the enshitification free from regulation, and my neighbors voting for it. Christ, I may need to start processing what we've done to the dream. 

Good Lord, that's ranty.

 


If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you. - Louis Brandeis
 

1/06/2025 11:52 am  #7


Re: AI backlash

I didn't follow the golf thing. It was a commercial for who doing what now?


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1/06/2025 2:29 pm  #8


Re: AI backlash

Don't remember if I've mentioned this here, but I see parallels between today's AI situation and the early days of personal computers when everyone was playing with fonts in their documents because they could, and later, when you would see webpages everywhere in the early internet with shitty animated GIFs and "under construction" banners.  People were just trying to figure it out.

And I'm not sure how it relates, but I saw a page somewhere where a person had assembled a collection of all the iphone models in history, and took the same photo with them.  And the photos were vastly different as the processor of each phone set the colors and saturation and exposure and contrast, etc just so. Obviously, the increases in resolution changed.  But the processing changed dramatically too. 

 

1/06/2025 4:45 pm  #9


Re: AI backlash

Sure, AI will get better. It won't take long before we CAN'T immediately spot that an "AI artist" is drawing people with six fingers, or an "AI podcast" is two brainless chatter-bots recycling a mish-mash of stolen ideas.

That's exactly the problem. Because when that happens, corporations never need to pay another human to produce content, and they'll have the ultimate business-friendly automaton that always follows orders and never questions authority.

That's the hellscape of the future, that's exactly where we're headed.
 

Last edited by Flint (1/06/2025 4:46 pm)


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1/06/2025 5:44 pm  #10


Re: AI backlash

Flint wrote:

I didn't follow the golf thing. It was a commercial for who doing what now?

What is TGL, the golf league formed by Woods, McIlroy? - ESPN


  • "Players hit from real grass tee boxes, fairway surfaces, rough and sand into a giant simulation screen more than 20 times the size of a standard golf simulator."




 


If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you. - Louis Brandeis
 

1/07/2025 2:37 pm  #11


Re: AI backlash

wow, weird

...


eta: is this like, the Boomer version of youngsters watching gamer livestreams?

Last edited by Flint (1/07/2025 2:38 pm)


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1/08/2025 7:18 am  #12


Re: AI backlash

I'd say that lines up.

In AI news, it appears Trump has invited Hussain Sajwani, famed for paying Smirnov to invent a Ukraine scandal, to invest in data centers under the new regimes promise to ignore environmental and permitting procedures if the bribe or rather investment is big enough. 


If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you. - Louis Brandeis
 

1/08/2025 2:09 pm  #13


Re: AI backlash

Still not seeing that "make groceries less expensive" plan, but I'm sure that's a top priority.


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1/08/2025 8:04 pm  #14


Re: AI backlash

Would simulated eggs be cheaper?


If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you. - Louis Brandeis
 

1/10/2025 11:05 am  #15


Re: AI backlash

I poured some yellow liquid from a carton of egg substitute into the frying pan this morning to make my egg sandwich.  It was an experiment.  It behaved like eggs, and looked like eggs, but the flavor was lacking and the texture was off.  But maybe it will be my new routine for a while.

Life is strange, but at least my city hasn't burned to the ground.

 

1/10/2025 5:14 pm  #16


Re: AI backlash

glatt wrote:

  Life is strange, but at least my city hasn't burned to the ground.

It all starts from something so little.  Do not burn eggs.  Otherwise you might get blamed.

Whatever happened to Mrs Catherine O'Leary's cow?  Did it also end up in frynig pans?
 

Last edited by tw (1/10/2025 5:16 pm)

 

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