The one used in this thread: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/12973939

Mind you, I didn’t set out to deceive anyone. It was more of a “why call attention to it” thing. It’s probably the only time I’ve posted anything AI where I didn’t explicitly call attention to it as AI. But I’ve learned in the times I did do that here that some person or other would be upset, pretty much no matter what the content was of what I posted.

I figured, one of the primary complaints about AI generated images, is essentially that they look like they’re trying to look professional but make basic errors. Which I think is a fair criticism. So I thought, what if I use stick figures. That’s closer to meme level of illustration and expectations are lower for it, so if some basic mistakes exist, that’s par for the course.

I did write the text itself as rhetoric and fictional conversation, but I didn’t draw any of the image, nor did I place the text in the image. It was received extremely well for a lemmygrad post. I’m sure it is easily the most upvoted post I’ve ever made. I don’t know what made it work so well, maybe the commonness of issues with landlords, but I can only guess as the responses didn’t tell me much about the why.

One person did say “Ai stickfigures?” which surprised me a bit. I didn’t think it looked overtly AI genned. But I asked them “why do you ask?” because I wanted to be sure whether it was confrontational or sincere interest in where it came from. They never responded, so I’m not sure.

But anyway, the fact that it was AI somehow didn’t prevent it from seemingly resonating with people. I never would have drawn any such image on my own. I could make an attempt, but it would probably look like a child’s fridge drawing and I would have especially struggled with the vividness of the facial expressions, which was where I sought to do the contrast between the feigned victimhood followed by literal mustache twirling villain. Caricature, but gets the point across.

Given how I’ve seen some react on here, I can’t help but think it would have been a shitshow if I’d called attention to it being AI generated or if it had been drawn in such a way that it looked stereotypically “AI”. Instead, as of posting this, it totaled at 111 upvotes and 0 downvotes.

It’s always hard to tell the impact things have in a virtual forum, but with the limited metrics I have to go by, it went really well. And I didn’t draw a pixel of it. This paints a picture for me that the issue with AI generated content in these spaces is not when it’s AI generated but when people believe that it is. But people can believe something is even when it isn’t. Or in this case, likely assume it isn’t when it is. Maybe I’m wrong and the 100+ people who upvoted thought “AI” and upvoted anyway, but given how things usually go here, I doubt it.

I hope no one takes this as trickery or something. Having seen more recent angst on here relating to AI, I thought calling attention to this is an opportunity to make a point. When I went to make that image, it was mainly about seeing what kind of effective agitprop I could make with AI. Maybe knowing this explicitly will inspire some people to think more about how they can use it too, beyond the hated stereotypes, with thoughtfulness of design put into it. I am still determined to aid in strategic thought and practice, no matter how much mud is slung. Liberation demands it of me.

You’re right to be mad about a lot of things. Help me help you be mad at the right people in a way that will change the world for the better.

  • amemorablename@lemmygrad.mlOP
    91·
    6 days ago

    I never argued AI was violent

    Well you did say this:

    But many people have a negative association with AI and associate it with bourgeois violence.

    So yes, that is not the same as saying it is violent, but it is implying that it has associations with violence that need to be ceded to, when said as a reason not to use it in agitprop.

    Most of what I’ve been talking about has been anecdotal information to give a viewpoint as to why one would not share it. I still share marxist memes of course. The existence of AI memes did not detract from the propaganda I share and make. I simply did not share the AI work. Much like a professional cook doesn’t serve scraps or freeze “easy make” dishes.

    I’m a professional artist, I make art for people I make propaganda. I state this again because this influences many of the relations I have. Sharing other creators content as well.

    I don’t deny you that experience. I would like to emphasize, though, that I’m not a professional artist and can’t call on you any time I have an idea for messaging (and why would you want to make ideas I have in the first place, unless you have an established relationship with me in organizing where we work together on art and messaging).

    Based on how you describe the circles you run in, it sounds like memes wouldn’t go over well either. That’s fine. Being aware of who your audience is and what’s effective with them is important. That said, in my observation, the broader western internet landscape is one in which professional looking imagery is not that important. The meme culture shows that.

    I would also emphasize that for professional illustrators, there are some out there (though they may be reluctant to admit it for fear of getting publicly crucified) who have figured out ways to use image gen as a part of their workflow, making them faster and more effective at what they make, without actually doing all the work for them.

    You don’t make a poster of workers wearing fascist like uniforms to encourage them to rise up against capitalists. You manipulate the medium and context to your advantage.

    I’m not really sure where this line is coming from. Especially when I emphasized, “From there, it’s a question of whether we can also use it, without using it in a way that has a barbaric, reactionary character.” Given there is nothing stopping us from using the tech to help with messaging that has a revolutionary character, I don’t see how this translates into encouraging fascism.

    I still argue that AI is a honeypot for the proletariat. Its ultimately controlled by the bourgeois and we cannot comparably replicate it without already having succeeded at our revolution. It’s not effective for education, agitation, or organizing.

    In capitalist states, the internet is largely controlled by the bourgeoisie as a class. But we still try to use it, in spite of knowing they have the advantage and that they can screw around with the most influential platforms at the drop of a hat. I don’t see how honeypot is an appropriate word here at all. It seems clear to me that the capitalists are deeply serious about trying to use AI to replace and further control people. Their implementation of it gravitates toward that goal. The threat is real, but it didn’t begin with AI. If we go with a narrative that AI is uniquely bad, we are, in effect, denying the history of automation that has led to what gets called “AI”. I don’t see how it can be good for the education and class consciousness of the working class if we go along with that as the narrative.

    I would argue it’s an opportunity to tune people into the history of automation as a whole and how it ties into marxist concepts on labor relations and production. Joining in with hatred of AI does not in itself make anyone more conscious of where their exploitation stems from and why.

    • RedLink@lemmygrad.ml
      34·
      6 days ago

      So yes, that is not the same as saying it is violent, but it is implying that it has associations with violence that need to be ceded to, when said as a reason not to use it in agitprop. Unfortunately art content and creation directly relate to its relationship and engagement with other people. So in this instance I would argue its relation to agitprop is limited by this relationship. I gave an example here: You don’t make a poster of workers wearing fascist like uniforms to encourage them to rise up against capitalists. You manipulate the medium and context to your advantage. I’m trying to say how a medium and its content is related to these relationships, conveys specific messages. There are many who accept that Pepe is part of an alt right movement. Of course not everyone will know this, but those that do will see its use in memes and associate it with alt right. regardless of the attempted portrayal of it. Art exists as a relationship with other art. AI exists, not in a vacuum, but in a relation to the tools that bourgeois use to oppress the working class. Things like; replacement of jobs, surveillance, state propaganda, misinformation, disruptions in education, scamming, etc. Play a distinct role in how AI is perceived. When you are trying to infiltrate a system that is made up of these relations they need to be taken into account for the intended message to be communicated.

      I’d argue theres a lot of things that distinguish AI from typical advancements. One of which being the Data centers are incredibly intrusive and nobody wants to be near them. Driving up cost of living, polluting local environment, providing little to no benefit to the region. This is perfect territory to agitate people into disenchantment with Capitalism and it actually has succeed as such in my local area as well as other contacts I have. You’d do far better to agitate on these lines than most AI generated images anyway. While it’s hard to quantify, I believe proper practice like that also agitates more people than paper propaganda.

      I call it a honeypot because its much like the large democratic socialist groups in america like DSA being a honey pot for revolutionary movement to fizzle out into reformism, AI ultimately is divisive, impractical for most applications, and actually effects many peoples livelihoods in a variety of ways. Yet there’s a weird insistence among some that if you dislike AI you’re a Luddite-bourgeois collaborator.

      AI does paint class lines very clearly, the ones forcing its adoption upon the working class, the heavy investments, the fear over a “investment bubble”, the interfering with local government to push its creation, its use for data collection for surveillance, etc. Hell even conservatives and liberals are taking arms against flock cameras. It’s not like most of us can create surveillance networks that connect with the histories of people that interface with it. I do not argue AI is uniquely “bad” as a tool. But its showing contradictions very acutely and we’d be foolish to not act on this line, just for the sake of using text instead of a pen for making a meme.

      • amemorablename@lemmygrad.mlOP
        51·
        6 days ago

        The rampant data centers are a good example of capital building out a bubble as part of consistent boom and bust cycles, instead of only doing what is needed to increase quality of life. That’s the kind of thing I keep trying to bring it back to.

        Yet there’s a weird insistence among some that if you dislike AI you’re a Luddite-bourgeois collaborator.

        I’m wondering if you read the article somebody else gave you to read (granted, it is kinda long) because the history of Luddites has nothing to do with being bourgeoisie collaborators and the article does briefly touch on the history of them (I think near the end IIRC). Luddites are commonly misunderstood as anti-industrial or anti-technology, when they were something more like militant resistance to misuse of automation.

        So it would be a pretty confused criticism to say someone is a Luddite-bourgeois collaborator.

        If I have given that impression, then I only have to scratch my head as to how. Perhaps you are thinking of the analysis that certain of artists as artisans resist AI because of it “proletarianizing” them more so. Personally, I don’t think that analysis is wrong, but it’d also be fair to say that it’s only a sliver of what’s going on overall. People who hate flock cameras, for example, are obviously having issues that go beyond “AI art”.

        I call it a honeypot because its much like the large democratic socialist groups in america like DSA being a honey pot for revolutionary movement to fizzle out into reformism, AI ultimately is divisive, impractical for most applications, and actually effects many peoples livelihoods in a variety of ways.

        From this standpoint, I’d argue that if anything counts as a honeypot, it’s the copyright-related anti-AI movement (which I’m pretty sure has had big business ties going on in it). I would say we need to distinguish the anti-AI movement that is organizing against data centers or breaking flock cameras as something distinct from the other one, even if there may be some overlap, since one is more related to artists as artisans and the other is more about people seeing direct infrastructural intrusion in their communities. Though even then, if neither one translates into class conscious organization, then what would it head to other than reforms?

        This is perfect territory to agitate people into disenchantment with Capitalism and it actually has succeed as such in my local area as well as other contacts I have. You’d do far better to agitate on these lines than most AI generated images anyway. While it’s hard to quantify, I believe proper practice like that also agitates more people than paper propaganda.

        I don’t really disagree, but this seems like it’s moving the goalposts a bit. My argument has never been that AI is better than in-person organizing. It’s more just a barebones call for people to not dismiss it out of hand and hate it on sight regardless of the form it takes. Hating flock cameras and polluting, water-hogging data centers as part of a capital-driven bubble is valid. Witchhunting images or text posted on the internet is not. Recognizing the current implementation of AI by capitalists as largely bad is valid. Translating that to resisting giving it a chance as a tool that can aid the working class in its struggle is not.

        If one is already doing really well in organizing without it and doesn’t see the point in putting energy into trying it, I don’t even object to that. But if they’re struggling, as many are, why wouldn’t they give it a chance? Because it can be taken away? So can most things under the dictatorship of capital. Because its origins are tainted? So are most tools under the dictatorship of capital. Because it has jank? No tool is without a learning curve to get better results out of it than just picking it up and doing whatever.

        • RedLink@lemmygrad.ml
          3·
          6 days ago

          I’m wondering if you read the article somebody else gave you to read (granted, it is kinda long) because the history of Luddites has nothing to do with being bourgeoisie collaborators and the article does briefly touch on the history of them (I think near the end IIRC). Luddites are commonly misunderstood as anti-industrial or anti-technology, when they were something more like militant resistance to misuse of automation. I did read it, but the essay is as you said. Luddite is used derogatory by most people praising AI for any one who isn’t sold on it, or really any negative opinion. Honestly I apologize for the dramatization you didn’t imply this and I was only reminded of conversations in the past over AI.

          I would say we need to distinguish the anti-AI movement that is organizing against data centers or breaking flock cameras as something distinct from the other one, even if there may be some overlap, since one is more related to artists as artisans and the other is more about people seeing direct infrastructural intrusion in their communities.

          This is honestly an interesting discussion I’d love to have albeit it goes beyond the original conversation. I believe dividing the movements isn’t in the best interests, but I oppose copyright law. Even when I make exclusive content I leak it to image booru’s and forums around the topic. So I as an artist I know that Copyright isn’t protecting me from anything. Yet when I explain this position it is hard for people to understand and I haven’t pushed it particularly strongly in favor of more glaring contradictions. There’s a thing people in the creative community like to use to refer to AI scraping as stealing their work without permission and while it does suck to see your work used in something you don’t agree with, the idea of “theft” being taken place when most have the contrary opinion for piracy. It seems to follow a line of “Large corps and capitalists are evil and are to be judged by different morals than workers” and I actually think this is more productive for revolutionary agitation. Not every person needs to totally understand the entire Dialectical historical materialist conditions in the relationship to come to the conclusion capitalists need to be stopped. But I digress before taking this too far beyond the initial discussion of its perception and usage for agitation.

          My argument has never been that AI is better than in-person organizing. It’s more just a barebones call for people to not dismiss it out of hand and hate it on sight regardless of the form it takes.

          Yeah honestly my only intention with the initial statement was to give perspective on the core of community who would not engage with AI. I don’t even think making AI memes would “Taint the movement” as people usually see it on an individual basis.

          Using it to agitate is fine if not less effective for the reasons I described in these replies. I would encourage the consequences of its use to be taken into account for the intended audience and message. Because Creative hobbys have intersectionality with racial and sexual minorities, because they usually have reach to an audience, and because of the lives AI effects in some rural communities. These groups are more likely to have a negative association with the imagery (although not guaranteed) and it’s more likely for the meme to have stumbling blocks in relation to those groups. But ultimately I do not believe them to be a majority of people, but a kind of “light house” for content that hits multiple gazes at a time.

          This is getting beyond speculation. Anti-AI sentiment has some intersectionality among people you might not expect to inherently be anti-AI. I guess it’s my role to organize and agitate the anti AI crowd, and leave the ones neutral to AI to others.