Captain Toenail Posted September 26 Hey guys, I've just returned to the forum and I'm seeing a lot of anti-AI shitposts, cognitive dissonance, mind-reading, and knee-jerk reactions. I'm guessing these were triggered by my post a few days ago. I just want to re-emphasise some points, and also make some comments on the community as a whole. First of all, the rate of change is really accelerating at the moment. We've now got rockets that can land themselves, actual useable commercial VR goggles, brain implants that can cure paralysis, self-driving cars, and other exciting stuff coming very soon like safe, truck-sized nuclear reactors. Not to mention all the crazy headlines like multiple assassination attempts on former presidents, exploding radios, all sorts of crazy shit. I don't know what the next headline is going to be. The point is we are moving into a quickly changing and evolving world and we all have to keep adapting now. Personally, I would be more worried about the threat of explosive drone swarms, or someone cooking up a new virus in their bathtub at the moment, than generative AI artworks. One of these new technologies is of course generative AI, and it is a fascinating and useful TOOL. It is a digital tool like any other, like spellcheck, like Photoshop's quick fill, like a screwdriver. But tools require skill to use correctly. You can post lazily generated blocks of text, or large garbled images, or be bombarded by terrible essays - this is more a lack of imagination and skill to develop the correct superprompts, rather than a criticism of the tech itself. Some of the early jailbreaks I've seen to get around the crude censorship rules were works of genius. You can get some fantastic results if you structure your prompt in a certain way, using lots of visual language. If you are a strong writer or persuader, you can become a strong prompt writer, the skills overlap - it's actually quite fascinating if you look into it. I'm trying to reframe this because I see a lot of people stewing in anguish (just see the recent mental health thread for example) - you need to reframe things in your head in a positive manner or you will always be miserable, and reduce your exposure to things that bring you down, like sad music, or constant exaggerated headlines about climate crisis. I myself have some artistic leanings, having studied art in the past, and dabbled with graphics, animation, video editing, pencil drawings, painting, and of course Doom mapping, so I can understand the feeling of 'looming doom' approaching - who wants to be washed away in a sea of 'AI slop'? But you have to understand that it is just another tool for your arsenal, and that in comparison, human made art will be valued more by people and society in general just because of basic human psychology. Would you rather have an AI generated painting hanging on your wall, or something that was made-by-hand? I know something drawn or painted by hand would be much cooler and have more value to the owner. At the moment, the tool lends itself quite well to generating things like gargoyles, demonic faces etc. - if you take the time you can curate these, cut them out and integrate them, just like taking part of an image from a stock photo (how most of the original Doom textures were created). Its a big time saver and makes things more accessible. I think its really cool and I'm kind of sad to see such a regressive and emotional attitude developed here on Doomworld towards it, especially from formerly cooler heads. I've read that a similar thing happened when digital art tools first came onto the scene, but now I would say most artists are using that software daily without issue. As to the community itself, I cant be bothered with online drama and histrionics which is why I'm usually quiet and avoid the private groups, but I have some things I feel I need to mention, for the good of the community as a whole. I've been around here a long time, making wacky mods and maps. (and stuck with this awful username throughout lol) I love the game, having started with Doom95 and the Maximum Doom CD, and I have an itch to feel useful and busy, which is why I have contributed to so many community projects and made so many textures and new monsters and stuff over the years. If I identify a niche that could be useful to mappers or modders (a new prop, texture, weapon etc.), I'll dive in their and cook something up. I'm kind of nostalgic for those old Skulltag mods that would have all sorts of silly chaotic things going on tbh! I've always been lurking in the background but I only seriously returned to the hobby when Covid happened, having a lot of spare time because of the crazy reaction locking everyone inside. Though I've always been a bit of an outsider on the edge (never taking part in IRC/Discord etc.), I immediately noticed a change in atmosphere and tone in the community when I returned. Everything was a lot more competitive, a lot of cool and funny people I had mapped with in the past were now banned, and there is a general spiteful and authoritarian atmosphere. I especially didn't like it when I saw all the manufactured drama take place to ban Tormentor667, a creative guy who has led many community projects, and has hosted all my silly bestiary stuff over the years, and even gave me a chance to take part in ZPack, even if my skills probably weren't up to it at the time. The reaction here was so OTT - I lost a lot of respect there, not for Torm for maybe copying some line geometry from something he clearly loved, but for the people eager to cancel what they see as a rival at the drop of a hat. That's really scummy behaviour and needs to be called out. The community has always had its cliques and cool clubs, but to see overt political moves like this in a hobby space was disturbing, especially from people I had previously enjoyed working with. I was actually very surprised to receive a Cacoward, considering all this politicking that goes on in the background! Lets get things in perspective - these are Doom maps, it's a hobby, not international politics XD I'm not sure what has triggered this change in atmosphere on the forum, it could be the growing influence of social media making everyone a bit more narcissistic, clickbait videos brainwashing everyone to extreme opinions, the normalisation of overt lawfare in American politics, or a reflection of society as a whole, but its not cool, and honestly pretty lame. I suspect the main driver here is the monetisation and commercialisation of the hobby. As soon as money becomes involved anywhere, the incentives quickly change. Communities and friendships thrive on reciprocity, without it this place is going to stagnate and increase in hostility, and Doomworld is going to lose all respect as a centre for all things Doom related. I already see it happening with splinter forums emerging, and people hiding on Discords or posting anonymously, scared to voice an opinion (remember, a forum is supposed to be a "a meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged" - you can't be a forum if unpopular opinions shut down discussions and get people banned) Sad because I love this game, I loved this forum, and I love all the neat things people come up with, whether its making crisp classical maps or new zany zscript stuff that pushes the boundaries. I love it all and there are some seriously talented people here! Anyway, thanks for reading my blogpost and listening to my TED Talk! I hope it has reframed the situation for some people, lessened their anxiety and given some insight into some of the hidden machinations of the community I have observed. TL;DR - the AI stuff is pretty cool (look into it), artists don't really need to worry, and there is a growing toxic atmosphere in the community. [ I wrote this all by hand btw, though I admit I used a spellchecker. Just like my last post :-) ] 10 Share this post Link to post
esselfortium Posted September 26 Speaking personally, I'm not afraid of being "replaced by AI", because genAI isn't capable of original creativity, only mimicry. But I don't want the future of this site to be having to wade through 1000 pieces of carelessly-generated slop to find one thing that was created by a human. I think I speak for more than just myself when I say that. This community means a lot to a lot of us as a creative outlet and art scene, and I'm not interested in seeing it diluted like what's happening to much of the rest of the internet. It's interesting to hear that you feel the community here has become more hostile. In the early 2010s, Doomworld had a serious problem with far-right trolls, which made it notably less than welcoming for anyone outside of a certain narrow demographic. Since then, we've taken a much stronger stance against racism, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia, and the community as a result has grown noticeably more diverse than it was back then. The idea that Tormentor was "cancelled by rival mappers" is simply wrong. He has had a history of repeated plagiarism and bad-faith behavior that was only tolerated for as long as it was because he was a known name here. Which splinter forums are you referring to, and what sorts of opinions do you see people afraid to post on Doomworld? These are some very vague statements where I think the specifics really matter. 62 Share this post Link to post
Jayextee Posted September 26 I don't fear AI. My thought processes, as I'm often reminded, are non-standard enough that my creative output will forever be a little too weird for most; and certainly not the kind of thing fed into AI training databases from which to pull their generative data from. I'm actually proud of being different, y'know. For every reply I get to the tune of "that's a bad take" or "that idea will never work", I get a little bit of energy. Since I've been old enough to have an awareness of the media and its trends/fads/whatever (so, late-teens onward? That's being generous, perhaps '20s on) I've noticed that the popular stuff, the "lowest common denominator", the mainstream, always tends toward generic. Unimaginative. Safe. Now, generative AI cannot create new things. What it basically does is collage together snippets of whatever's in its database that meets certain keyword criteria; be it sounds, written words, imagery. Ergo, the entire machine feeds into the genericism of entertainment media that I so personally hate. Not only is AI shit, its absolutely inbred shit. And to get that inbred shit, I don't know the exact details of the environmental cost (smarter folks than I have said it better, and snarked about draining an entire lake just for that dodgy .jpg of Donald Trump shaking hands with Shrek or whatever the fuck the prompt was; and I hope the increasing global temperature is worth the lulz for ya); but what I do know is that the initial scraped data for the generative databases was pulled from image searches and the like without acknowledgement or consent from the original creators. It's theft. And what adds insult to injury is that opt-out policies (such as Meta's, infamously) are increasingly byzantine and inconvenient to actually access. tl;dr - AI steals shit to make the worst output imaginable and is baking our fucking planet to do so. Hope that explains a bit. 35 Share this post Link to post
"JL" was too short Posted September 26 2 hours ago, Captain Toenail said: (remember, a forum is supposed to be a "a meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged" - you can't be a forum if unpopular opinions shut down discussions and get people banned) 30 Share this post Link to post
flamepanther Posted September 26 Most people aren't "against AI" or even against all generative AI so much as against its misuse, overuse, and ethically questionable training. I've yet to see anyone gripe about DLSS or using AI to fill holes in damaged images, or about AI being used to identify things we missed in biochemistry or astronomy. And while I've seen complaints about the quality of some AI image upscaling, none of them had to do with ethics. I think most people understand that there are good ways to train and apply neural networks as well as bad ways, but it's cumbersome to qualify every single statement every single time. I think we also have to understand that when there are people who feed a prompt to a model, let it generate a whole image for them, do nothing else and call themselves an artist--when there are writing competitions that are calling people bigots for not accepting 100% LLM-generated work--when models are being trained on an artist's work and then asked to imitate their style specifically to avoid paying said artist--when corporations are firing entire teams of workers and replacing them with LLMs that can't actually do the job--there's going to be a backlash, and it's going to be heated. The response might be overbroad, but until these issues are rectified, I think it's warranted. Lastly, while my views on AI are nuanced and I've made some use of it myself, I find the "AI is just another tool" argument to be misguided. Some tools are made to enable work, and some are made to replace work. An electric welder in the hands of a factory worker is different from a robotic arm that does the welding autonomously, despite both being tools. Replacing work can be good, but it depends on the nature of the work. A computer that composes and generates an entire image for you is not the same category of tool as a paintbrush. So pointing out that both are tools misses the entire point of the objection. 22 Share this post Link to post
maxmanium Posted September 26 People are going to have kneejerk reactions to this stuff for quite a while. It will calm down with time as the technology becomes more integrated into everything. 5 Share this post Link to post
Jayextee Posted September 26 16 minutes ago, flamepanther said: Most people aren't "against AI" or even against all generative AI so much as against its misuse, overuse, and ethically questionable training. Y'know what, I'm going to hard-agree here in principle actually. Notwithstanding the stolen training data, my partner; who is autistic and dyslexic, sometimes has a hard time with words when stressed; has used ChatGPT for things like filling in text fields of forms or even to prepare how to ask a certain question to a cashier or someone else in a public capacity. I'm aware of the good it could do as a tool. If, y'know, it were trained and utilised right. And yet it's not. And for creativity it absolutely fuckin' blows. Don't give me that "I have some artistic leanings" justification, I'm an artist too. It's shit. 5 Share this post Link to post
Skeletowned Posted September 26 To skip past the nakedly inflammatory bits of rage-bait and get to the heart of the matter: AI bros are, on a fundamental level, product-oriented. You can talk about the purported advancements in time-saving or whatever else til you're blue in the face, but fact is that the Doom community is congregated around a video game that is over 30 years old at this point, many from the very beginning -- none of us are in a hurry here. For myself and so many others, Doom has for decades been both an inspiration and a gateway into graphics, game design questions, modding, programming, music, whatever. The value is in sharing not just the end product of your personal exploration and effort, but also in the way that you're communicating and sharing that process with like-minded individuals. You know, like this is ultimately a shared experience between people? The tepid drippings of a soon-to-burst AI bubble can't replace any of us, unless the dream logic terminators start literally kicking in doors and blowing us away with a super shotgun, because we're all out here just doing what we enjoy. It's what makes the hostile defensiveness so baffling. To summarize with a somewhat tortured analogy: it's like showing off to a club of hikers and mountain climbers, taking in the sights and sounds and feel of their environment, by flying to the top in a helicopter. "But it still takes SKILL to fly a helicopter!", you say. Sure, but you're playing a completely different ball game. Don't feel too surprised when you don't get a standing O, a medal from the queen, and $100 cash just for showing up. Putting aside the usual value and ethics judgments, if you really are desperate for product, go ahead and do whatever. This is a community concerned with the actual process of creation however, and those people aren't going to be impressed by technology that's meant to "save" them from it. 33 Share this post Link to post
flamepanther Posted September 26 9 minutes ago, maxmanium said: People are going to have kneejerk reactions to this stuff for quite a while. It will calm down with time as the technology becomes more integrated into everything. I would suggest that integrating it into everything is part of the issue right now. AI has a lot of positive applications, but shoehorning it into absolutely everything is unhelpful and obnoxious. 19 Share this post Link to post
Gifty Posted September 26 "It's just a TOOL bro! Human inventions exist in a platonic moral vacuum!" Is just "guns don't kill people, etc. etc." for the new millennium. It's a non-sequitur that demonstrates such a brazen obliviousness to the actual issues in question that it's difficult to even respond to. 11 Share this post Link to post
HiMyNameIsChair Posted September 26 TBH i don't know where this "competition" you mentioned is coming from??? There is no shortage of goofy fun-loving folks around, especially those who congregate on the PUSS projects. Their discord is filled with some of the most creative, welcoming, and funniest people I've ever met on this site. Also, everything surrounding Torm was not manufactured, the dude has had a long, well-documented history of plagiarism and again: Got caught red handed trying to pass off layouts drawn by Eternal as his own. so yeah, completely deserved. Needless to say, I'm never gonna change my mind about AI. I'm not even afraid of it, I just hate the principle of what it is and what it represents. No matter how much you feed into it, no matter what prompt you give it, all it can do is Frankenstein together bits and pieces from whatever dataset it's using to make something that feels... Hollow. You can try and try to mix it up or try something that might change the output, but at a certain point...the pool it draws from ensures it all feels like it bleeds together, it's a mush, slop. it can't make anything new. In the artwork you start to see the same poses, over and over, with the same approach to lighting and color, it becomes a facsimile. Theres just.. nothing there. At the cost of drastically speeding up the climate crisis, all it can do is spit out empty meaningless work, scraped together from stolen work without anyone's consent.. and for what? What it made.. isn't yours. There is no soul, no human touch, no emotion poured into it, no purpose to its creation, no story to tell. To make this more personal...i wanna speak as someone who loves animation. When I see the works of Kiyotaka Oshiyama... it brings me so much joy! I love his distinctly drawn proportions... the steady, colored lines... his vibrant pastel colors, and how he lights his work... gently lighting the edge of his subject... while keeping the flat colours he loves. I adore his carefully drawn hands... the way he articulates every joint in the hand, and his eyelashes, beautiful and lush... and that's not even to speak of literally everything else he does.. from his delightfully round and strange creatures, or the Setting work he does... creating such wonderful dream worlds... from an alien planet with a muddy ocean, housing an otherworldly creature.. to a vast desert world... it's stark white sky and black stars make it feel so surreal. I love the timing of his animation, I love his beautiful hand-drawn effect, drawing liquids as numerous individually shaded beads. I Love the way he storyboards a scene... especially the quiet moments... those reflective moments. I love the way Yukio Kaizawa directs his works... from the long dramatic shadows he adores so much.. to his careful and suspenseful approach to horror... to his boundless ability to display emotion... theres such a tangible understanding of what it means to lose something you love in his work. I loved the way Yasuhiro Takemoto brought such warmth to his world... his delightful eye for comedic timing and a feverish devotion to making his world feel lived in. I love Kazuki Akane's unrestrained ambition... and how he can't help but revisit his favourite themes of found family... and every time he always makes me cry! I adore Mai Toda, and her capacity to create such loose and cartoony movement, her work is so snappy and full of character.. yet so efficient! constantly doing more, with fewer frames! I love all of these creators. i studied their work, I learned about who they were... learned their stories, got to see them develop their craft.. and some... saw them suddenly pass away, leaving only the memory of their work. In everything they do.. they put a little of themselves into their work. AI... can't do that. There is no person behind the prompts, no story to tell... no struggle to improve their craft, no joy from drawing a character you love, No sense of sadness or frustration that inspired it, or the drive to pursue something because you wanted to challenge yourself. It's just a homogenous blob of stolen work, all the purpose, emotion, and personal touch that thousands of artists poured into every lyric.. every stroke of a pencil, every sentence. it's just gone. lost. blended together to make a work that has nothing to say... it's not even art anymore. it's content, disposable, made by people who can't seem to understand why making art is such a personal and joyful act. To circle this back to you Cap... you are a great map maker! I don't want to see something you threw into some content machine... because I know you can make THIS: Spoiler Fuck AI, it can show me a thousand pretty-looking drawings but at the end of the day... it's stuff like this I'm gonna remember. You already have the capacity in you, to make something wonderful... and you don't need a tool, that steals the work of others to do it. 25 Share this post Link to post
DSC Posted September 26 46 minutes ago, "JL" was too short said: For real, those types always love to resort to the "it's just my opinion!!!" excuse, and it bothers me to no end. Facts aren't fucking opinions you can just "disagree" with if you don't like them. You might as well go "disagree" with gravity and jump down a cliff going by that logic. The realm of opinions exists in matters of shit like "what is your favorite ice-cream flavor?", absolutely not in questions of "do other people deserve the right to exist and have dignity?". Bigotry is wrong no matter what: the existence of others is not a political question, and specially not for others to "disagree" with. 9 Share this post Link to post
GibFrag Posted September 26 (edited) AI can be powerful and useful but AI doesn’t belong in the creative space such as this. Imagine releasing something that is all made out of AI and slapping your name on it as if it’s some creative project you made just from typing dumb shit into a prompt. You didn’t make it, and don’t deserve credit. You’re basically just the “ideas guy” on copium at that point, and that’s just for people who aren’t trying to pass off AI bullshit as their own work hoping the AI aspect goes unnoticed. So no, I think people are right to think people rubbing their nips off to AI are weird and need to actually try to do shit for themselves and not be lazy talentless hacks. Just my opinion anyways. Edited September 26 by GibFrag 5 Share this post Link to post
Jimmy² Posted September 26 (edited) @Captain Toenail, I've been following your work for a long time - you were plenty creative before genAI was ever a thing. I used genAI to aid my creativity a handful of times a few years back, as a curiosity, and was certainly intrigued by its capabilities at that point, but the more I learned about what goes on behind the scenes, regarding its energy consumption, lack of moderation, and how blindsided opportunists in management intend to weaponise these sophisticated algorithms to obsolete the human work force, the more I realised this is bad news for all parties concerned. Two of my music singles, released a couple years ago, had AI-generated art for their covers. I'm now getting these replaced by new works designed by an artist inside of the Doom community, whom I'm paying to have done. The fad is over, I think. genAI images dominate Google Images now, and they're exhausting to see and to have to sift through. You can spot them a mile away because they haven't improved much in recent years, and the arguments supporting them are becoming stale and repetitive, especially from techbros who actively seem to wish human creativity to be altogether supplanted. It's all become a very tiring uphill fight. This thing that was once a curiosity is now a real human issue, discussions of which are muddied by human greed and corporate meddling. Human creativity must be protected, not threatened with obsolescence - for some of us, our creative freedoms are all we've really got left to hold on to in this modern world. EDIT: Just to bring this discussion back, if I may, to the textures thread, I think the majority of people in the recent discussion were decrying the use of AI by the guy who was just posting shitty unedited stuff that wasn't even fit for use in Doom. Rightly so, I think - no care was given to make them remotely useable as textures, until Gez stepped in and started using their human creativity to make them appropriate for use. I personally had no huge qualms with your textures - although I still would rather you have drawn the skin-faces yourself, but hey... the creative process is difficult if not impossible to police. If I were you I would simply ask myself if the ends justified the means in that one case? I dunno. Edited September 26 by Jimmy² 33 Share this post Link to post
Mr Masker Posted September 26 (edited) 45 minutes ago, Gifty said: "guns don't kill people, etc. etc." for the new millennium. "Guns don't kill people, I kill people, with guns" 3 Share this post Link to post
Decay Posted September 26 Some thoughts: "This doesn't look like Doom discussion, looks like a EE topic" and prayers: "Lord Baron Knight of Hell please protect DooM projects from the sins of AI" 8 Share this post Link to post
DreadWanderer Posted September 26 (edited) I don't have much to add, I think the people above me articulated the key points better than I could. What is perhaps worth noting is that the perceived "toxic atmosphere in the community" is a rather justified reaction to the AI hype driven by very dubious and self-interested tech bros who like to watch the line go up and care very little about anything else. Although a piece of technology is "neutral" when completely separated from a context, it's impossible in practice to extricate it from the political, social and cultural contexts in which it exists. This community is very old and its principled stance on certain things like art and creativity is one of the reasons why I'm proud to be part of it. It's basically a self-sustaining subculture which is quite happy to be "left behind" by not normalizing its relationship with hyped products and buzzwords coming out of a hypercapitalist space. That's my view of things at least. 13 Share this post Link to post
Benjogami Posted September 26 3 hours ago, Captain Toenail said: [...] reduce your exposure to things that bring you down, like sad music [...] Interesting, that's the second time I've heard this particular advice. Is this some new self-help that's going around? Is there any real evidence to back it up? Seems suspicious. It's also interesting that "constant exaggerated headlines about climate crisis" is the one example of clickbait to avoid. Also, avoid headlines??? How are you reasonably expected to avoid headlines? Don't look in the direction of news at all? Only read one kind of news source that would never make you feel bad about the climate? Hmmmm... As for all the rest, I find most heated takes on either side of the AI divide tedious and stubborn, people constantly talking past each other. I don't think the forums are getting worse, it's online discourse in general. I think we're only just beginning to understand how social media is changing the world, and not nearly fast enough to steer it better. I like Skeletowned's analogy. If you're enthusiastic about helicoptering to the tops of mountains, don't talk to hikers about it. Know your audience. Yeah yeah it's a tool that anyone can use. The common retort is to just do the work yourself, practice and become skillful and creative so you don't need the crutch (helicopter), and that anyone using AI is a pretender artist. Sure, some people are being pretender artists very visibly. But anyone can use it to save time or move past a creative block or whatever, sure, even if they're not a pretender artist. Lots of artists are clearly uninterested in using it this way, so why try to sell it to them? This it's-just-a-tool-bro angle ignores all the other issues with AI, specifically the way they're trained and the energy they consume. If you don't care about those things, let's hear about it! I love reading unpopular opinions. Since you avoid seeing climate headlines, I'm sure the energy thing is no problem for you. How about training AIs on everyone's art? Do you think if you post your art online, it's fair game for the AIs to chew up and shit out? Do you like end user agreements that stealthily change (not that you read it in the first place) to say that any content you post can be used to train AIs? Opt-out buttons buried in menus that default to opt-in? Do you think Adobe is a based af company? Anyhow, like I said, the discourse is tedious. Lots of things bring me down but sad music sure isn't one of them. 20 Share this post Link to post
Wadmodder Shalton Posted September 26 I want AI to be used to upscale old chunky model rip sprites, especially the ones from Aeons of Death and the AlandoGuns series, which were made before MD2/MD3 assets were being widely used in GZDoom mods today. 2 Share this post Link to post
Captain Toenail Posted September 26 2 hours ago, esselfortium said: But I don't want the future of this site to be having to wade through 1000 pieces of carelessly-generated slop to find one thing that was created by a human. I'd say that's a fair reason, which is why I'm trying to make the distinction between stuff that's generated with some thought going into it, and lazy 'AI slop'. 2 hours ago, esselfortium said: In the early 2010s, Doomworld had a serious problem with far-right trolls, which made it notably less than welcoming for anyone outside of a certain narrow demographic. Certainly, back in 2010, there were a lot of trolls. To frame them as far-right though? I highly doubt genuine Nazi or KKK type people were here on Doomworld. To me, Doom has always been a left-leaning hobby (all the demonic imagery is partly of that mocking American fundies attitude of the 90s after all) A troll is going to post inflammatory material to get a reaction and tune it to their target, no matter what that is. It's playing a character to get a reaction. As horrible as they can be (often sociopathic personalities) sometimes you need some trolls around to keep people and egos in check. I know I was trolled a few times over the years, and honestly, looking back, some of them were quite funny. That's partly why satire and comedians exist. Court jester anyone? 3 hours ago, esselfortium said: The idea that Tormentor was "cancelled by rival mappers" is simply wrong. I don't know the full story or beef between yourself and Torm, but he's always treated me well and I respect that, so to see him so callously dogpiled on was very creepy when I returned. My assumption here was there was always bad blood between yourself and Torm. Even if Torm has been a naughty boy copying linedefs, I wouldn't say that justified the massive outcry. You have to understand, to the outside world, and someone who recently re-joined at the time, that's what it looks like 3 hours ago, esselfortium said: Which splinter forums are you referring to The various Discord channels, DoomerBoards obviously (btw, banning their stuff from being featured on this site was kind of lame. Maybe you find those guys can have abrasive personalties but I don't think they are intentionally malicious, more holdouts from an earlier culture of the internet), there's also the anonymous discussion on /vr/. The community has become very fragmented in recent years. A lot of stuff goes on behind closed doors. There's a lack of transparency. It was always split up between various ports but not to this degree. 2 hours ago, Jayextee said: I'm actually proud of being different, y'know. ... the mainstream, always tends toward generic. Unimaginative. Safe. I totally agree here. I think we all have to be a little different to spend so much time playing a 30 year old game. I imagine I'm certainly a little eccentric myself (probably a contrarian, given this thread lol) And you're totally right about the mainstream - have you seen the list of upcoming streaming shows? What Are Next? 2 hours ago, Jayextee said: Now, generative AI cannot create new things. I'm not fully convinced on this one - I mean there may be infinite combinations but everything is always going to be derivative in some way. I mean, inspiration always comes from somewhere else. I think the issue here is whether you believe humanity has some sort of divine spark or not. if you do, I think that's a good belief to motivate you in your work. 2 hours ago, Jayextee said: environmental cost Lots of exciting new possibilities incoming very soon - portable nuclear reactors, solar power etc. Future is actually looking bright! Don't let the doom and gloom headlines get to you. 1 hour ago, "JL" was too short said: "What unpopular opinions" Well I'm surprised this thread for example is still going, to be honest. You need areas of open discussion or things descend into stifling hugboxes. Which is what I am worried is happening to the Doom community. I don't want this place to end up really lame groupthink zone where nothing interesting happens, like the majority of Reddit for example. 1 hour ago, flamepanther said: when there are people who feed a prompt to a model, let it generate a whole image for them, do nothing else and call themselves an artist I understand where you are coming from, but this kind of does a disservice to prompt-engineers - I've seen some crazy prompts created to get results - some of it very creative. Have you seen the older jailbreaks like DAN? It's quite funny how you sometimes have to trick, bribe, persuade the machine to get the intended result. 2 hours ago, flamepanther said: while my views on AI are nuanced This triggered my basic ChatGPT senses lol 1 hour ago, Jayextee said: Notwithstanding the stolen training data That is a tricky issue. I'm not sure how this will get resolved. I imagine you may be able to start charging a fee to let your art be ingested by future models. Could be a good money spinner. 1 hour ago, Skeletowned said: the nakedly inflammatory bits of rage-bait Nothing I wrote was intended to intentionally cause rage. maybe a few lines were cheeky lol. I don't really have the kind of personality that enjoys trolling others intentionally 1 hour ago, Skeletowned said: soon-to-burst AI bubble It was certainly overstated, but it's not going away. I mean, we could have bipedal robots in our homes in a couple of years. That's insane! 1 hour ago, flamepanther said: but shoehorning it into absolutely everything is unhelpful and obnoxious. Yeah that's pretty obnoxious, but CEOs like to have the latest shiny thing. 1 hour ago, Gifty said: "It's just a TOOL bro! What is it otherwise? I mean guns are a tool too, one that can be used to horrific ends. Tools require responsible users. I can definitely see an 'AI license' emerging to further monetise access to models, and to discourage bad actors from using them. And to increase government control. 1 hour ago, HiMyNameIsChair said: TBH i don't know where this "competition" you mentioned is coming from??? There is a cruel streak to the Doom community, it's usually not apparent to newcomers. Most of us are pretty cool though. It took me a while to understand what was going on. Certainly in my experience there was more comradery ten years ago, despite all the other issues. btw I love the PUSS guys - their projects are very imaginative and novel. I'm proud to have contributed to some of their map sets, and they really helped me develop my mapping skills in recent years. 1 hour ago, HiMyNameIsChair said: There is no soul, no human touch, no emotion poured into it, no purpose to its creation, no story to tell. I mean, if we aren't all NPCs in some sort of bizarre simulated world already. A very intriguing (if disturbing) theory. 1 hour ago, GibFrag said: Imagine releasing something that is all made out of AI and slapping your name on it as if it’s some creative project you made just from typing dumb shit into a prompt. You didn’t make it, and don’t deserve credit. Yeah I imagine it would be similar to Oblige maps. What I am arguing for is for using components of generated imagery to help build new textures. 48 minutes ago, Jimmy² said: blindsided opportunists in management intend to weaponise these sophisticated algorithms to obsolete the human work force Of course that's just human nature to get more bang for less buck. We might reach an amusing point where AI are churning out AI content for AI to consume, completely rendering all online content meaningless, meanwhile everyone else has left the internet behind and are now living in the real world, attending real performances etc.. Maybe in a way that's ironically a good outcome 34 minutes ago, Benjogami said: Is this some new self-help that's going around? Is there any real evidence to back it up? Seems suspicious. Its old advice that is getting new exposure. You can use music like a drug - listen to upbeat stuff and you will feel better, watch comedy to lighten your mood etc. I definitely recommend it. No need to be suspicious. It took me ages to do answer all these quotes, interesting discussion! 3 Share this post Link to post
Captain POLAND Posted September 26 Taking credit for AI - generated art as if you made it yourself is pretty scummy. But as long as you acknowledge that it's AI - generated and explain that all you did was type in a prompt, I don't really see the problem. I've never had any talent for visual art (I can only draw stick figures at best). I can imagine cool scenes in my head but before recently I had no way to ever show them to anyone else. So say that I wanted to see a picture of, for example, Doomguy rampaging through a Borg Cube from Star Trek, I would either have to hope someone else had already drawn it, or I was out of luck. But now, if I wanted to create that, I could. 1 Share this post Link to post
june gloom Posted September 26 Just gonna paste what I wrote for the last AI thread that got locked before I could post it (I made it a status update too but who reads those?) When you get right down to it, there is no existing application for AI that was not created for capitalistic purposes. That's going to have knock-on effects all throughout the process, from the corporate culture at AI companies to the lack of care for the environmental impact (which reminds me of crypto farms -- another technology the most annoying people I ever met all seem to love) to the outright contempt for actual artists who put in the hard work to make art and expect to be compensated fairly if that art was a commission. Ultimately I think that's what AI and to a lesser extent crypto is really a symbol of. The executive class performs no serious work yet benefits immensely from the work of others. AI surrogancy is essentially taking this dynamic and scaling it down, allowing the AI Bro -- who is often nowhere near as wealthy or powerful as your average billionaire -- to envision himself an executive, benefiting from the work of others while claiming credit for it, because he does not view artists as worthy of respect or compensation but as belonging below him on the societal ladder, who deserve to be poor because they work hard like suckers when you could just generate a picture in a few minutes. In other words, AI surrogacy maps pretty cleanly onto the conservative worldview. Also, if you have to write a post that takes six presses of the page down key picking at every minor piece of literally everyone's comments instead of writing a good-faith response in aggregate to the replies you got in this thread, that might be a good sign that you don't have as solid a rhetorical ground to stand on as you think and you're quite insecure in your position. But I need to respond to something specifically because I think it's very illuminating of where you're coming from in this thread: 13 minutes ago, Captain Toenail said: To frame them as far-right though? I highly doubt genuine Nazi or KKK type people were here on Doomworld. This is so excruciatingly disingenuous. Nobody needs to be a card-carrying member of the Klan to be a far-right racist douchebag and you damn well know it. There's an entire forum full of people like that who were banned from here and last I checked even that forum is on the verge of getting nuked by Proboards because some people can't stop posting slurs for five minutes. But the rest of your comment defending said forum and earnestly arguing for letting some trolls hang around says a lot about what you value. Discussion isn't meant to be a fucking combat sport. Stop bullshitting us. 15 Share this post Link to post
kevansevans Posted September 26 I've learned in my time that any technology being forced down our throats as "the future" and we'll regret not being "early adopters", it's shit technology, regardless of how technically impressive or """revolutionary""" it is. 28 minutes ago, Captain Toenail said: Certainly, back in 2010, there were a lot of trolls. To frame them as far-right though? I highly doubt genuine Nazi or KKK type people were here on Doomworld. Yikes my guy. You need to surround yourself with better people. 5 Share this post Link to post
Aceituns14 Posted September 26 To be honest...I only used It twice for spelling and punctuation. I am still ashamed of myself. 1 Share this post Link to post
Jayextee Posted September 26 1 minute ago, kevansevans said: I've learned in my time that any technology being forced down our throats as "the future" and we'll regret not being "early adopters", it's shit technology, regardless of how technically impressive or """revolutionary""" it is. Don't forget to frame every reasonable objection as a "knee jerk reaction" apparently. 9 Share this post Link to post
DJVCardMaster Posted September 26 Seems I'll have to change my profile pic before I have 10 people throwing coocka at at my door because of AI usage... 1 Share this post Link to post
june gloom Posted September 26 Just now, Jayextee said: Don't forget to frame every reasonable objection as a "knee jerk reaction" apparently. It's a popular trick, to frame any dissent as unreasonable and irrational. It's pretty much a bright-red signal that the poster is neither interested in debate nor respecting those he's talking to. 9 Share this post Link to post
maxmanium Posted September 26 2 hours ago, flamepanther said: I would suggest that integrating it into everything is part of the issue right now. AI has a lot of positive applications, but shoehorning it into absolutely everything is unhelpful and obnoxious. Yeah, I misspoke, it shouldn't be in EVERYTHING, but I'm just saying I think all the pushback will calm down once people figure out what it is and isn't good for. 1 Share this post Link to post
Benjogami Posted September 26 19 minutes ago, Captain Toenail said: It's quite funny how you sometimes have to trick, bribe, persuade the machine to get the intended result. So prompt engineers are artists of tricking, bribing, and persuasion. In the words of Elon Musk, "Interesting." Okay flippancy aside, doesn't this seem like a red flag? Sci-fi luminaries have been warning us about the consequences of treating robots/androids/AIs poorly for as long as the genre has existed, and yet being a manipulative prick to ChatGPT to get what you want is being touted as a good thing? ChatGPT doesn't have feelings to hurt or rights to stomp on, but the people doing this behavior are training themselves to be manipulative anti-social freaks. Don't you think this will transfer to how they interact with other humans? How about in the promised AI future where androids are indistinguishable from humans and people are still treating them this way? It's creepy behavior and it's disturbing that it's not seen that way more widely. And btw I don't think the guardrails that are slapped hastily on LLMs are good. I've tried using ChatGPT to produce some characters and scenes and found the results terribly sterile and boring. It refuses to generate anything remotely gritty or upsetting, characters that should hate each other end up talking it out. It's fucking stupid. I'm sure there are very talented prompt engineers that can manipulate gritty scenes out of it, but like I said above, I find such manipulation extremely distasteful. The solution isn't to degrade yourself to work around the problem, it's to walk away. 6 Share this post Link to post
DreadWanderer Posted September 26 @june gloom the link between AI bros and the crypto world (or Web 3.0 more generally) is very important, thanks for this. I'm reminded of Folding Ideas's video on NFTs and the wider goal of "financializing everything", which is sinister as hell. There's a lot to be said and I don't wanna derail the thread, but I think the superficial appeal of AI is not too dissimilar to the initial promise of NFTs to help struggling visual artists. All BS of course, creators always end up getting shafted, so I'm pretty glad to see some well-founded scepticism. 3 Share this post Link to post