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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   36724 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 5, 2025

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This generalized antipathy has basically been extended to any use of AI at all, so even though the WorldCon committee is insisting there has been no use of generative AI

(Emphasis added).

If they admit to using ChatGPT, how can they claim they didn't use generative AI? ChatGPT and all LLMs are a type of generative AI, i.e. they generate strings of text. ChatGPT, I believe, is also trained on copyright-protected works without permission from the copyright holders, which is the criterion many people who hate AI consider to qualify as the generative AI "stealing" from authors and artists.

Just based on this description, it sounds like these WorldCon people are trying to thread a needle that can't be. They should probably just say, "Yes, we used generative AI to make our lives easier. Yes it was trained on copyright protected works without permission. No, we don't think that's 'stealing.' Yes, this technology might replace authors like you in the future, and we are helping to normalize its usage. If you don't like it, go start your own AIFreeWorldCon with blackjack and hookers."

Tbf, the official statement recognizes ChatGPT as generative AI, and just tries to distinguish its use for review or concatenation, as distinct from creating material, or specifically that "We have also not utilized an LLM in any other aspect of our program or convention."

Tbf to Amadan, the use of 'generative AI' as a description of use case rather than of design is a pretty common one from anti-AI artist and writers.

Tbf to Amadan, the use of 'generative AI' as a description of use case rather than of design is a pretty common one from anti-AI artist and writers.

Hm, I was not aware of that. I'd thought most of such people at least ostensibly maintained a principled objection against generative AI for its training methods, rather than one based on pure protectionism.

Lots of them are using generative AI themselves.

A 3D artist I knew had absolutely no compunctions about using GPT to produce video game code even as he denounced nerds as being thieves who stole from artists because they lacked talent themselves.

You don’t have to read all that many anti-AI screeds until it becomes blatantly obvious they only care about themselves and want to limit competition just like the original Luddites did.

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