The guy replying to me is (as far as I can tell) the sole owner and moderator of .wtf, which is the instance I've been using up until this point. I kinda already knew they allowed AI slop, as there's nothing in the rules that says otherwise, but this interaction really sealed my decision. "Hey, person who makes music. If you don't like another musician using the fascist plagiarism machine, how about you offer to create art for them? After all, if people simply donated their time and effort, maybe they wouldn't have to resort to pissing in the face of their fellow artists of a different medium. Think about it."
Also, I think you can donate to the instance in crypto?
Fuck right off with that.
On another note: PeerTube itself uses Whisper for automatic subtitle generation. It's something I don't LIKE, but I approached the devs about it and they responded very thoughtfully. I'll admit I don't know all the differences between locally run, open source models that are used for accessibility and the horrible plagiarism machines we all despise the most. I suspect they're still built off exploitive tech / trained on stolen data and whatnot, and Whisper being the product of OpenAI doesn't inspire confidence, but Framasoft only uses it to detect speech, not create it. That's hardly "generative" at all, is it? It's just creating subtitles. Now, that doesn't mean the program itself is ethical given how it was likely created (as the devs acknowledge), and we SHOULD push for ethical, FLOSS methods of doing these sorts of things. I'm sure it can be done, it wasn't exploitative before the AI boom, right? This is where my knowledge ends and I ask for feedback. Any thoughts?
So this is what Whisper and whatnot is like? Framasoft responded tastefully to me and I understand their perspective, but now I'm realizing that Kdenlive has some similar, and potentially generative features and I'm trying to get testimony from the devs of that project because istfg if their using fucking generative AI just as I was getting used to and learning my way around their video editor, I'm going to lose it.
Please update on that when they respond. I'm in the same boat where I am learning to use Kdenlive and man... I really don't want to find out they are contributing to the ecological damage associated with GenAI.
I will. https://bark.lgbt/@cloudskater/116179184695668448
Also, I reached out to OpenShot because there really aren't that many good open source video editors and I wanted to try them on for size, and I got a self proclaimed bot reply to my email... that claimed the software made no use of generative AI. Now, to be fair, idk if it was a generated reply or a pre-written human one that was sent to me based off some of the words in my message or something, but the irony is hilarious.
Also also, if you don't have AI, why not state it on your website? I don't get why FLOSS projects will say "yeah we don't use AI" when asked, but won't state it right up front. It should be a point of pride, it's one of the reasons I come to you over closed source options! The very nature of open source goes against that slop, omfg have a backbone!
THANK YOU! Yes, it should be broadcasted with pride! Hell, even proprietary software should be using it as a selling point if their company and offerings are 100% AI free. People don't want computers to be the touchpoint of the companies they're giving money to.
I'm a senior web app developer by profession, and AI literally took my job last year in April. I'm unable to get a job to this day. Over 80% of the jobs I get notifications for want people like me to either use AI tools in my workflow, and/or the company is peddling their AI powered horseshit as the penultimate business decision their target audience will die without.
I am pivoting to making a living building open source, AI free software at this point. I can't look myself in the eye if I support the broligarchy that's killing the environment.
I got a response! https://bark.lgbt/@cloudskater/116179184695668448
Hmmm... well, since I won't seek out the external tooling for their local AI stuff, I suppose I can keep going... still feels kinda icky lol
Yeah I... Okay let's take automatic subtitle creation for instance. That existed well before the LLM bs and was fine. Plus, the stuff they're calling AI isn't pretending to "create" anything, it's just automating some repetitive tasks or using pattern recognition to move an effect across the frame. If we were to continue to criticize them (which would be fair), I would say that they should not even entertain software made by companies like OpenAI, even if they were fully transparent. However, I don't think it's on the same level as including or supporting anything that claims to be generative.
I won't be installing the AI stuff either, just to be safe, but my issues with the things they replied to me with are the sources of the code they're using and it's potential to be exploitative, not the actual uses of the software. Does that make sense?
Totally. For shits and giggles, I'm gonna see how quickly I can get something simple slapped together in OpenShot this weekend. I have zero experience with it, but if they're touting no AI of any sort, they might have me as a user.
What kind of software are you making? I mostly make music and videos and stuff so I have no clue if it applies to me but please put it on my radar.
Also can I marry you?
Sorry, you're 11 years too late for that one :)
I'm currently building an ethical alternative to Substack (they have a nazi problem on their platform). It's going to be a Fediverse app. No idea when I'll launch that, but I'm determined to get it launched sooner than later.
Otherwise, I'm a gun for hire on building custom web based software for any business that needs my services.