I'm going to take a moment to recommend Starsector. It is a fantastically polished 2D space exploration, combat, and trading game.
It has been one of my best purchases of the last five years. Great mod support, very, very repayable. It has many viable strategies and encourages you to try different play styles. Have a look, it might be your cup of tea.
This is more or less the journey of Thor (Jason Thor Hall), founder of Pirate Software.
He worked for Blizzard, then Amazon Games, then the government as a counter intrusion specialist. Now he has founded Pirate Software and is pretty frank about it.
Heartbound, his game, is pretty good? I haven't played it yet.
Guy, when you enter a prompt into a Convolutional Neural Network, you can't point to the work that it is coping; because it isn't copying a single work, or even a couple. The NN is relying on the complex interactions of neurons to identify patterns within its output and to adjust those to make them better match a gestalt of that training.
You know this. You tried to correct my original response to point this out to me.
When you duplicate an image with a Xerox machine, or even a person visually copying an artwork by looking at it, you can point to the piece being copied. "There it is, that is the original."
Duplication is prohibited under copywrite law; but style isn't. Drawing Spongebob Squarepants in the style of Vincent Van Gough is a creative, transformational work even if you can recognize both the character and the style.
There may be issues about selling or distributing that work, because Spongebob is covered by trademark etc., but there is no question about the transformative and artistic nature of the piece. Juxtaposing the vapid childrens' character and one of the most famous Dutch painters is, in itself, an artistic statement.
From https://www.clrn.org/can-you-copyright-an-art-style/
Direct Answer: Can You Copyright an Art Style?
No, you cannot copyright an art style. While you can copyright specific, original works of art, such as paintings, drawings, or sculptures, copyright law does not protect styles or general ideas.
I get that you fucking hate Neural Network generated art. I understand, but you are just making shit up to win arguments. You are demonstrably wrong, which is worse because you know you are wrong, and you don't give a fuck.
Every day we make fun of Neo-Marxist fuckheads for making up their own facts, and here you are doing it to win an internet slap fight.
Even if you manage to declare victory by utterly distorting terms (a leftist tactic) you will have convinced no one of your point of view.
There are really, really good reasons to distrust Convolutional Neural Networks and Large Language Models. I've given a few very good ones in other posts in this topic. "lol; they are just Xerox machines!' isn't one.
Oh, and BTW, I've never given a 30 year prediction. That was someone else.
Legal wages for a twelve year old are about $8 an hour around here. She was paid for about two and a half hours of her time, which is about what I estimate she spent.
But thanks for implying that I am a exploitive jerk.
Anyone else would call this copying with a little bit of randomness added in.
Yeah, so we are having an issue of semantics here. We are using different meanings of the word copy. Further, I think you know what the actual definition is, and you are arguing in bad faith.
If a human artist looks at a drawing or an image, then makes a copy of it by hand, it is substantially different. This can be sold as original art under a couple conditions. I won't get into the conditions here, because I don't think they matter and you don't care.
If the artwork is different enough that it won't be confused for commercial purposes, it doesn't infringe on copyright.
Moreover, there are things that can not be covered by copyright. These include styles and formats. There has been a Chinese version of the Australian show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." Which in turn is a copy of the CBS show "The $64,000 Question" from 1955, because you can't copyright show formats.
You also can't copyright procedures, rules or recipes. You also can't copyright an artistic school or style.
So, you are conflating the term "duplicate" with the term "copy". Duplicates are covered by copyright, as they are an exact reproduction of an artistic work.
A rabbi crawling out of a drain grate in the style of Studio Ghibli absolutely is not.
To take a photographic image and then redraw that into a new picture in an entirely different style is not a copy. It certainly isn't a duplicate.
To combine two images into a fusion of artistic representations into an image that has never existed before is not a copy.
Have it draw something that has never been classified before.
You are correct. A convolutional neural network will not be able to generate images that match criteria outside its training data set.
But you can't speak Chinese without every having learned it. So what? What does that have to do with anything at all?
Your major complaint seems to be that Convolutional Neural Networks are not, in fact, people. You got me! They have less neurons than a flatworm. They are certainly less complex than the nervous system of a garden slug. They get things wrong and draw stupid shit all the time.
That doesn't mean they are a Xerox machine. They have a different function and are really good at certain tasks, especially of classification. They are very scalable. They are not thinking machines in any sense of the word "thinking".
Eh. I paid a local twelve year old twenty bucks for original character art for a TTRPG.
It was the daughter of a friend. She spends all her free time drawing anyway. She got paid to practice her art. It was win/win.
It was not museum quality, but it was $20 worth.
Except when it's a literal copy of something that previously existed.
It isn't a copy. That isn't how that works. Deep Learning Neural Networks don't contain a library of images.
They are trained with a library of images, which is then taken away.
Convolutional Neural Networks play the Hot and Cold game for head-pats.
The training environment gives the Neural Network a prompt. For example "Draw a squid."
The NN does its best to draw a squid. The result is compared to one of the training images from the library of squid images. The NN is awarded head-pats accordingly.
This repeats thousands or millions of times.
A well trained AI can do things like drawing a well known character as though they were a squid which will combine their ability to satisfy both sets of criteria at the same time.
Like it or not, that image has never been created before.
Rewriting history is truly the real peril.
These days teachers prepare their lessons using AI tools. Students cheat, and hand in homework generated by AI tools. Then Teachers use AI tools to assist in their marking and detect the use of AI tools.
We wrote prose and essays in high school so we could learn the skills of being able to read, apply critical analysis and then write well crafted and coherently on the subject.
Now we can have AI voices read it to us, then fat finger a prompt to have a large language model write about it.
AI is just about at genius level for rationalization. If you give it a set of absolute facts, it will craft everything it produces around those fixed points. Those immutable assumptions can be anything: George Washington was a proud black man; Austin Texas is the greatest city on earth. Islam was right about women.
Students outsourcing the labor of learning facts and skills will catch on faster than viral Tic Tock videos. We will be raising a generation of drooling morons that believe anything their phone tells them. History will be whatever our silicon valley overlords say it should be.
This is truly a Pandora's box.
Fund a civil suit.
JC literally thought it over for four days to ensure that his anger was justified and that he wasn't acting rashly.
First people repented, then they promised to sin no more, then JC helped them. In that order.
D+ gave Badwolf 200 million US$ for two seasons of Doctor who, which included licensing of the catalog.
It was a spectacularly poor investment. The two series made by Russel T Davies have been very poorly received and have generated no new subscriptions for D+.
D+ won't share their viewer numbers, because they are shockingly low. Like, shareholders have grounds for a class action lawsuit low.
So I think those are just the British domestic numbers.
If they are so honest, why is their plan to migrate illegally.
Why are they paying criminals, people smugglers and child sex trafficking rings to smuggle them across the border?
I put it to you that you can not make a plan that flouts the laws of the USA, while paying cartels to aid your criminal acts and then also be an honest man.
Costa Rica can not shelter every carpetbagger who stumbles over the border. They will kill themselves if they try.
At some point they must enforce their border. It is an existential problem.
You need a low transient population, too. A small town where everyone moves in for work, stays two years, then moves on is terrible. No one has any attachment to the community and they are just holding their breath until they get back to the world.
Stable communities, stable relationships and generational investment makes things better.
Jesus demonstrated righteous anger.
When he found the moneylenders in the temple, he was utterly furious; but he contemplated the situation for four days before he confronted them.
He even took the time to plat his own whip before scourging them, flipping tables and kicking them out of the temple.
Playboy was unironically the best magazine in the USA while Robert Anton Wilson was editor in the 1960s.
Newsboy caps are kind of an American thing. They didn't really get popular in the UK.
This is a flat cap. The seams are different.
A flat cap has two seams like a baseball.
A newsboy cap has seams like pie slices. It is similar in construction to a baseball cap, just baggier.
They are not the same. The newsboy cap is nice, but it doesn't have the history of the flat cap.
It is a flat cap
Not to be confused with a newsboy cap, which are similarly shaped but differently constructed. Flat caps have two seams like a baseball. Newsboy caps have seams like pie slices, like a baseball cap.
Flat caps were worn by the working class while the middle class administrators and professionals wore Bowler hats. The Bowler hat is actually the hat of the Wild West until people worked out that shade hats were more useful, then they wore sombreros and straw hats.
Clothing is mainly in-group out-group social signaling. Hats especially so.
Masonic lodges are often easy to rent as community halls.
That particular cap is very strongly associated with the working class.
I get that leaving it on is rude, but he is wearing it as a political statement.
Did you know that the tribal leader of Ghana asked for the British to colonize the country? They were going to refuse, but his impassioned plea changed their mind. He could see that there were real benefits to European rule and their investment in the land and its people.
Even today Ghana is a much better place to live than the surrounding countries.
Even conquest is not necessarily bad. It depends on the peace after the invasion. The Romans, for better or worse, were a stabilizing and unifying influence that allowed Europe to become civilized. Without them I am sure they would still be petty, squabbling tribes enjoying 'multiculturalism' until the Muslims took the whole of Europe. I would much rather live under Roman rule than Islamic rule.
but I also don't think it was worth the effort. Why try to build civilization there into a tribal people who hadn't had it.
Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and so many more. Compared to Liberia etc.
The last time you spoke to me on the subject, you were pretty clear that colonization was bad by definition. I am not going to go dig up the post.
You gloss over the Romans. They were rough on resisting populations, but they brought law and trade to their conquered lands. They unified people by language. Scotland and Ireland were barbaric shitholes for a thousand years because the Romans decided they were not worth the effort.
All cultures are not equal. Raping children and cannibalism is not of the same value as the rule of law and fair, working courts. Having a big cry because the practice of suttee was stopped is utterly moronic, even if the Hindus really, really want to burn their widows.
I don't think colonization is what is happening to the western world, because the places the British Empire (for example) set up were not even countries yet. Even India was a bunch of tiny states ruled over by petty kings.
The western nation certainly are countries.
Palestine has been systematically murdering every voice of moderation, especially all the Christians, for more than a generation. The entire country is ruled by a theocratic terrorist regime. Even the other Islamic nations in the region want nothing to do with them because any immigrants immediately become militant and start terrorists attacks. Waves of immigrants from Palestine is a major reason as to why Lebanon turned into a religious civil war.
But feel free to go there and tell them to give the Palestinians more cuddles. That might just be what they need.
Anyway, carry on. I promise to more accurately recall your positions from now on.
To vary things up you can always watch: In the Line of Duty: Ambush in Waco
You keep saying that, yet you don't give any indication of why you think that I am wrong.
Having coauthored a 4th year Software Engineering dissertation in which we compiled and trained a Convolutional Neural Network, I am fairly confident of my understanding of the subject. If I am wrong and there are no neurons or no complex interactions, I'd love to know. Please, I welcome your detailed critique.
What did you say? Oh, it is right here!
The essence of your argument is: Neural Networks can only copy and not create anything original. It follows that what they do is an infringement of copyright, because you can recognize the style that is being aped.
I think my summation of your argument is succinct.
You know guy, for all your butthurt and bluster you have yet to provide any countervailing facts. You have done a bunch of quibbling over definitions, to your own benefit, but you haven't actually presented any alternatives beyond "I said so".
Now you've devolved to insults.
I guess we both know that your position isn't actually based on reason, huh?
Have a great day.