this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
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Artists have finally had enough with Meta’s predatory AI policies, but Meta’s loss is Cara’s gain. An artist-run, anti-AI social platform, Cara has grown from 40,000 to 650,000 users within the last week, catapulting it to the top of the App Store charts.

Instagram is a necessity for many artists, who use the platform to promote their work and solicit paying clients. But Meta is using public posts to train its generative AI systems, and only European users can opt out, since they’re protected by GDPR laws. Generative AI has become so front-and-center on Meta’s apps that artists reached their breaking point

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[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Neat. I like the concept. From a viewing perspective do wish it had some filters and better browsing capacity for finding art, but definitely bookmarkable - glad it's growing.

[–] TimeNaan@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

What's keeping this from repeating the same scenario?

[–] morgunkorn@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Nothing but by now we got used to switching service whenever it gets bad

[–] TimeNaan@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Then maybe it's time to switch to a FLOSS federated alternative, like Pixelfed? That way nobody can implement bad changes like this without the community fixing ot forking the code.

[–] morgunkorn@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yup I'm already there but it's hard to get any traction, im posting stuff into the void, its gonna take a while to get the typical Meta users over there :/

[–] TimeNaan@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

I understand but then again it goes in a circle - more content ➡️more users➡️more content

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[–] thefrankring@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

These people should create an instance on Pixelfed, a libre alternative to Instagram.

[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Don't focus on specific apps or you will start all over again from the beginning when every new piece of anti-libre software, malware, appears.

[–] thefrankring@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

People chose Cara because they identify with the art aspect of this social network. They don't care if it's anti-libre. They probably don't even know what it means.

The purpose of a federated instance like Pixelfed is to be a blank state. You can do anything with it. Any niche. Art in this case.

The issue here is to bring these people to Pixelfed and make them feel at home within their niche.

[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

They don’t care if it’s anti-libre.

And that's we keep getting abused again and again. So, this is what we must target. Unless we like wasting all of our time just to restart when the next malware arrives because they don't see the difference, see it's anti-libre.

[–] thefrankring@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Yes and no, you and me both value software freedom so we both understand that.

Education is obviously part of the process.

But I think most people don't really care if libre or not. Libre or anti-libre is mostly tech jargon for non-tech people.

They just want to be part of their own communities and be where the party is.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Does libre just mean "free?" The way I have been seeing it used in context, I assumed it was a platform of some kind. This thread made me not so sure of that.

[–] Zak@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

Libre means free as in freedom rather than free as in cost. A service that costs money to use, but communicates using open protocols, gives you full control over your data, and allows you to easily migrate to competitors and self-hosted solutions might be described as "libre".

[–] aniki@lemm.ee 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)
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[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

most people don’t really care if libre or not. Libre or anti-libre is mostly tech jargon for non-tech people.

Yes, that's the problem to solve.

They just want to be part of their own communities and be where the party is.

Which they can't when their software keeps abusing them, anti-libre software. So, we connect the effect to this root cause.

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[–] Zak@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (3 children)

I think it would be great for new social things like this to just speak ActivityPub. They can build up their own user experience and culture while joining a larger network. I don't have a problem with the software itself being non-free if the protocols are and they commit to supporting account migration.

[–] thefrankring@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Pixelfed already does support the image import from Instagram.

Mastodon doesn't seem to support any import from Twitter/X.

I'm assuming account migration from the main social media platforms to be an important feature.

But I don't think supporting ALL social media is realistic unless they all follow the same norms. Which I really doubt.

[–] Zak@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

ActivityPub supports alsoKnownAs and movedTo so that users can migrate their social graphs to a different server or software. Of course that doesn't work for migrating from networks that don't support ActivityPub.

Content import is a separate issue, but I can imagine it being helpful as well.

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[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

To get abused again by yet more anti-libre software, malware. Some people never learn.

[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (6 children)

You can tell them:

🚩 Anti-libre software, Cara, bans us from removing malicious source code. Don't waste your life repeating the same failure.

What is anti-libre?

We don't control. It controls us.

How do we know?

Is fails to include an AGPL software license file (yes there are other licenses but keep it simple and they will do their own research later if they care).

[–] QuadratureSurfer@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

What do you mean by this?:

Cara, bans us from removing malicious source code

Is there obviously malicious source code? Is there a policy that specifically says we can't remove any source code? Is this even open source?

[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

'Open source' is created to subvert libre software. It doesn't matter if there is malicious code or not: the ban is a 🚩🚩🚩

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Waht is "libre software"? this is a totally new term to me and searching for it has turned up nothing.

[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Literally the first search result is here but even better is this video here.

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (4 children)

You understand that search results are different for different people, right? I've been a dev for... an embarrassingly long time, I've never heard "libreware" outside of specifically the libreoffice suite. Sorry I'm not as in-tune with the slang as you are or whatever.

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[–] QuadratureSurfer@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)
[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Source, or did they include an AGPL, libre software license?

[–] QuadratureSurfer@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

What does copyright law have to do with a ban on removing malicious code?

[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

What do you think bans it? Copyright law, unless they include, for example, a libre software license.

[–] QuadratureSurfer@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You realize that copyright law still applies... whether you add some additional license to your software or not... right?

[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

You know its license changes what we are allowed to do with it?

[–] Zak@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

They're using loaded language to say that without access to the source code and the ability to modify it, Cara could start behaving in a way you don't like and you wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Meta uses loaded language to hijack our computing.

[–] mholiv@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I really appreciate your super stark pro libre software attitude. I want to support you here. You should know that the approach you are taking is ultra abrasive and would probably cause more harm than help.

People would just associate libre software with militant weirdos, if all they saw where your posts.

If you want to make meaningful change I strongly recommend taking a softer less abrasive approach.

We want libre software to be connected with safety, friendliness and personal autonomy, not militarism, chanted phrases, and dogma.

Even on Lemmy the ultra pro libre software social network (relative to non federated networks) your current approach is off putting. I want you to succeed and I think a different approach may be better.

Just my two cents.

[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

People already tried that and we still get malware like Cara. Also, this has been working very well in-person, moving everyone to libre software like Signal. People don't want to hear a lecture, so we must be direct. But thank you for the feedback.

[–] tyler@programming.dev 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Every time you call a product “malware” with absolutely no facts to back it up, you make yourself (and the movement) look idiotic. Please just stop.

[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Please, stop making yourself look gullible. You have no proof it's safe but we know this software bans us from removing malicious source code.

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[–] IHeartBadCode@kbin.run 0 points 5 months ago (5 children)

From Cara:

We do not agree with generative AI tools in their current unethical form, and we won’t host AI-generated portfolios unless the rampant ethical and data privacy issues around datasets are resolved via regulation

Okay I wanted to talk real quick about this aspect. Lot's of folks want AI to require things only held in copyright. And fine, let's just run with that for sake of brevity. Disney owns everything. If you stick AI to only models which the person holds copyright, only Disney will generate AI for the near future.

I'm just going to tell you. The biggest players out there are the one who stand to profit the most from regulation of AI. And likely, they'll be the one's tasked by Congress to write drafts of the regulation.

In the event that legislation is passed to clearly protect artists, we believe that AI-generated content should always be clearly labeled, because the public should always be able to search for human-made art and media easily

And the thing is, is Photoshop even "human-made art"? I mean that was the debate back in the 90s, when a ton of airbrush artist lost their jobs. And a large amount of Photoshop that was done, was so bad back then we had the whole Ralph Lauren, Filippa Hamilton thing go down.

So I don't disagree with safe from AI places. But the justification of Cara's existence, is literally every argument that was leveled at Photoshop back in the 90s by airbrush artist who were looking to protect their jobs and failed because they focused way too heavily on being anti-Photoshop that the times changed without them. When they could have started learning Photoshop and kept having a job.

I think AI presents a unique tool for artist to use to become more creative than they have ever been. But I think that some of them are too caught up in how CEOs will eventually use that tool as justification to fire them. And there's a lot of propensity to blame AI when it's the CEO's writing the pink slips, just like the airbrush artists blamed Photoshop, when it was newspapers, the magazines, and so on that were writing the pink slips.

I just feel like a lot of people are about to yet again get caught with their pants down on this. And it's easy to diss on AI right now, because it's so early. Just like bad Photoshop back in the 90s led to the funny Snickers ad.

Like I get that people building models from other people's stuff is bad. No argument there. But, open models, things built from a community of their own images, are things too but that's all based on the community and people who decide to be in a collaborative effort to provide a community model. And I think folks are getting so hung up on being anti-AI, that it's going to hurt their long term prospects, just like the airbrush folks who started picking up Photoshop way too late.

There's not a stopping Disney and the media companies from using AI, they're going to, and if you enjoy getting a paycheck, having some skill in the thing they use is going to be required. But for regular people to provide a competitor, to fight on equal footing, the everyday person needs access to free tools. Imagine if we had no GIMP, no Kitra, no Inkscape. Imagine if it was just Adobe and nothing else and that was enforced by regulation because only Adobe could be "trusted".

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[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 0 points 5 months ago (3 children)

And then that growth promptly blew its budget because it's using expensive cloud AI services from Vercel and it has no means of monetization whatsoever to bring money in.

People can do whatever they want, of course. But they have to pay for the resources they consume while doing that, and it seems Cara didn't really consider that aspect of this.

[–] QuadratureSurfer@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Well, now's a great time to let them know about Pixelfed, although explosive growth like this will be a strain on any website.

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[–] simple@lemm.ee 0 points 5 months ago

Oh no... Are they running it entirely on serverless functions? What a disaster. I'm surprised the website is still up, is the owner not worried about going bankrupt?

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[–] tigerjerusalem@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (17 children)

People talking about pixelfed are missing a key point: Cara is super easy to find and join. You go, type your email or login with your google account and that's it. You don't even have to remember a password. Nobody wants to find a server, apply to join, hope to get accepted, then somehow find all other artists like you.

Also, it looks good. Like, really good. That's a thing that grab the attention of artists.

[–] PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (9 children)

They're just gonna have to leave whenever Cara makes some dumb decision. It's the capitalist app cycle.

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[–] Lem453@lemmy.ca 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (8 children)

This right here. I tried to join Mastodon today.

Download the most recommended app, Moshidon

Open app and get asked which instance i want to join. There are no suggestions.

Do a search for instances and pick one, go to the website and register with email and password. Requires email confirmation. Still waiting on the email confirmation link, 4 hrs later and 2 resends.

Literally haven't been able to sign up yet.

Even if it had worked, the workflow would have been to change back to the app, type out the instance then re-login.

I'm not sure how anyone expects anyone other than the most hardcore to sign up for these services. Maybe that's the point but if the point is to grow the user sign up process to significant overall

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[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Fuck a buncha Google SSO though. Hopefully that's not the only option

[–] Odelay42@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago
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[–] tyler@programming.dev 0 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Why not Vero? Which has been around for years and already restricts AI and no advertising.

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