medains
πΏπΆππΆ "not yet begun to fight"A.I. musicians are COOKED. I just recorded an ENTIRE SONG using nothing but my instruments and a few microphones. This would have cost upwards of hundreds of dollars in expensive A.I. subscription fees but for me it was completely FREE. Don't get left behind. This is the future!
Faith, Purple haired feminist π§ 
@Lana Just wait until they find out you can just draw things... With a pencil.
@faithisleaping whoa whoa whoa slow down there buddy surely you mean you have to prompt the pencil to draw something kinda close to what you want and hope the pencil feels like drawing it for you, and then iterate that hundreds and thousands of times until you finally get it to draw something close enough that it will work?
@Lana I mean, sometimes you have to throw the paper out and start again. It all depends on how good you are at prompting your pencil.
@faithisleaping amazing! This is the future!
@Lana Better go out and buy pencil stocks!
@faithisleaping I'm putting all my money in PBC (PencilBit Coins)
Kevin@faithisleaping @Lana Don't let them in on the secret for coming up with ideas - just your brain! Nothing else required. Shhh.
L.A.@faithisleaping @Lana heh. I once doodled a cat with a pen just to roast the dall-e fanboys. "Here, I dida cat, zero waiting time, and all it cost me was 0.01% of the ink on a pilot hi-tec-7 and the energy consumption of one nibble of a donut, while you wasted the equivalent energy of charging a phone to ask the model to doodle a cat that has one extra paw"
Biggles 20X6!@Lana also you can copyright your performance! (ai output is public domain, as per recent SCOTUS ruling)
@Taco_lad amazing! This technology has no downside!
divVerent@divVerent @Lana more detail here
https://www.morganlewis.com/pubs/2026/03/us-supreme-court-declines-to-consider-whether-ai-alone-can-create-copyrighted-works
Basically you have to document the human involvement part and it has to be enough, or it's public domain.
US Supreme Court Declines to Consider Whether AI Alone Can Create Copyrighted Works
The US Supreme Court has declined to consider the copyrightability of artwork generated purely autonomously by artificial intelligence, leaving in place the βhuman authorship requirementβ for copyright protection. In this LawFlash, we break down the case, the statutory and judicial frameworks governing copyright in autonomously created works, the Copyright Officeβs stance, and the practical implications for companies navigating copyright in the age of autonomous AI creation.
@Taco_lad @Lana That is a different question though. They just said that AI generated works cannot be copyrighted by the person who operated the AI, unless part of operating the AI itself constitutes copyright (such as when the prompt itself was already sufficiently detailed to be copyrightable).
They did not say that output of AI is generally in the PD. It can still be encumbered by original works that went into the AI's training data and was in part replicated by the AI, and also original works that were used for prompting the AI.
In particular you can't "AI-wash" someone else's work by feeding it to the AI and asking the AI to recreate it.
They did not say that output of AI is generally in the PD. It can still be encumbered by original works that went into the AI's training data and was in part replicated by the AI, and also original works that were used for prompting the AI.
In particular you can't "AI-wash" someone else's work by feeding it to the AI and asking the AI to recreate it.
@divVerent @Lana correct, you can't use AI to infringe on existing copyrights.
@Taco_lad @Lana And the part I don't understand is why a ruling what necessary for that. That was already the pre-existing rule.
If the input of a data transformation (such as compiling a program) was copyrighted, then so is the output, provided the output contains a sufficient amount of the input - and vice versa.
The court has just figured out that it makes sense to keep applying this rule even if the transformation process is an AI.
Note that the AI can most definitely also encumber a work with additional copyright. E.g. it is quite possible for Google to train Gemini's image generator Nano Banana 2 such that Google can claim copyright on any image it generates (in addition to any copyright on the prompt and on training data by other people that went into it) - we just don't know whether or not Google did. The obvious way to do so would be to train it exclusively with works Google holds the copyright to. Or to have a system prompt such detailed that any reasonable person can recognize the style (well, we do know they didn't do that).
As such, my recommendation regarding use of AI generated works is to not raise the copyright question. Do not release any AI generated source under an open source license. Do not ask money for any AI generated works. If you absolutely must use AI generated works commercially, figure out with the provider of the AI model how the copyright situation works - if you e.g. can make a contract so they license the generated works to you, then you can claim good faith and they would be on the hook if copyrighted works were replicated.
As an example, Google specifically does not provide a license of this kind. Instead, Google says at https://policies.google.com/terms/generative-ai/use-policy: "Do not engage in dangerous or illegal activities, or otherwise violate applicable law or regulations. This includes generating or distributing content that: [...] Violates the rights of others, including privacy and intellectual property rights -- for example, using personal data or biometrics without legally-required consent." - so they shift the blame to the user if anyone's copyright was violated, and make the user responsible for any copyright violations in the generated works, even if the prompt never asked to use someone else's work.
If the input of a data transformation (such as compiling a program) was copyrighted, then so is the output, provided the output contains a sufficient amount of the input - and vice versa.
The court has just figured out that it makes sense to keep applying this rule even if the transformation process is an AI.
Note that the AI can most definitely also encumber a work with additional copyright. E.g. it is quite possible for Google to train Gemini's image generator Nano Banana 2 such that Google can claim copyright on any image it generates (in addition to any copyright on the prompt and on training data by other people that went into it) - we just don't know whether or not Google did. The obvious way to do so would be to train it exclusively with works Google holds the copyright to. Or to have a system prompt such detailed that any reasonable person can recognize the style (well, we do know they didn't do that).
As such, my recommendation regarding use of AI generated works is to not raise the copyright question. Do not release any AI generated source under an open source license. Do not ask money for any AI generated works. If you absolutely must use AI generated works commercially, figure out with the provider of the AI model how the copyright situation works - if you e.g. can make a contract so they license the generated works to you, then you can claim good faith and they would be on the hook if copyrighted works were replicated.
As an example, Google specifically does not provide a license of this kind. Instead, Google says at https://policies.google.com/terms/generative-ai/use-policy: "Do not engage in dangerous or illegal activities, or otherwise violate applicable law or regulations. This includes generating or distributing content that: [...] Violates the rights of others, including privacy and intellectual property rights -- for example, using personal data or biometrics without legally-required consent." - so they shift the blame to the user if anyone's copyright was violated, and make the user responsible for any copyright violations in the generated works, even if the prompt never asked to use someone else's work.
Chris Simpson@Lana I wrote an email today and I don't believe it warmed the planet by a degree. Go figure!
DB
Nicks WorldA whole data farm can cost like a billion dollars minimum. We can do this all day!
Titia Schuurman@NicksWorld @Lana @Sarahw you have no idea. Wait until your grid is full of data centers hogging it up. Meta, Google etc. have expansion plans that would, each of them alone, use more than the total amount of electricity currently available. And this when it is more urgent than ever to cut emissions. π€¦
gturri@NicksWorld @titia @Lana @Sarahw you voted against having datacentrers near you but you re ok with using AI (and hence imposing datacenters in other areas)?
(Just making sure I understood properly)
(Just making sure I understood properly)
@NicksWorld @gturri @Lana @Sarahw OK, I don't know what specific work you're using it for. Still, you might want to reconsider knowing that making even a single AI picture uses as much energy as charging your phone battery from empty to full. It may not seem much but then think of ten pictures per day, multiplied by, say, 100 million users. A short video, much more again. Then there's all the water they use, too. Not to mention all the creators whose work has been pirated to train those robots.
@NicksWorld @gturri @Lana @Sarahw ah, like for Alt-texts, you mean? OK, that's not the worst possible use. Still, I'm sure you could do it yourself just as easily. And I've seen AI-generated Alt-texts that are just wrong and dumb and useless, where a human would have known immediately what the picture was about.
@NicksWorld @gturri @Lana @Sarahw Oh yes, stupid me, stupid stupid stupid. Apologies. This explanation occurred to me just now, as I was doing something else, and I rushed back here but too late to correct myself. I sometimes have "long cables" as the Finnish saying goes, i.e. I'm slow on the uptake. Dumb dumb me. This will teach me to think a bit longer before commenting, hopefully. Thank you for responding so patiently!
@NicksWorld @gturri @Lana @Sarahw I always try to be civil, though I sometimes fail.
I'll add that yours is definitely one of the absolutely legitimate uses of AI, of course, with real benefits for people. I wish there was less of the slop and rubbish and fakery and more of this.
Sarah W
wroof
prokyonid@NicksWorld @titia @Lana @Sarahw Eh, don't assume that voting against one in your town will be enough - if the powers that be want one there bad enough, they'll sue for it.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/18/michigan-data-center-fight
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/18/michigan-data-center-fight
If it were me I'd rather have a planet with oxygen and water to live on but hey you do you, sparky.
@NicksWorld @Lana
But those people are real people who need to eat, have families etc.
And that's before we start on genuine creativity rather than rehashing real people's stolen work.
And the huge environmental impact. People can have a negative effect, but they don't have to; computers can't avoid it.
But those people are real people who need to eat, have families etc.
And that's before we start on genuine creativity rather than rehashing real people's stolen work.
And the huge environmental impact. People can have a negative effect, but they don't have to; computers can't avoid it.
Quantum β AIHome of the WOPR (@[email protected])
"I've never done anything remotely creative in my entire life and my addled brain cannot comprehend why anybody would ever want to do such a thing"
PassengerHaving met both musicians and LLM-guys, I can assure you that while the former sometimes have egos that get in the way of their work, the latter almost always do.
SlightlyCyberpunk@Sarahw @NicksWorld @Lana thanks, I read all my instance had loaded before commenting but apparently that was not enough!
Still...I've been coerced into using the AI a couple times at work for code generation and always give up on it in a fit of rage at how it takes ten times as long to produce...nothing even remotely usable. You will *always* get better output from a human. The fact that so many humans don't give a fuck about things like alt text is a problem we've gotta keep working to correct. Because AI does not seem like a real solution in my experience...even if it *can* describe the image, it misses all context.
skua
alejandro@Lana @Sarahw @NicksWorld a note that MIDI sequencers are a thing and with you can key in exactly what you want.. no need to burn the planet down or deal with βegosβ.
David Phd@NicksWorld @trollkatt @Lana @Sarahw
A Novation Circuit Tracks or a Roland VERSELAB MV-1 are cheaper and more fun. And mine run on solar power :)
@cmsdengl @trollkatt @Lana @Sarahw I'd need one that could talk or has some accessibility features because I would not know what to do otherwise. Yay blindness!
@NicksWorld @trollkatt @Lana @Sarahw
Understood
Cy
malte
niccolo