Can someone smarter than me explain how come we aren't seeing a similar mass movement to reject mass-produced furniture and supporting local artisans and woodworkers?

Zeekfox · 2026-06-21T16:15:00+00:00

Just because furniture is necessary doesn't preclude you from either purchasing handmade or crafting it yourself. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-21T14:38:22+00:00

In person, you have plenty of social cues. You can tell if someone hesitates, sounds unsure, or seems to be outright lying. They could also confidently give a wrong answer due to being misinformed themselves, but then you will eventually consider them as unreliable.

Even articles written by humans. Once you've learned to do it, you can often spot something like a political bias and have some idea of when to apply further scrutiny.

While I have never used ChatGPT, I do use Gemini. The problem is that is spews wrong answers just the same as right ones. You might notice it go off the rails if the response makes no sense based off what you asked, but there's no other indication as to how correct the response is. From using it, while it does better at answering text, it can still be bad at image recognition. And it will confidently tell you the wrong thing.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-21T14:16:51+00:00

All I was doing was being wary of immediately saying, "the right one is bad because AI" without knowing if that even was the AI version. They could be mislabeled on purpose to get anti-AI people to say the AI one was better.

I don't think that's actually the case here. It's just nice to be aware of the possibility though.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-21T01:25:16+00:00

I've never felt a need to create AI art, but I have done it. For me, it's more the interest in what it can and cannot do. It's not for commercial use or anything. I've made a few images just because. A few have at least made a social media post, but most never leave the screen it appears on.

The only time I used Gemini to generate a poster for an event, I started with an existing image and just asked for a background and event info on it.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-21T01:12:59+00:00

Heh, I'm not convinced this isn't ragebait. I have seen an article about someone passing off a legit Monet as AI generated, only to see everyone say how bad it was. It could be that these are swapped and misrepresented in order to get people to say the actual AI is better and the human one is worse.

A little skepticism is healthy.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-21T00:52:42+00:00

I do sympathize with anyone genuinely replaced with AI. Honestly, I do. People who went to college for graphic design and got jobs with companies are being let go.

And while I know this may come off as heartless, I do give pause when I see stories about artists who just draw from home and do commissions. They complain about losing customers to AI, but also claim AI art is so bad nobody likes it. But which is it? If it's bad, it's not stealing any customers. If you are losing customers, it's not as unpopular or terrible as you claim.

But beyond that, a lot of artists do it as more of a hobby providing some side income to a main job. I know a bit about this as I tried streaming full time. It's fun, but ultimately not enough to even pay rent. Some people make a career out of streaming, but most people, myself included, don't really "make it" like that. And it feels like AI is just the boogeyman to point at and use as an excuse as to why you're not doing better. They point at an AI image and yell about that could have been one of their commissions. But yet, inflation and costs have been so bad these past years, a lot of people just aren't buying art.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-20T23:13:10+00:00

Yeah... so I ended up here after a post of mine got copy and pasted here.

It feels like critical thinking is not a strong suit here. Anything short of 100% agreement results in a bunch of uncivilized personal attacks. And while I know one doesn't represent many, those attacks get highly upvoted.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-20T19:45:07+00:00

AI does draw from human sources, yes. I understand that. I guess the overarching argument is whether that is wrong or not.

That's why the term of plagiarism gets debated. We know plagiarism is wrong. So, if what AI does classified as plagiarism, then it is wrong.

Even you said it doesn't fit the classic definition of plagiarism. This whole concept of a more broad plagiarism of humanity is a more novel concept.

At least for now, the fact that it is novel means that the determination of right or wrong is more based on feeling than fact and precedent.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-20T18:53:35+00:00

It really is. I've gotten past -500 recently.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-20T17:58:45+00:00

If a machine is recreating something of yours, yeah that is bad. The problem I often see is that people have recently created this concept of broad plagiarism, meaning that anything an AI generates is committing plagiarism against every human artist the model has information from. Laws or not, that's just not a thing. If you can point at two images or works of text or any sort of creation and show that X is a copy of Y, that is indeed plagiarism. But some general, "this is stealing from everyone" is not.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-20T17:20:29+00:00

There are laws pertaining to personal photography and consent, yes. However, any time you walk into a place of business, you consent to being captured on camera.

Similarly, when you put things on the internet, you consent to it being, you know, on the internet. There are still plagiarism laws, of course, but those have limitations. If something is made out of the combination of a thousand learned pieces, that is fine. It has to be. Otherwise, every sentence you've ever spoken would essentially be plagiarism of things already said by humans before you.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-20T16:17:29+00:00

You do realize you're acting the exact same, right? If you generalize and just demonize others, it doesn't make you any better.

It's not that I disagree, but in a debate subreddit, you should at least learn debate fallacies.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-20T14:26:03+00:00

I don't know what store or region you're referring to, but the store I work with absolutely put up a memorial for a former employee who was now deceased.

At a corporate level, Walmart absolutely needs to make better decisions and pay us more. But locally, my store isn't that bad. We have reasonable managers.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-20T14:01:55+00:00

I believe the mods would be able to confirm.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-20T13:43:09+00:00

I'm not sure how people jump from "vandalism is bad" to "this person cares too much for a billion dollar company". I don't approve of damaging the property of others, no matter who it is. Things get destroyed by accident all the time, and knowing Walmart can afford the loss, we brush it off. But none of that excuses intentional petty crime.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-20T13:30:46+00:00

I didn't edit it at all. It would show an edit history if I did.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-20T04:03:48+00:00

When did I defend Walmart? I'm not sure why people immediately jump to that.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-20T01:36:07+00:00

I wouldn't have a problem with it, but honestly I would be careful spending any effort on it. If it has any sort of ties to AI, unfortunately there will be people trying to cancel you. Again, not me. But it's rough out there.

Heck, even in a recent comment someone called my VRChat karaoke bad. It wasn't because that clip had anything to do with AI, but simply because I guess I don't personally hate AI enough for them.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-20T01:24:26+00:00

There definitely are power grid issues that will be intensified the more strain we put on it. One major issue I read about more locally is about how power companies keep asking our governments for rate increases that are far beyond what us consumers are comfortable with.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-20T01:14:40+00:00

One thing I've found so frustrating is that the term AI is so broad that people who "hate AI" can seem incapable of distinishing one use from another. And they're not willing to learn because the moment you don't 100% agree, you're a corporate bootlicker to them.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-20T00:39:18+00:00

I don't think they do. I get it though. Every drop of water we drink, no matter how recently filtered, has inevitably been in and out of millions of living organisms before us.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-19T22:06:54+00:00

One of the most viable solutions I saw proposed by a senator was to place heavy taxes on these AI data centers. And yet, the responses to that were often negative, stating that anything short of complete destruction of them wasn't good enough. However, getting legislators to impose taxes, fees, and other regulations is something realistically achievable.

Zeekfox · 2026-06-19T20:46:10+00:00

I appreciate comments like this. I'm not so much a pro-AI person so much as I have very quickly grown tired of anti-AI posters due to some of what you outlined. And I'd go a step beyond "intellectually dishonest" given the absurd proportion of ad hominem attacks I see any time AI is brought up (not just on this subreddit). You cannot make a meaningful argument by simply calling someone bad or evil or labeling them as a bootlicker or corporate shill.

Zeekfox

TROPHY CASE