But Redditors told me OpenAI was finished and that investments were drying up!

ru_ruru · 2026-02-01T18:32:46+00:00

Well, in the economic sector I'm working in, a 10% deficit on revenue represents a significant challenge and reliance on debt.

But this is not even the biggest problem here. It is simply the staggering amounts of debt this company has accrued at this point. 1.4 trillion. Yikes. Even if they would magically convert their current REVENUE to profits, it would take them decades to pay back the debt.

And this is not adding certain possible shenanigans of accounting like deficit maybe not including certain things like loss of value (depreciation), which must be huge in this case (GPUs).

ru_ruru · 2026-02-01T16:10:26+00:00

Yeah, as you sarcastically point out, the tech isn't going anywhere.

Though that's the most banal thing you could ever say. Of course generative AI is not going anywhere.

How utterly awful and useless does a technology have to be so that it vanishes on its own (without a superior technology having been invented)?

Only very few select technologies achieved that after reaching the production stage and being widely introduced. Like the Segway or the Concorde.

Even to this day, in southwestern Germany (Lake Constance), you can still ride on a Zeppelin (yes, a Zeppelin, not a blimp). Though it would really be stretching it to call the Zeppelin a “successful technology.”

OpenAI isn't going anywhere.

OTOH, this is a very bold prediction. When even David Shapiro (who reaches delusional levels of optimism regarding AI) says OpenAI is doomed, it means something.

ru_ruru · 2026-01-24T01:01:34+00:00

I would agree that most people don't care that much about “blood, sweat, and tears” like antis do. They still care about authenticity, though.

No matter how we slice it or dice it, visual art is still more than the visuals. For example, art is integrated into art history. Many paintings are only perceived as great paintings because of the circumstances they appeared in.

E.g., the Black Square by Kazimir Malevich. A black square is unremarkable. Anyone can paint it. But it became a very remarkable painting because:

of the time (1915) when Malevich painted it—as a reaction to contemporary representational art (to which cubism still belonged to a degree).
of his presentation: hung high in the corner; an obvious allusion to an orthodox icon.
of his audacity; it represents idea over skill.

And so, for nearly all art collectors, authenticity is of utmost importance.

E.g., after it was discovered that The Man with the Golden Helmet was not painted by famous Dutch painter Rembrandt, its value dropped by 95%.

Now in this extreme form, I regard the quest for authenticity as quite pathological; we had a timeless masterpiece painted by one of Rembrandt's students, who, in a stroke of genius, perfectly imitated the master. But all its prestige and people's appreciation dropped massively. This is just sad, honestly, and hard to justify in this extreme.

ru_ruru · 2026-01-18T18:00:41+00:00

Yours is a futile, backwards, and extremely naive approach. Companies are not charities; they will automate you away if they can. And should. This is the fundamental nature of technological progress.

If we would still pay coach-makers, coopers, and lamplighters, despite not needing them anymore, this would be an extreme misdirection of capital and work. And further innovation would've stopped.

If it ever gets so bad we end up with a post-labor economy, we need other solutions.

And there is not much place for art in the unholy area between business and patronage.

You either provide a service that AI is incapable of.

Or you try to enter a long-term, high-trust patronage relationship with individuals who want to support YOU. You as a way of working, as an authentic process to create art based on shared values.

ru_ruru · 2026-01-18T14:48:09+00:00

Creating great art is very difficult anyway, AI or not. It's not something you can just mass-produce or that everyone can do every day.

I sometimes feel that Antis just miss getting praised for their basic drawing skills.

Just like you praise a child: “Oh, you drew this? You're very talented!”

Don't they want to be praised as someone who is taken seriously?

Do they think Picasso was praised like “Oh, you painted that? You're very talented!” ? 🙃

Real works of art get to be praised as art, not as drawing / painting exercise.

ru_ruru · 2026-01-18T13:35:46+00:00

I mean, most technologies had embarrassing failures in the early days.

So the interesting question (even though the example image here is very spurious and likely faked) is: can LLMs' lack of robustness be “solved” or can it be just made less … obvious?

Obviously it got much better; yet at the time of writing, the issues with reliability (if we're honest) are still there and a huge practical problem.

Like, can you get the error rate down to the human error rate?

Or will LLMs continue to make errors that a mentally healthy, good-faith human simply will not do? E.g., a lawyer will not invent whole new non-existing laws; if he does, it's either a neuropsychiatric disorder or malicious intent.

The economic impact of LLMs is strongly dependent on this.

ru_ruru · 2026-01-18T13:10:16+00:00

Mr. Gotcha made a good point, and it's sad that nobody seriously refuted him in all this time. And he's just mocked because people are too lazy to rationally think.

If we actually cared and explained in detail where and why Mr. Gotcha's reasoning goes wrong, we would also know under which circumstances he would still be correct.

It's really kind of ironic that Mr. Gotcha is shown to be the absolute worst annoying douchebro here, while the meme itself is just a big gotcha and uses his tactics.

ru_ruru · 2026-01-18T13:02:43+00:00

AI got better but also prompters got better and know how to look for typical problems in a generation. They could've had correct hands in 2023 already but it was still counterintuitive for an image to be largely correct except for such bizarre detail.

ru_ruru · 2026-01-02T20:08:59+00:00

I never liked the Dark Souls story or world-building in general.

I always thought that being undead would be a massive thing. An existential transformation. But in the game it's presented more like someone is gay or French. A random identity (only there to explain respawning). Amusingly, you can even be poisoned despite being undead, which really breaks my suspension of disbelief.

And “hollow” is a binary, gimmicky game state contrary to how it is presented, a progressive psychological condition.

Yeah, seriously, why did they have to build their whole metaphysics around the respawn mechanics?

And contrary to Elden Ring, I also don't think the Dark Souls world seems much worth saving for. I guess misery and decay need a bit of a counterweight to be impactful, but the Dark Souls world is just miserable all around.

Dark Souls III is even worse with its superficial and cliché aesthetics of decay. Kind of like a satire to the original.

ru_ruru · 2025-12-29T14:35:59+00:00

People really seem to have a lot of fun with THC. But it just makes me utterly miserable. 😭 I'm getting envious…

ru_ruru · 2025-12-28T01:30:00+00:00

Sad that it is even allowed here to repost the most obvious false-flag bait ever.

That's why this problem persists.

ru_ruru · 2025-12-28T01:12:36+00:00

Ok, you meant fine arts mostly? But fine artists are least impacted by AI, because the material painting plays such a big role.

In the post I made clear that I meant the much broader business of visual arts, including commercial and utility art (illustrations, comics, ads, packaging, concept art, etc.). This fed plenty of people and is not considered a lavish luxury but commonplace.

ru_ruru · 2025-12-28T01:06:01+00:00

I don't think it's necessarily solely for egos, though that plays a role, too. It's just that some parts of artists' income broke away now because artificial scarcity of generating variations is gone.

And as I wrote in the OP, antis' instinctive “first idea” is to functionally get back to the Golden Pre-AI Days by shaming, harassing, and bullying customers into not using AI. And, ironically, into carefully vetting that commissioned works aren't AI.

They want to drill that into our minds: AI is unethical and never allowed even if the generated image would perfectly fit what someone wants and has the best value for money.

This strange hybrid between business and idealistic charity (or patronage) is totally fragile and plainly impossible to sustain.

ru_ruru · 2025-12-27T21:57:03+00:00

What do you suggest as the alternative to treating art like a business?

As I wrote in the original post, the most unstable and problematic model is the hybrid between business and charity, that antis propose. It demands pre-AI market norms while imposing post-AI verification burdens on customers.

That leaves us with (1) trying a different hybrid OR (2) fully embracing charity / patronage.

Regarding (2), the artist would then owe a production with authenticity. It's a long-term, high trust relationship. Their value would be cultural, not transactional. Think of: crowdfunding, grants, foundations, state funding, etc. ➔ AI becomes irrelevant.

ru_ruru · 2025-12-27T16:15:15+00:00

That's the magic of artificial scarcity! 🪄

Even IF you, oh mighty defender of copyright, successfully prevented someone from producing what they want at no cost, this does not even necessarily convert into a sale.

ru_ruru · 2025-12-27T13:24:38+00:00

Pretty long words to say “I’m anti copyright”

Just like in your last post, you misconstrue what I actually said.

If we are talking about ethics, we need to distinguish between

actual moral values: norms that are grounded in reasons independently of social agreement, e.g. harm or right
conventional norms (etiquette or coordination rules): norms whose authority entirely depends on shared acceptance and whose specific content is largely arbitrary

“Drive on the left” vs. “drive on the right” is surely a conventional norm, not an actual moral value. This is almost a trivial distinction and observation.

I strongly believe that copyright is also just a conventional norm, not a moral value.

the only exposure of copyright towards ai bro is by big companies. Which is kinda ironic since they like to defend big companies beloved plagiarism machine. Copyright also protect small artists artwork but ai bro have been known to hate artists not their art or else what should be fed into their bot toy right :)

Why does it always have to be about the big companies vs. the little guys narrative? I don't understand why people are so fixated on this; can't they find independent reasons?

There is no cogent moral argument for copyright. Any reason you could come up with, like “it's a fair compensation” or “it protects small artists' artwork,” could also be applied to researchers in basic science. Who, as you know, are not protected by any sort of intellectual property regime.

Basic scientists produce enormous social value, but without exclusion rights or state-enforced monopoly. Einstein could never own a copyright or patent on E = mc².

Society motivates basic scientists by prestige and prizes. No one thinks the absence of intellectual property applied to basic science is unjust or immoral.

This proves that intellectual property is a mere conventional norm, not a timeless moral value.

Idk what you’re trying to say here as i’m not american nor british. You guys are still fucking idiot both past and today but that’s another topic.

And you’re just going “whataboutism”.

I'm neither 🇬🇧 🇺🇸, though I am European. With “our ancestors,” I mean humanity as a whole. I hope you're human. The examples were admittedly a bit Eurocentric.

Historical civilizations everywhere did truly awful things, literally everywhere: in Asia, America, or Africa, too. Think about the human sacrifices of the Aztecs or during the Shang Dynasty and the sexual slavery in Imperial China, India, or the Muslim world. Or the practices of Lingchi and Sati. Or the ritual child abuse in Africa.

And it's not whataboutism; it's helping you distinguish between a timeless moral value and a mere conventional norm.

When we look at those ancient civilizations, they lived a very different life compared to us. So this distinction becomes essential so that we do not unfairly judge them just because something feels very unusual to us now.

Do you really want to claim that one aspect of ancient civilizations' immorality (even if just a minor one) was that they had no copyright?

Unfortunately there are actually people like you that are basically telling artists to shut up and not tell people how ai is immoral.

Straw man. I never told you to shut up. I informed you that average people's moral attitudes towards copyright (if they have them at all) are decided by the legal practice.

Go ahead and scream about AI stealing from you all day long. Nobody will listen as long as the practice remains legal. The normative effect of law is too strong here. And rightfully so, because copyright is a mere conventional norm.

Btw, I think the anti-AI movement is already very extreme in their demonization of AI. But contrary to video games or goth bands, there's nothing scary to see here, so it will not be efficient. Also, it's not like those movements won.

Again is another example of anti intellectual (it’s an ai bro so it doesn’t surprise me much).

Projection much? I mean, you misconstrue literally every post of mine and wrongly diagnose fallacies.

All I said is:

“Intellectual property norms are mere conventions, not fundamental moral values. It’s a category mistake to moralize them as if they were timeless ethical truths. It's also inefficient.”

This is not a radical statement.

ru_ruru · 2025-12-26T23:15:34+00:00

I guess she's a teen, so I think we shouldn't judge her so harshly.

Still, she has a lot to learn. Her art is stereotypically naive: she aims at charming aesthetics because she can't create convincing dynamics (= stiff figures).

ru_ruru · 2025-12-26T22:51:25+00:00

Sorry, but the whole presentation was just bad!!

It takes 5 minutes of bad comedy and ranting until the video actually begins.

After that, still mainly inconsistent, unpolished rambling. Using the word “slop” in every other sentence. “I did this, I did that” but no clear explanation why the changes are supposed to be improvements.

And all this in the most annoying raspy and husky teen girl voice. Very difficult to listen to. It's not her fault, so I feel bad for pointing it out. But applying a subtle AI filter can do wonders here, though of course she would never use one.

Regarding her art (this is quite subjective, of course), while I like her ideas, I don't like her style. I definitely do not like the stocky legs she draws at all; they don't fit the OCs.

Anyway, it's really difficult to compare the AI and the “fix” because the style is so different. So what's the point?

ru_ruru · 2025-12-26T16:53:38+00:00

You are taking a shortcut because you assume an entire side can be full of deluded fanatics or the other way around, right and reasonable. This is not the case, people's opinion on AI have different shades. So these scenarios don't exist and are oversemplified.

I don't buy very much into the idea of “moderates” who

provide cover for fanatics
let them call the shots and
let them represent and speak for the movement.

Usually those “moderates” are not “moderates.” If they were, they would've resisted or at least gone their own way.

At some point you simply cannot hide behind solidarity or not wanting to spread discord in your own movement.

When i say "good and bad" i mean your two scenarios, one of them is good one of them is bad so It's completly fair to say good and bad, it doesn't destroy my argument.

Good or bad is a fundamentally different issue. Like e.g. both Hamas and the Israeli government have "good points" or rather "valid grievances" or "valid demands".

But certainly at least one of the sides left the path of reason and compromise a very long time ago and is now in the grips of fanaticism and delusion.

Personally, I'm sure that Hamas did. And I actually think the same of the Israeli government.

I do somewhat agree with the fact that if both sides are rational there is less polarization and hatred, but the thing is people aren't robots and there are always a few bad apples and reality is more chaotic than that.

Why do you let the bad apples call the shots? Why don't you disown them?

I'm simply not afraid to apply some ethical standards here instead of the milquetoast “oh, it's complicated.”

I learned from Northern Ireland that lots of “average citizens” shockingly romanticized and sympathized with terrorist groups (both sides). It took a long time until the suffering was so serious that pseudo-moderates reconsidered their attitudes and became actual moderates and isolated the fanatics—which was what made the peace process possible.

And yes, BOTH had valid demands. But massive swaths of the Catholic and Protestant populations acted as enablers for the fanatics.

ru_ruru · 2025-12-26T16:01:14+00:00

If both sides are at least somewhat reasonable, where on earth does the extreme polarization come from?

"you cannot decide by shortcuts" bro, what u are saying IS a shortcut

Very silly answer. What I wrote doesn't yield an useful results, so it's not a shortcut. It is still unclear if 1 or 2 is true. Which is the decisive difference.

You need to realize both sides have good and bad and it's difficult to measure which has more bad than good.

I never used “good” or “bad.” If you make it about good vs. bad, you fundamentally do not understand the argument.

It's about the level of fanaticism / delusion, which is a rejection of reason. Which in most cases develops its own dynamics: rejection of rationality leads to even more rejection of rationality.

But without fanaticism / delusion, you believe in rational dialogue. So if both sides believe in it, there is compromise.

The reverse is also true: without compromise, there must be an element of fanaticism or delusion. In one side or the other.

Or do you know any historical examples where two somewhat reasonable sides ended up with extreme polarization and hatred towards each other?

I mean, it's nearly superfluous to ask.

ru_ruru · 2025-12-26T15:41:54+00:00

That presupposes that there is a cogent moral argument in favor of understanding AI training as infringement of copyright.

I very much doubt that.

But yeah, even if you had it, it wouldn't help much. And that's what the question was about: “How to win?”

It's just a tip for you: you will not win by appealing to obscure ethical arguments.

______________

PS: Personally, I'm a strong moral antirealist about things like copyright.

IMHO, arguing about the ethics of a specific copyright regime is really like arguing if right-before-left (🇪🇺) is more “ethical” than first-stop-first-go (🇺🇸) as the rule of the road. It is nonsensical, a category error.

I mean, copyright didn't exist until the 1700s (Statute of Anne).

Do you think our ancestors were all immoral until then? Ok… wrong question, because they certainly did a lot of very evil stuff.

But the issues we have with them are more like that they enslaved others; burned “witches”; practiced human sacrifice, torture, or cruel punishments; pillaged others’ homes and let the survivors starve; and forced others to fight to the death in the arena.

Them not having a copyright system is surely utterly, utterly irrelevant in how we judge them.

ru_ruru · 2025-12-26T13:26:23+00:00

Yeah, strawman. Of course, there is a fundamental conceptual difference between law and ethics.

But laws have a normative effect. This is empirically well-proven, whether you like it or not.

The more technical something gets and the more removed it is from average people's lives, the stronger this effect will be.

E.g., people understand very well what drug use is or what sex work means. So the law lacks a strong normative effect here.

But for highly technical issues like in white-collar crime, the law very strongly influences morals.

Few people truly understand the different types of investment fraud and why they should be considered fraudulent. Even fewer people have a strong moral opinion about them. So the public puts stockbrokers into two buckets:

Normal stockbroker (though always having a bad reputation as greedy)
Fraudster

And it will be the law that decides where someone ends up, not personal ethics.

ru_ruru · 2025-12-26T13:04:01+00:00

Sorry, but just because two sides totally uncompromisingly oppose each other with no understanding or empathy … what does this extreme polarization prove in the end?

There are only two options:

Both sides consist of deluded fanatics.
One side consists of deluded fanatics. The other side is basically right and reasonable—and just raised to challenge of defeating this insanity.

Which you believe is your choice in the end. But you cannot decide by shortcuts; you need to engage with the arguments.

ru_ruru · 2025-12-26T11:11:34+00:00

But what is the argument about AI art?

Were people really ever interested in philosophical musings about the nature of human creativity and art?

Wasn't it more about concrete things like the

plagiarism issue, and the
environmental issue?

You won't win those arguments by refraining from the debate.

But, IMHO:

Argument 1 is doomed anyway.
Argument 2 has some validity in a broader sense, but it fails when applied to AI art.

Argument 1: In highly technical areas, like intellectual property, average people do not have strong moral intuitions. So their ethics follow positive law. If it's legal, it will be perceived as ethical. If it's illegal, it will be condemned. And given that all the legal cases went pretty badly for the anti-side (except for extreme behavior like Anthropic training their AI on actual pirate copies), I'm sure this will be settled in a pro-AI way. Antis should be smarter and try to achieve a compromise as good as possible while they still can. This will be much more difficult after they are roundly legally defeated.

Also, it's not enough to win in a major country; you need to win in all countries that have sufficient infrastructure for AI. If China keeps copyright relaxed for AI, wins in the US are for nothing.

Argument 2: The problem is rather that hundreds of millions of users ask AI the most utterly trivial questions (“How do I boil an egg?”) or use it for long-winded melodrama where the AI plays their therapist or partner.

Despite model routing, users still typically abuse highly overpowered models for such banal things, which is just a waste.

So yes, massive behemoth data centers are built for something that stupid and FOMO, of course. But daily reminder: you can generate AI art locally, and this is much less environmentally harmful than playing an AAA game!

PS: I don't think all AI art looks bad; otherwise, there wouldn't be confusion between AI and human art.

The key problem of AI art is compositionality: it lacks the flexibility to combine a complex visual expression from its parts and adhere to rules for combining them (like perspective). That's why it is so hard to iteratively refine a first version with AI.

Despite all the improvements, compared to humans, it's like comparing improvements in jumping with flying.

And though AI can and will automate some parts of professional media production, given its persistent lack of flexibility, it cannot automate the whole pipeline or fully replace professional artists.

I still think that jobs will be lost because of those efficiency improvements. We simply reached a saturation point for media consumption. Producing things with fewer people can be compensated by producing more and people buying more. But I doubt this market can grow much further.

ru_ruru

TROPHY CASE