"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
https://xcancel.com/AyakaMods/status/2057438125203296642#m
this needs to stop man
This type of thing is why you never 'login with Google, Meta, Apple ' whatever.
If they decide they don't like you for whatever reason you end up locked out of every account, event the ones that are not explicitly Google.
Forgive my bluntness.
...But I feel like "artist tech debt" is now a problem.
I first started complaining about it in the photography space. Basically, no one understands colorspace, HDR formats, HEIFs/JXL, how modern sensors/encoders actually work... everyone is "stuck" in a circa-2000s "crush RAW stills to JPEG, export video to mp4" workflow, like they're in a time loop. They're not even using the crazy dynamic range of modern sensors and displays, and have no clue.
But the more I look around, the more I see it elsewhere. A manga artist choosing Google Drive as their host is a great example.
I dunno what to do about it, though.
A lot of older artists are stuck in their ways. A lot of younger artists cannot afford the subscriptions they perceive they need for those workflows you mentioned.
Tbf a lot of modern screens can’t display HDR properly, even those that advertise that they can, so when people do see an “HDR image” they don’t get it.
Remember, folks: encryption and redundancy (and redundancy).
Having AI make decisions should put corporate leaders in personal legal problems.
A human is always to blame.
On the one hand this really, REALLY sucks for the artist. I wouldn’t wish it on my personal enemies if I had them.
However stories like these are instrumental in teaching the broader public that AI is to be boycotted.
Telling Joe Schmoe that datacenters are a rising problem just doesn’t register. This they could relate too.
that AI is to be boycotted
I don't think the AI part is the relevant bit here.
I think the message should be that trusting your data to off-site storage where it is subject to third-party moderation should be boycotted. So boycott Google Drive, One Drive, icloud and keep your data on your own computers.
I didn't realize AI was looking at my google drive. I'm just deleted my files, but that's like a huge chunk of my career they could have potentially stolen.
I do still want backups beyond my flashdrive, maybe an encrypted file?
No one should have anything on google specifically, or on a non-privately owned and properly secured server in general.
There was a guy, during covid lockdowns, whose child developed a severe rash in the diaper area.
because lockdowns, the doctor asked them to send photos of the rash so he can diagnose.
googles auto-moderator labeled it child pornography, immediately deleted their account (which was very much all eggs in one basket. his phone number, email, data, everything was tied to his google account, all of which went away with no ability to recover anything on any of it) and called the authorities.
Police came to his home, talked to him, talked to his doctor, said there was nothing untoward there and went about their business.
Google said it didnt matter what the police said, it was child pornpgraphy.
the doctor sent a letter to google saying it was a legitimate medical necessity.
google said it didnt care, its child pornography.
That their expert photo-lookers said there was no rash in the area that they could tell, so there for the doctor was wrong, the police were wrong, and that man was a pedophile and he would never get anything back in any circumstance.
and for proof of that, they pointed to a video in his google data from 6 months prior that had the mother laying in bed, naked, with the baby on her chest.
Because, according to google, the only reason to be naked in the same room as a child, or to take a medically dictated photograph of a childs rash, is if you are a dirty dirty child molesting pedophile sexually exploiting your child.
Which I imagine makes almost all of our parents and grand parents pedophiles, by googles standards, because I guarantee the overwhelming majority of us have a parent that has a picture of us naked, probably in the bath, that is compltely fucking harmless to any sane, normal human being, unlike the actual pedophiles that google has looking at this shit who gets their rocks off to it and assumes everyone else is just as fucked up as twisted as they are.
This makes as much sense as having my shelves and cabinets judge what socks I put in them and trash it.
GTFO
This is why my e-mail isn't gmail and I never store my shit in somebody else's cloud.
Way back when they were starting offering free e-mail and later cloud services it was an obvious risk, because putting one of your main points of contact and only copies of data which you can't get back in the hands of a massive company with whom you don't even have a proper contract and which, besides, has more lawyers than the year has days, is a needless risk.
Same reason why none of my code that's important is in GitHub.
As soon as the cloud thing started, I thought "Who thought this was a good idea?" Especially when they were trying to get The Cloud to basically replace a computer's hard drive.
No thanks, I'll hang on to my own stuff. I can put my important stuff on a couple of thumb drives, and carry them around.
It's only a matter of time until something really big fails online isn't it?
The only ways Google listens to your appeal (that I can think of) are: 1) a lawyer, or 2) having at least 100k subscribers on Youtube. Even then it's not guaranteed. It's a complete BS system and no one should do anything important with Google products. Especially not storing important files. Hopefully the artist or their assistant have the stuffed still saved elsewhere, but they need to learn from this.
Google is in hot water after banning the Google account of Andrew Spinks, the lead developer of the hit indie game Terraria. The YouTube account of Spinks’ game dev company, Re-Logic, was hit with some kind of terms-of-service violation, resulting in Google banning Spinks’ entire Google account, greatly disrupting his company’s ability to do business. After three fruitless weeks of trying to get the situation fixed, Spinks announced that his company will no longer do business with Google and that the upcoming Stadia version of Terraria is canceled. source
Google is absolute garbage. (Also, Google Stadia has shut down, lol)
This is why I store everything offline
Offline? Never heard of that app.
Yup, here's the link for it :
Imagine paying for more storage and keeping anything on the drive that is actually important. I just use mine to share pirated ISOs for games from popular systems to emulate.
It is more important than ever to get these fucking services out of your life. Do not rely on a third party for your critical data and infrastructure. Use it if it’s convenient, but ALWAYS have a copy under your own control.
I can’t bring myself to blame the victims of shit like this, we’re up against massive corporate and government pressure to give over our lives to them. It takes genuine effort to protect your shit these days, but it’s more critical than ever and well worth the difficulty; even if you never need it.
I mean...It's always a horrible idea to rely on any major corporation for cloud storage. Especially the likes of Google which is currently in it's evil incarnate era. I don't pay for anything Google related, just some neat open source options because fuck a goddamn evil corporation. Also, I tend to use local external storage as well, because even the open source option might go bellend first into the darkness.
Google did shit like this long before AI. Never use google for anything critical (or at all). while the odds are low because they want your data there’s always the chance they just delete everything you had. And their support is nonexistent so once they do you’re fucked, even if you make a big stink on social media like this
ai is crippling every industry it touches. sounds intentional imho
MEGA's cloud storage is pretty good in my experience.
Pretty generous limits and cheap prices if you want higher limits. Native Linux client that works well and integrates into KDE well. And, most importantly, end-to-end encryption, which means MEGA has no access to your files. They have no idea what you're uploading.
Google never had proper customer support anyway. Plenty of posts on /r/sysadmin by business customers stating the same.
Not that it changes anything, but why nobody is saying, or asking, what was it flagged for? I find it suspicious the reason for the ban was not given in the story.
The obvious implication is copyrighted" content flagging, considering the account was banned after uploading a manga. Google drive used to be a source for links to Linux ISOs, so it's unsurprising that they're cracking down on it in the dumbest and laziest way possible.
