2030 Ad parody - Musk, Bezos, Altman new business (AI-generated but good).

[jmbar2]

Link to tweet

[highplainsdem]

1. Still unethical, because it was generated by AI. Still a slap in the face to every creator whose work

was stolen to illegally train the unethical AI tool(s) used. Still a thumbs-up to the AI bros owning and controlling those tools, whose theft of humans' work is continuing every day, the greatest theft of intellectual property in history.

We didn't need AI slop from these unethical tools years ago, and we don't need it now.

People forced to use generative AI for work or school have my sympathies. Anyone choosing to use it voluntarily WHO KNOWS IT WAS TRAINED ILLEGALLY ON STOLEN IP is choosing to act unethically. It's pretty much guaranteed that whoever made that AI slop knows the training data was stolen.

From Bluesky a couple of days ago, from two real creatives:

Preach it Kay Hanley

— John Scalzi (@scalzi.com) 2026-02-24T02:23:11.349Z

Thread in GD about those real artists:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221045937

[jmbar2]

2. I'm trying to understand your vigilance on this topic.

Are you trying to stop AI from existing by getting everyone to boycott? If so, that genie is already out of the bottle. Individual boycotts won't do anything to stop it. It has infiltrated every interaction in our lives. At best, we can refuse individually to interact with AI agents whenever possible.

I think a better approach to the AI threat is to raise the alarm, and generate immediate deliberation about how society will deal with the threat. The example I posted is actually a pretty good critique of AI, based on the Citrini report about how it will destroy jobs.

The Citrini report calls for immediate deliberation and response to the destruction AI is/will cause. This vid reaches people who haven't heard of the report or read it. I think that is a good thing.

...Or are you trying to prevent people on DU from viewing or posting anything with AI in it?

I think at this point, the line between AI creation by machines and humans is too blurred. AI parody appears commonly in political ads, Colbert, etc. Some of the most effective political messaging I've seen was produced by humans using AI imagery to rapidly respond to events of concern.

While i appreciate your concern about the proliferation of AI and its threat to the world -- a concern that I share deeply -- I'm not sure that policing OPs on DU is useful.

[highplainsdem]

3. I'm trying to keep DU from looking trashy and unethical when DUers post AI slop here. And I'm

reminding DUers how unethical generative AI is, and has been since the beginning. The entire industry is built on theft of intellectual property.

A lot of the artists I know who are online, and they're all liberals, will automatically block anyone they see post AI slop, whether or not that person generated the slop themselves. They do that because even posting it shows someone who may be ethical and caring in some areas, but who has a huge blind spot, for whatever reason, when it comes to AI and the AI companies' worldwide theft of intellectual property, and all the people victimized by it.

Using generative AI (if you're not forced to), or promoting it by praising what it generates, is IMO similar to thinking it's great to buy stolen electronics for a low price.

Or - if we still had slavery now - it's similar to saying you think slavery is bad, and not owning slaves yourself, but being grateful if someone who owns slaves helps you out occasionally by having their slaves help you, or maybe invites you to a great meal at a plantation.

It's also equivalent, if you think some AI slop is funny and share it, to sharing racist or sexist jokes. Because it is offensive.

Every time you post AI slop, you're sending the message that you don't care about the theft, and you love what the AI robber barons have done with what they stole.

That's a terrible message for DU. A terrible message for anyone who wants to be considered ethical.

I think a better approach to the AI threat is to raise the alarm, and generate immediate deliberation about how society will deal with the threat. The example I posted is actually a pretty good critique of AI, based on the Citrini report about how it will destroy jobs.

Oh, that concerned you? But all the livelihoods destroyed to train the AI initially didn't?

That's sadly reminiscent of some of the more unthinking teachers I've met who worried out loud that if they or their students use AI, their work might be stolen to train the AI. They were hypocrites for worrying about that while using AI tools that worked only because of IP theft.

And I pointed out that they were.

It's unethical tech, and always will be, until the AI models trained illegally on stolen IP are destroyed, with new AI models trained only on what's in the public domain and what the AI companies have acquired legal permission to use. Those likely WON'T be as good as current illegally trained models, of course, because most of the value of generative AI is from the value of that stolen IP.

As for my "vigilance" - I'm pro-human and anti-generative AI. I'm pro-knowledge and anti-pretense and plagiarism. I'm pro-artist and creatives of all types, and anti-AI users fraudulently claiming they're somehow creative and talented because they told an AI tool to generate something for them.

I don't care how famous someone using AI is - they still make themselves look stupid and less than ethical when they post or use AI slop.

I do care about this board, and some people here either aren't aware of the terrible message they're sending when they post AI slop, or how many people considering joining DU will be turned off if AI slop is not only tolerated but praised here.

What I'm posting here doesn't have the reach it could have elsewhere. I've been able to get as many as 3/4 million views with about a thousand likes and replies on Reddit. If I get reposted by a well-known AI critic or musician elsewhere, which has happened, that post can get tens of thousands of views.

But I like this corner of the internet. I care about how it looks.

And it looks terrible when DUers give a thumbs-up to AI slop and generative AI and the robber barons behind that tech.

I can at least try to make clear to anyone reading this board and seeing AI slop posted that not all DUers support that unethical tech and the thieves behind it.

[SheltieLover]

4. TY for your efforts to keep DU slop free!

Much appreciated!

[highplainsdem]

5. Thanks, SheltieLover!

I honestly don't understand anyone wanting to use genAI (I know some people are forced to by work or school, but it's still harmful for them and dumbs them down). And I don't understand anyone wanting to post AI slop.

We never needed it before and don't need it now.

[SheltieLover]

6. YW!

I detest AI.

[jmbar2]

7. Do you feel the same way about photoshop, auto text correction, graphic design software, etc?

For context, I am a former old school instructional designer, and documentation specialist - occupations now largely wiped out by AI.

The first major hit to my occupation started with online training replacing butts-in-seats training. When the actual creation of training materials was shipped overseas, my job was somewhat safe because I was good at the upfront research and conceptual work -- needs assessment, task analysis, content research, sequencing, etc. That part is still done by humans, and then implemented using technology.

Most of the tools used by creatives today replace prior skills, crafts and tools.
- photoshop, graphics, typography, document layout
- Spellcheck and text editing
- Music, soundtracks, sound effects

While AI is disruptive, it is revolutionizing training and education
https://news.usuhs.edu/2025/07/usu-launches-specialized-simulation.html

Creatives will adopt AI in the same way that they adopted Photoshop, video, and sound editing software. In the creative arena, AI is a new tool and skill set. But it also has MAJOR societal risks. Its adoption is moving way too fast for us to understand these risks. That should be the focus, IMO.

Civil disagreement and debate has always been a feature on DU. I have never felt as personally attacked as I did reading your post today. Attacking and censoring what people post is more damaging than the use of imagery created by new technology.

The real danger of AI is moral, ethical, and societal. Level-headed discourse on that is urgently needed.

[highplainsdem]

8. No, I don't feel the same about those, because those are NOT trained on theft of the world's

intellectual property.

Ethical creatives will not use AI. They will not "adapt" to it. They know it's flawed, fundamentally unethical, and harmful to human society.

There are already plenty of studies, even from Microsoft, showing that it dumbs users down.

It's taken a wrecking ball to education, dumbing down students, and it also dumbs down workers.

It's polluted our information ecosystem, not just social media but scientific papers riddled with laughable errors that aren't caught, partly because some lazy peer reviewers are having flawed hallucinating chatbots review papers written by flawed hallucinating chatbots.

It's made deepfake porn including child porn a much more serious problem. It's worsened all sorts of scams and fraud.

AI-generated code is a serious security risk.

And it's damaging to the natural environment.

If you're going to defend a tech so badly flawed, so harmful, so unethical since its creation, you should not be surprised to have anyone on a message board for liberals and progressives point that out.

That is not censorship.

You can try to defend what is probably the most harmful non-weapon tech ever developed. But people who care about the damage it has already done and is still doing have every right to point out why it's unethical to use and promote that tech.

You won't hear AI fans and AI peddlers mentioning ethics very much. You'll find that a lot of them are rightwingers drooling over the thought of artists and teachers and journalists losing their jobs to AI. You'll find a lot of them love the sort of misogynistic deepfakes Musk was condemned for enabling on X. You'll find people like an AI company CEO who posted that students should cheat their way through school to get the degrees they need, because they can always use AI and it will be their superpower (hell, Sam Altman of OpenAI was saying a few years ago already that students using AI to cheat shouldn't be considered cheating). You'll find wannabe artists with no real art talent of their own taunting real artists by having AI copy their work. You'll find AI bros and venture capitalists backing AI posting that society should get rid of intellectual property laws...while of course they'll still use their wealth to defend their IP, but they want everyone else's to be free for them to exploit.

It's a tech that's much more suited to MAGA than to liberals who have to ignore all sorts of values they're supposed to stand for, just to tell themselves it's fine to use.

[jmbar2]

9. Every keystroke you enter was developed from someone else's work

The fonts, spell check, formatting, smilies. Technology can be used for good, or evil, with many shades of grey in between.

I accept that you have many arguments against AI. I think you are off-base attacking others you don't agree with in such a hostile manner and tone.

[highplainsdem]

10. They're not comparable. Though it's certainly interesting to see you try to compare theft of the

world's intellectual property, by a handful of AI companies whose execs were aware it was theft and illegal, to formatting and fonts.

I keep explaining why it's bad thing to post AI slop here, in a liberal forum where genAI is on the wrong side of so many issues liberals care about, and you apparently don't understand any of the reasons, or you think I'm unusual in caring about those reasons.

You should search for

ai slop block

on Bluesky, which will get you this page to see how people there view AI and people who post AI slop:

https://bsky.app/search?q=ai+slop+block

Or you can look at this thread on DU

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220895856

which will direct you to hundreds of angry responses on Bluesky to a teacher's union president very stupidly posting AI slop she thought was "fun" - and finding out that quite a few who replied felt she'd completely disqualified herself as a union president.

Bluesky tends to be liberal, so the responses there to people posting AI slop shouldn't surprise anyone at all. Those are ethical, liberal responses - combined with a lot of shock over a teacher's union president giving a thumbs-up to AI slop "art" and an industry built on theft that has already been especially harmful to both teachers and artists.

[jmbar2]

11. Using your logic, should DU ban smiley faces?

At about the 2:12 mark in this short video, there is a very loud fart.

[highplainsdem]

12. He drew one particular type of smiley face after it had already become popular. By the time he drew

his version, WMCA radio in NY had already given away lots of their famous smiley-face sweatshirts for their "Good Guys" DJs. Their design was drawn by their program director, Ruth Meyer.

And simple smiley-face drawings had been used long before that, including in advertising.

https://paulhillery.co.uk/tag/wmca-good-guy/

1953 ad in a NY paper for the film Lili:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NYHT_Smiley_10th_March_1953.jpg

It wouldn't have been used that way in an ad if it wasn't a symbol already commonly used and instantly recognizable.

And you're comparing a small symbol, which EarlG has every right to use here, to theft of the entire world's intellectual property by AI robber barons. Which cannot be ethically excused.