Post #1607264

2026-04-23 05:05 UTC

>The right loves those patterns because they confirm their prejudices: Ask an image generator for a picture of two people kissing and you most often get a heterosexual couple, often white. Because that’s what the training data looks like. That makes “AI” perfect for creating the form of idealized, fictional “past” that fascists love to allude to (“make America great again“), a past that never existed but that needs to be saved or restored (we’ll get back to that later). It depends which AI you ask, no? Ask AI made in a mostly white country, you're going to get pictures of mostly white people. Ask AI made in a mostly Asian country, it'll be mostly Asian people. This same dilemma came up with search engines. Everyone complained that "doctor" in Google Image search showed mostly white doctors. Except if you made the same search in Weibo, in showed mostly Asian doctors. Same goes for heterosexual couples, it's just what's more common. I'm starting to get the impression a lot of this anti-AI push is coming from Russia and China, the way it's being framed as an "anti-West" thing. Because the chips for it are coming from the West. It's just like vaccines, and how a lot of the anti-vaccine propaganda was coming from Russia and China. Because they need to make the thing that's saving the world look bad. I'm not saying AI is saving the world. But a "fascist artifact"? Come on. That's classic Russian propaganda hyperbole.

Replies (3)

@WesternInfidels@feddit.online 2026-04-23 18:34

> It depends which AI you ask, no? Ask AI made in a mostly white country, you’re going to get pictures of mostly white people. Ask AI made in a mostly Asian country, it’ll be mostly Asian people. > ...it’s just what’s more common. I think you're misunderstanding the author's objection here. The problem is _exactly_ that the genAI will reflect "just what's more common," and that in doing so, it over-represents that which was already over-represented. It glosses over variety and difference, it reduces the past to a cartoon. It's the next bit that's important: > That makes “AI” perfect for creating the form of idealized, fictional “past” that fascists love to allude to (“make America great again“), a past that never existed but that needs to be saved or restored... This is how the original 20th century Fascists did things, too. It's not a hypothetically Fascist appeal, it's a historically Fascist appeal.

Open ##1607271
@naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-04-23 05:08

Read the whole article, don't just react to a single bit I highlighted.

Open ##1607272
@General_Effort@lemmy.world 2026-04-24 12:17

I know what you mean, but this looks more like capitalist propaganda. The “creative sector” is ruthlessly competitive and hardcore capitalist. Smearing your competition is a normal tactic for getting ahead. Note the marketing psychology 101. Build a personal relationship between customers and your brand. Make them feel like they are part of a community. That gets you customer loyalty without having to do something expensive, like offering good value. Also note how there is never any mention of non-creatives threatened by AI, like translators or programmers. Technologies that only threaten blue collar jobs are not even controversial. Think about what the actionable takeaway is. Protect the jobs of creatives and expand intellectual property to allow more rent extraction by rights owners. And those marginalized groups? Stay marginalized. But perhaps there should be some changes. The data labelers should lose their jobs (they will be so happy!) The jobs should go to people in our community (which is good in a completely not racist way!). We should keep doing what we’re doing (it’s ok that this churns out racist data, as long as no one trains AI),

Open ##1854037