How C.ai Works And Why It's Unethical

how c.ai works and why it's unethical

Okay, since the AI discourse is happening again, I want to make this very clear, because a few weeks ago I had to explain to a (well meaning) person in the community how AI works. I'm going to be addressing people who are maybe younger or aren't familiar with the latest type of "AI", not people who purposely devalue the work of creatives and/or are shills.

The name "Artificial Intelligence" is a bit misleading when it comes to things like AI chatbots. When you think of AI, you think of a robot, and you might think that by making a chatbot you're simply programming a robot to talk about something you want them to talk about, and it's similar to an rp partner. But with current technology, that's not how AI works. For a breakdown on how AI is programmed, CGP grey made a great video about this several years ago (he updated the title and thumbnail recently)

I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend you watch this because CGP Grey is good at explaining, but the tl;dr for this post is this: bots are made with a metric shit-ton of data. In C.AI's case, the data is writing. Stolen writing, usually scraped fanfiction.

How do we know chatbots are stealing from fanfiction writers? It knows what omegaverse is [SOURCE] (it's a Wired article, put it in incognito mode if it won't let you read it), and when a Reddit user asked a chatbot to write a story about "Steve", it automatically wrote about characters named "Bucky" and "Tony" [SOURCE].

I also said this in the tags of a previous reblog, but when you're talking to C.AI bots, it's also taking your writing and using it in its algorithm: which seems fine until you realize 1. They're using your work uncredited 2. It's not staying private, they're using your work to make their service better, a service they're trying to make money off of.

"But Bucca," you might say. "Human writers work like that too. We read books and other fanfictions and that's how we come up with material for roleplay or fanfiction."

Well, what's the difference between plagiarism and original writing? The answer is that plagiarism is taking what someone else has made and simply editing it or mixing it up to look original. You didn't do any thinking yourself. C.AI doesn't "think" because it's not a brain, it takes all the fanfiction it was taught on, mixes it up with whatever topic you've given it, and generates a response like in old-timey mysteries where somebody cuts a bunch of letters out of magazines and pastes them together to write a letter.

(And might I remind you, people can't monetize their fanfiction the way C.AI is trying to monetize itself. Authors are very lax about fanfiction nowadays: we've come a long way since the Anne Rice days of terror. But this issue is cropping back up again with BookTok complaining that they can't pay someone else for bound copies of fanfiction. Don't do that either.)

Bottom line, here are the problems with using things like C.AI:

It is using material it doesn't have permission to use and doesn't credit anybody. Not only is it ethically wrong, but AI is already beginning to contend with copyright issues.

C.AI sucks at its job anyway. It's not good at basic story structure like building tension, and can't even remember things you've told it. I've also seen many instances of bots saying triggering or disgusting things that deeply upset the user. You don't get that with properly trigger tagged fanworks.

Your work and your time put into the app can be taken away from you at any moment and used to make money for someone else. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people who use AI panic about accidentally deleting a bot that they spent hours conversing with. Your time and effort is so much more stable and well-preserved if you wrote a fanfiction or roleplayed with someone and saved the chatlogs. The company that owns and runs C.AI can not only use whatever you've written as they see fit, they can take your shit away on a whim, either on purpose or by accident due to the nature of the Internet.

DON'T USE C.AI, OR AT THE VERY BARE MINIMUM DO NOT DO THE AI'S WORK FOR IT BY STEALING OTHER PEOPLES' WORK TO PUT INTO IT. Writing fanfiction is a communal labor of love. We share it with each other for free for the love of the original work and ideas we share. Not only can AI not replicate this, but it shouldn't.

(also, this goes without saying, but this entire post also applies to ai art)

Ghost Trick spoiler ahead!

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imeatingrnleavemealone

8 months ago

straight up not true i have spoken to many of the people that have sent me messages and this is a dangerous thing to spread. i won’t deny that there are probably bots but just use common sense. this same post says that the vetting process is just “trust me bro” and that also isn’t true. this post encourages donating to organizations that benefit palestinians instead, and that’s Fine, but to say every single message from an individual is a scam is frankly ridiculous. and harmful

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imeatingrnleavemealone

1 year ago

i thought my laptop was on its last leg because it was running at six billion degrees and using 100% disk space at all times and then i turned off shadows and some other windows effects and it was immediately cured. i just did the same to my roommate's computer and its performance issues were also immediately cured. okay. i guess.

so i guess if you have creaky freezy windows 10/11 try searching "advanced system settings", go to performance settings, and uncheck "show shadows under windows" and anything else you don't want. hope that helps someone else.

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imeatingrnleavemealone

7 months ago

Oh Look, It Seems Like There's A Republican-led Movement To Purge Voter Rolls In The Lead-up To The Election!

Oh look, it seems like there's a Republican-led movement to purge voter rolls in the lead-up to the election! It's almost as if your vote matters and they don't want you to vote! Anyway, I whipped up a quick map (based on this) that shows when the voter registration deadline is in each state. There are a few deadlines coming up in the next week or so.

If you live in a state that regularly purges voter rolls for infrequent voters (the orange ones in the first map), or if you moved recently, it's good to check if you're still registered to vote.

Vote.org makes it super easy to check your registration: https://www.vote.org/am-i-registered-to-vote/

Just put in your address and DOB and they'll tell you whether you're registered. (And they give you a quick link to register online if it turns out that you're not! Only the 9 states in white on my map don't have online registration, and for those they provide instructions on how to do it via mail or in person.)

So yeah, give yourself peace of mind -- do a quick check. :)

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imeatingrnleavemealone

1 year ago

Israel's Deliberate Starvation of Palestinians in Gaza & its effects on Children

Palestinian children have begun starving to death in Gaza, where the United Nations has warned a famine is "almost inevitable." Israel, which has been attacking Gaza by air, land and sea for five months, is not allowing water, food, medicine, fuel and electricity to be delivered to the blockaded territory. Approximately 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza are now struggling to survive — not just in escaping death amid constant Israeli bombardments and ground assaults, which have killed over 30,000 people, but also in trying to access enough food and water in order to stay alive amid dire humanitarian conditions caused by Israel’s total blockade. 700,000 Palestinians are currently facing the threat of severe hunger, and a quarter of the population, or 576,000 people, are one step from famine – a direct result of Israel’s all-out war on the enclave. Here is what you need to know about the hunger crisis, particularly among children, in Palestine's Gaza.

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imeatingrnleavemealone

7 months ago

my mom got me this little thing and im obsessed with him.... little creature..

a small blue deer with green antlers and a lamp for a face

the same mini lamp but it's limbs have been moved so it is in a sitting pose

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imeatingrnleavemealone

9 months ago

Here it is, the FINAL decoder for #TheBookOfBill !
Special thanks to @JimBag_777 for helping arrange the color code!#GravityFalls https://t.co/sZlcVFBjAe pic.twitter.com/WZYEEKlTxc

— ~ Chloe ~ (@TsunamiHolmes) August 1, 2024

Go nuts!

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