This is the funnest expression ever pulled in all of starwars history

Clearly you don't own an air fryer

protector of the sword coast <3

I don’t have a good grasp of DND lore okay?

Black History Month Art Challenge

DAY 26: Frylock - Aqua Teen Hunger Force

(+ human form)

And about the AI opt-out setting Tumblr will deploy tomorrow, I’ll just let you with the words of the person in charge of the heist:

So Tumblr will notify openAi and Midjourney that you wish your posts to not be used and it’s entirely up to them to comply or not. And as we know, we are talking about some of the less ethical companies on the internet (which honestly is kind of a feat), so that cute little setting will most than probably do nothing and less.

Not to mention that if it works the same as the search opt-out, the moment you are reblogged by someone who hasn’t opted out… Bam! You are in chatGPT, baebeeee!

“We’re selling your Tumblr posts and art to AI services for scraping, you’re opted in by default, and even if you opt out, the only thing ensuring they won’t take it is a conversation worth less than a pinky-promise”

guys I think the website is dead to me

Heres some pics:

How could i leave out the oompa loompa meth lab?

I am both of these people mentally

both wyll and astarion are theatre kids but either one is a completely different flavour of theatre kid and that's why they're perfect for each other

AI shit is artificially inflated to appear like "the future", "the way of the future", "new standard" etc.

Remember a couple years ago who was saying the same type of shit?

Crypto bros.

Remember all the companies that adopted NFTs and crypto payment options from the hype? Compare that to the state of crypto now.

Brands are easily swayed by smooth talking tech nerds looking to make a lot of money fast and then split when the tech ends up not performing as well as advertised or too expensive to sustain long term. Or when the public gets bored. They got bored of NFTs, it wouldn't surprise me if AI generated shlock becomes solely synonymous with bootlegs and the companies already producing cheap crap.

This article goes into it a bit more, here's a quote.

Stay strong, y'all. I'm not saying this tech isn't harmful (it is super harmful) but the situation is not hopeless.

wait

if tumblr is gonna sell art data to midjourney can we all find like some really bad but technically sfw art and collectively post it and tag it as generic art tags so it tries to scrape it and only gets bad results in addition to glazing and nightshading out own art

like what if this filled the art tags when the switch happens and it can only pull from this? like. if i tagged it as big titty anime girl art it'd be poisoned

it's time

Well, see you, friends

https://www.404media.co/tumblr-and-wordpress-to-sell-users-data-to-train-ai-tools/

Don't go after staff members because of this, for what I know they weren't even informed until later in the process. You know who this comes from.

full article, for those who don't want to sign up for an account:

Tumblr and Wordpress are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI, according to a source with internal knowledge about the deals and internal documentation referring to the deals. 

The exact types of data from each platform going to each company are not spelled out in documentation we’ve reviewed, but internal communications reviewed by 404 Media make clear that deals between Automattic, the platforms’ parent company, and OpenAI and Midjourney are imminent.

The internal documentation details a messy and controversial process within Tumblr itself. One internal post made by Cyle Gage, a product manager at Tumblr, states that a query made to prepare data for OpenAI and Midjourney compiled a huge number of user posts that it wasn’t supposed to. It is not clear from Gage’s post whether this data has already been sent to OpenAI and Midjourney, or whether Gage was detailing a process for scrubbing the data before it was to be sent. 

Gage wrote:

“the way the data was queried for the initial data dump to Midjourney/OpenAI means we compiled a list of all tumblr’s public post content between 2014 and 2023, but also unfortunately it included, and should not have included:

- private posts on public blogs - posts on deleted or suspended blogs - unanswered asks (normally these are not public until they’re answered) - private answers (these only show up to the receiver and are not public) - posts that are marked ‘explicit’ / NSFW / ‘mature’ by our more modern standards (this may not be a big deal, I don’t know) - content from premium partner blogs (special brand blogs like Apple’s former music blog, for example, who spent money with us on an ad campaign) that may have creative that doesn’t belong to us, and we don’t have the rights to share with this-parties; this one is kinda unknown to me, what deals are in place historically and what they should prevent us from doing.”

Gage’s post makes clear that engineers are working on compiling a list of post IDs that should not have been included, and that password-protected posts, DMs, and media flagged as CSAM and other community guidelines violations were not included.

Automattic plans to launch a new setting on Wednesday that will allow users to opt-out of data sharing with third parties, including AI companies, according to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, and internal documents. A new FAQ section we reviewed is titled “What happens when you opt out?” states that “If you opt out from the start, we will block crawlers from accessing your content by adding your site on a disallowed list. If you change your mind later, we also plan to update any partners about people who newly opt-out and ask that their content be removed from past sources and future training.” 

404 Media has asked Automattic how it accidentally compiled data that it shouldn’t share, and whether any of that content was shared with OpenAI, but did not immediately hear back from the company. 404 Media asked Automattic about an imminent deal with Midjourney last week but did not hear back then, either.

Another internal document shows that, on February 23, an employee asked in a staff-only thread, “Do we have assurances that if a user opts out of their data being shared with third parties that our existing data partners will be notified of such a change and remove their data?”

Andrew Spittle, Automattic’s head of AI replied: “We will notify existing partners on a regular basis about anyone who's opted out since the last time we provided a list. I want this to be an ongoing process where we regularly advocate for past content to be excluded based on current preferences. We will ask that content be deleted and removed from any future training runs. I believe partners will honor this based on our conversations with them to this point. I don't think they gain much overall by retaining it.” Automattic did not respond to a question from 404 Media about whether it could guarantee that people who opt out will have their data deleted retroactively.

News about a deal between Tumblr and Midjourney has been rumored and speculated about on Tumblr for the last week. Someone claiming to be a former Tumblr employee announced in a Tumblr blog post that the platform was working on a deal with Midjourney, and the rumor made it onto Blind, an app for verified employees of companies to anonymously discuss their jobs. 404 Media has seen the Blind posts, in which what seems like an Automattic employee says, “I'm not sure why some of you are getting worked up or worried about this. It's totally legal, and sharing it publicly is perfectly fine since it's right there in the terms & conditions. So, go ahead and spread the word as much as you can with your friends and tech journalists, it's totally fine.”

Separately, 404 Media viewed a public, now-deleted post by Gage, the product manager, where he said that he was deleting all of his images off of Tumblr, and would be putting them on his personal website. A still-live post says, “i've deleted my photography from tumblr and will be moving it slowly but surely over to cylegage.com, which i'm building into a photography portfolio that i can control end-to-end.” At one point last week, his personal website had a specific note stating that he did not consent to AI scraping of his images. Gage’s original post has been deleted, and his website is now a blank page that just reads “Cyle.” Gage did not respond to a request for comment from 404 Media. 

Several online platforms have made similar deals with AI companies recently, including Reddit, which entered into an AI content licensing deal with Google and said in its SEC filing last week that it’s “in the early stages of monetizing [its] user base” by training AI on users’ posts. Last year, Shutterstock signed a six year deal with OpenAI to provide training data.

OpenAI and Midjourney did not respond to requests for comment. 

who would even want to opt in anyway?

Like great on giving the option i guess but as soon as it drops I can't imagine that anyone is going to pick any other option but opt out.

The rumour mill within ex-employees say they already sent the data to openAi, but I can't validate if that's exact or not

I feel like if there is/will be an opt out it violates the spirit of the option to not have even warned users this was coming.

Yeah that's a pure damage control setting. Once they have sent your data to openAI and Midjourney, you opting out won't take your posts out of the LLMs. It's shit and they know it.

A friend shared this on discord, in case you’re wondering how to opt out of this

It’s only Tuesday but the option was available for me when I looked. Only on mobile it seems, or at least I couldn’t find it on desktop yet, so desktop-only users might be SOL.

And do still look into Nightshade-ing your works on tumblr just to be safe. They can say they’ll remove you from the list if you opt out, and they can say they’ll update the AI techbros to remove all your stuff if you opt out later. But whether those companies actually remove your data or honor any of this is a gamble I’m not willing to take.

Update: figured out how to do it on desktop. You have to be on the page for the blog in question. And yes, it seems you have to do this separately for Every Single Blog Including Sideblogs. Because why would they make it easy to opt out across an entire account, when they could make bank off of you forgetting/not knowing to opt out for all your sideblogs, too?

Anyway, find Blog Settings on the side menu.

(ignore my blacked out drafts cuz it's embarrassing and we're not talking about it)

Scroll all the way to the bottom until you find the Visibility section. The option you want is at the bottom and should say "Prevent third-party sharing for (blog url here).

Remember, THIS IS TOGGLED OFF BY DEFAULT, so you need to toggle it ON if you want to opt-out of this bullshit.

And once again because I cannot stress this enough, you must go through and do this individually for each and every blog you have, including all your sideblogs. This is not an Account Settings option—even doing it on mobile does not apply this setting to all your blogs on a single account.

And please remember to look into Nightshade-ing or otherwise protecting all your work anyway. They've clearly already packaged up a TON of blog data to send off, and a lot of us are probably getting lumped into that package even though we're opting out now. Just because Tumblr/Automattic claims they will keep on top of these AI companies to scrub any data that is later opted-out, doesn't mean those companies will honor that at all. Their entire business model is based on stealing everything they've used to train their AI, so no one has any reason to believe they'll just happily oblige and go through all the work of completely wiping any data they already have.

its official: tumblr is selling our data to Midjourney

we'd been hearing rumors about this for a bit but now its open and out there. some details from this article

it goes without saying, but if @staff goes through with this its going to be an utter shitshow and im all but certain the website will not survive it.

There is already a toggle in your account settings to opt OUT of this "feature". They're already rolling it out.

For mobile: Access your main blog page, tap the settings gear wheel, scroll down to visibility, toggle the last switch "Prevent third-party sharing for [name of your blog].

For desktop: Select settings through your dash, select your blog on the right tab list under the settings categories, scroll down to the bottom to visibility, toggle the last switch "Prevent third-party sharing for [name of your blog].

Automattic will sign a contract with OpenAI for Midjourney to learn off of Tumblr and Wordpress

Hello! Automattic, Tumblr's parent company, will sign a contract with OpenAI and Midjourney so Midjourney can learn off of Tumblr's and WordPress' art and other user data. :) (The full text of this article is copy/pasted in the cut below). You can opt out! but I truly cannot imagine a more idiotic or out of touch decision on the part of Tumblr's CEO.

First thing's first: When/if this goes live, opt out of this immediately. Do this even if you're not an artist. The more people opt out, the less valuable this contract is to Midjourney. in an ideal world, literally all of the active users would opt out, but if we can even get to 50% that's pretty delicious.

Second: Contact Tumblr Support. It's vital that you do this politely. Tumblr staff is not responsible for this decision and the point of doing this is to show the userbase's unwillingness to be involved in this, not harangue Tumblr staff. (Seriously, stop haranguing Tumblr staff). Here's a script:

Third: Download Glaze and start poisoning them prompts, my friends

Fourth: Stare into the middle distance for a second with me because holy fucking shit? How stupid can one decision be?

next smutstein is up and it's spicy XD