There are 3 things a visual artist can do to protect their work. First, dump using Meta and X, who are scraping the images that are loaded to their apps. Second, on your artist's portfolio website, install a Robots.txt and ai.txt file that blocks the AI scraping bots. Please note that Adobe Portfolio websites don't give you this option to block AI bot scraping. Third, use the app "glaze" to protect your work. This app embeds data into and image that renders you image unusable to AI. If anyone needs more info on the Robots.txt, AI.txt setup or the app Glaze, please feel free to reach out to me.
You can also register your work free of charge on credtent.org. This will allow you to opt out and be part of the list that Credtent sends to these companies on a regular basis. Credtent audits these companies to make sure that they are respecting opt out request. You also have the option to license your work so that you can be paid if your work is indeed being used and you approve of that. Credtent is a public benefit corporation that returns 85% of licensing revenue back to creative people whose work is licensed.
The ai.txt is the fallback. I just made a post where you can download copies of the files I use along with a short guide and a link to the Glaze app. https://www.erflynncomics.com/p/block-the-ai-bots
This is why we need a universal basic income along with universal healthcare, childcare, paid leave and guaranteed housing. Humans are the only species who require money to survive on this planet and we were all forced on this planet due to other people's decisions into a socio-economic system we never agreed to beforehand. If they want to have these abilities, they should be making sure Humans are able to actually survive, even though we should make sure we are all thriving.
I have no clue what Harari is, but do you even recognize that we were all forced on this planet due to other people's decisions into a socio-economic system we never agreed to beforehand? Also, do you realize this capitalist hellscape system is made up, fucked up, and should be dismantled/recreated to benefit everyone? If not, we're in completely different fights and I have no desire to engage with people who aren't fighting to prevent people from unaliving themselves for how difficult life can be for them when they never asked to be here. Apparently, you don't understand how people that make more money can either be taxed or not give a shit considering how the elitist predatory class preys on others just because they are privileged enough to do so.
We could all be connected to a UBI how cool would that be! Unless youre expecting a tragedy of the commons or something? Im not hating on ya man. I agree it would inevitably be abused. Just like everything people manage. Imagine if we were governed by an outside intelligence? Like a kind of artificial but still cognizant force thats incapable of mistakes. Haaa yeah you get it. Sorry ill stop. Back to my wage slave position in life. I wish that prior attempt was a success.. but you know what they say "if first you fuck up, then i donno, im thinking arbys"
only if those were small 120-ppl froup communities perhaps. Districts within city and sp on until on scale of nations, continents, world. Small self-gov nodes.
What scares me isn’t just that AI is being trained on our work without consent it’s that the systems being built are training us back too. To be more predictable. More aligned with the dataset. Endless feedback loop powering into a funnel...
I saw this quote in "Human Compatible" that basically said everyone thinks algorithms figure out what you like and give it to you. But actually they work by making you more predictable then showing you they wanted to show you anyways. Basically they purposely try to make you dumber for the sake of advertisement. Really made me rethink my relationship with socials.
Thank you Joe I'm sick and tired of hearing about AI just another money grab her thank you for explaining everything you rock! From someone who's worked 45 years and lives on 1K a month for rent utilities food and everything else. I'm glad I can read this without having to pay since sub stack is going towards pay subscribers only and all I have left is Blue sky and that will be it.
My fear is though, since Art is a catalysts for social change and thereby a threat to the power of an autocrat that the current government will thereby rule in favor of the companies, because it is then easier to control the "art" generated by bots than it is to control the Art coming from humans.
So of all the times we as a society could have had this conversation, right now are the worst conditions.
This is a very thoughtful post. Thank you. I am a state worker in California and my agency is working on implementing AI. Using AI for state government would save a lot of money because a lot of those routine tasks can be done a lot faster. There is a lot of repetition in the tasks we do for state government but then also, there will always need to be a human involved because inevitably bad information will be provided at one point that needs to be vetted/confirmed. I work in government contracting and if bad information is provided, it would be really annoying to have an AI model takeover and try to do my work for me. It would just create a huge mess to sort through later. 😂 I would love for there to be a tool like this so programs developing contracts can quickly have something to start with and then they can modify for their needs. We get a lot of poorly written contracts that then take a lot of time on our end to fix. Sometimes grammarly has some really wonky recommendations. We actually do not use that in our work.
With that said, I think it's absolutely disgusting the theft I see when it comes to creative content. There are even people out there who call themselves AI artists. I actually got tricked one time where I found this artist on Facebook and I thought her stuff was really amazing. She did not say that she creates her images with AI but she mentioned in a comment on one of her posts that her "artwork" is AI. This is someone that has a bustling Etsy shop. It was a real turn-off for me.
I've never been a creative person professionally but there was a time when I had a little Etsy shop (2011-2013) that featured photography from my travels in pendants. It didn't take long for another shop in China to copy my products exactly and to sell them for 1/4 the price. Eventually I got frustrated and closed my shop. This is happening on a much larger scale now with AI.
Joe, Capitalism has ALWAYS STOLEN OUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY . . . That is the American system, and it's flawed. very flawed. Think about the movie about the guy that invented the intermittent windshield wiper, or the movie about mcdonalds - business's have been stealing their employees innovations and then making themselves seem way more talented than they really are - elon musk for example (i love that i can say that my school friend took his last job at pay pal)
It certainly seems that if artists can be paid per-stream for songs, that the capability exists to trace back content to its original creator and royalties paid as their content is accessed by AI tools.
As a writer, I am frustrated greatly by the mere thought of the words I've toiled over being scraped by a bot and spit out... not only for the financial implications, but for the *soul* implications. That's my life story out there. That's my experiences, my horrors and traumas and victories and celebrations... without my story attached to it, what is it? It lacks the soul that human beings give it.
As a mother, I'd also like to add... I've worked as a freelancer writer, making pittance, while being at home raising my children. I sacrificed that income, as well as those deposits into my Social Security (which may be a moot point anyway), to ensure my kids are responsible, ethical, kind, and compassionate citizens. A universal basic income would have saved our family untold financial difficulties.
When we work down through the layers here, money has to be part of the discussion... because it's an unavoidable part of our struggle. As American families struggle more and more to just survive, less and less art, writing, and music will be created as we will have to go to some menial low-paying job just to make it. It isn't selfish or boorish to talk about the finances here; it's absolutely imperative.
You can also register your work free of charge on credtent.org. This will allow you to opt out and be part of the list that Credtent sends to these companies on a regular basis. Credtent audits these companies to make sure that they are respecting opt out requests. You also have the option to license your work so that you can be paid if your work is indeed being used and you approve of that. Credtent is a public benefit corporation that returns 85% of licensing revenue back to creative people whose work is licensed.
A well written exposition regarding technology and its intrusion into our lives, often invited by our desire to communicate with family and friends. What is dark and mysterious is the tracking of our spending habits (Amazon), internet searches (Google), and contact lists (Apple, Samsung).
I am a retired computer scientist, who started when Hollerith code on punched cards was fading away. The software industry grew so very rapidly requiring a Herculean effort just to stay informed and capable of code writing.
As a cinephile, I recall Kubrick’s “2001.”
As a computer scientist, AI is soulless; it’s a googolplex of little bit switches turning on and off in nanosecond slices of time. The result of which is that we must consider what the nature of intelligence means? We have not spent much time examining the nature of consciousness; that oneness, that animating spirit unifying all life.
Finally, we are destroying our living environment in microbursts of carbon monoxide. The pursuit of money seems to blind many to the actual realities we live day to day. Artificial indeed. Intelligent? I think not.
Fully agree. But how would we redistribute the money? If there was a tax on profits made from generative AI it would be completely impossible to track the contribution of living or dead people in the training data. To me the only viable option seems to fund UBI for everyone from the proceeds of an AI tax.
Credtent.org handles this work. We are experts in content valuation and have already built a system to be able to handle this kind of distribution. Come register your work free of charge and we will either opt you out of AI or license your work so you can earn subscription income when your work is used. Credtent is also a B Corp, which means 85% of the money earned from licensing is returned to creators. Credtent is on your side.
Ok I came in and was worried about where this was headed and I am so glad this wasn’t an “AI is the devil Bobby Boucher” moment I can’t argue that people should be paid for their work. I can’t wait for the day that humans don’t need to do the hard/dangerous work anymore because ai is doing it for us, but until then we need to treat other like humans and make sure they are provided for.
Hiring a lawyer is expensive and impossible when you're abroad the US. This makes no new situation, and I think I saw "myself", with "my" voice, in a vintage tv series named The Tycoon. It was in the chapter South The Border, even with my name and nationality.
You can also register your work free of charge on credtent.org. This will allow you to opt out and be part of the list that Credtent sends to these companies on a regular basis. Credtent audits these companies to make sure that they are respecting opt out requests. You also have the option to license your work so that you can be paid if your work is indeed being used and you approve of that. Credtent is a public benefit corporation that returns 85% of licensing revenue back to creative people whose work is licensed.
Hi, so happy I found you here, I used to follow you on Twitter. There’s very little social media I can stand these days, mainly due to AI. It’s becoming harder and harder to tell what’s real, and that has kinda sent me away from all social media except Substack and Reddit. It’s only going to get worse as AI gets smarter. I have a small business which means I have to create content, but it’s not fun like it used to be. I could write a post about why social media sucks now haha! Maybe we should make MySpace cool again.
I could be wrong, but I thought fair use meant, for example, that a book that has been out for one hundred years or more like Alice in Wonderland, could be used without a license. The picture I took of my daughter yesterday certainly doesn’t qualify. I wish we had more control over our data.
I plan to vote with my wallet, which has proven to be, time and time again, to be the most powerful tool I have, which is sad in itself. Music, films, and the arts are too important to our culture. I understand why AI is a useful tool, but where the line is drawn is what has me worried. Legalized theft is insanity. Do as I say not as I do, is getting really old.
There are 3 things a visual artist can do to protect their work. First, dump using Meta and X, who are scraping the images that are loaded to their apps. Second, on your artist's portfolio website, install a Robots.txt and ai.txt file that blocks the AI scraping bots. Please note that Adobe Portfolio websites don't give you this option to block AI bot scraping. Third, use the app "glaze" to protect your work. This app embeds data into and image that renders you image unusable to AI. If anyone needs more info on the Robots.txt, AI.txt setup or the app Glaze, please feel free to reach out to me.
You can also register your work free of charge on credtent.org. This will allow you to opt out and be part of the list that Credtent sends to these companies on a regular basis. Credtent audits these companies to make sure that they are respecting opt out request. You also have the option to license your work so that you can be paid if your work is indeed being used and you approve of that. Credtent is a public benefit corporation that returns 85% of licensing revenue back to creative people whose work is licensed.
Excellent information! I was not aware of this. I’ll have to add it to the post I created.
Do you have a post for the robots.txt and ai.txt i read something before that it can't reject all . For chatgpt it has to be inputted as well. Thanks
The ai.txt is the fallback. I just made a post where you can download copies of the files I use along with a short guide and a link to the Glaze app. https://www.erflynncomics.com/p/block-the-ai-bots
Thank you for the helpful info, E.R.’s. 😊
This is why we need a universal basic income along with universal healthcare, childcare, paid leave and guaranteed housing. Humans are the only species who require money to survive on this planet and we were all forced on this planet due to other people's decisions into a socio-economic system we never agreed to beforehand. If they want to have these abilities, they should be making sure Humans are able to actually survive, even though we should make sure we are all thriving.
And who hands out UBI or make sure it is fair or not abused? Harari is morally and totally wrong
I have no clue what Harari is, but do you even recognize that we were all forced on this planet due to other people's decisions into a socio-economic system we never agreed to beforehand? Also, do you realize this capitalist hellscape system is made up, fucked up, and should be dismantled/recreated to benefit everyone? If not, we're in completely different fights and I have no desire to engage with people who aren't fighting to prevent people from unaliving themselves for how difficult life can be for them when they never asked to be here. Apparently, you don't understand how people that make more money can either be taxed or not give a shit considering how the elitist predatory class preys on others just because they are privileged enough to do so.
Thinking about it daily
Where did they mention Harari?
Nowhere but it is connected to Ubi
We could all be connected to a UBI how cool would that be! Unless youre expecting a tragedy of the commons or something? Im not hating on ya man. I agree it would inevitably be abused. Just like everything people manage. Imagine if we were governed by an outside intelligence? Like a kind of artificial but still cognizant force thats incapable of mistakes. Haaa yeah you get it. Sorry ill stop. Back to my wage slave position in life. I wish that prior attempt was a success.. but you know what they say "if first you fuck up, then i donno, im thinking arbys"
only if those were small 120-ppl froup communities perhaps. Districts within city and sp on until on scale of nations, continents, world. Small self-gov nodes.
Maybe we need Peokect Venus but not sure...
Some argue UBI is just another wealth transfer scheme and is part of the fascist accelerationist playbook
What scares me isn’t just that AI is being trained on our work without consent it’s that the systems being built are training us back too. To be more predictable. More aligned with the dataset. Endless feedback loop powering into a funnel...
I saw this quote in "Human Compatible" that basically said everyone thinks algorithms figure out what you like and give it to you. But actually they work by making you more predictable then showing you they wanted to show you anyways. Basically they purposely try to make you dumber for the sake of advertisement. Really made me rethink my relationship with socials.
Thank you Joe I'm sick and tired of hearing about AI just another money grab her thank you for explaining everything you rock! From someone who's worked 45 years and lives on 1K a month for rent utilities food and everything else. I'm glad I can read this without having to pay since sub stack is going towards pay subscribers only and all I have left is Blue sky and that will be it.
Nailed it, Joe. It’s not just about content theft—it’s about how that theft fuels a broader power grab. I broke this down in PLAINTXT//DECODED:
AI isn’t intelligence—it’s automated control, built on our unpaid labor. If we don’t expose the narrative now, they’ll rewrite reality with our voices, against our interests. 🙌🏻💙🌱https://plaintxtdecoded.substack.com/p/ai-is-automated-intelligencea-tool?r=1wv5f5
Very good points!
My fear is though, since Art is a catalysts for social change and thereby a threat to the power of an autocrat that the current government will thereby rule in favor of the companies, because it is then easier to control the "art" generated by bots than it is to control the Art coming from humans.
So of all the times we as a society could have had this conversation, right now are the worst conditions.
This is a very thoughtful post. Thank you. I am a state worker in California and my agency is working on implementing AI. Using AI for state government would save a lot of money because a lot of those routine tasks can be done a lot faster. There is a lot of repetition in the tasks we do for state government but then also, there will always need to be a human involved because inevitably bad information will be provided at one point that needs to be vetted/confirmed. I work in government contracting and if bad information is provided, it would be really annoying to have an AI model takeover and try to do my work for me. It would just create a huge mess to sort through later. 😂 I would love for there to be a tool like this so programs developing contracts can quickly have something to start with and then they can modify for their needs. We get a lot of poorly written contracts that then take a lot of time on our end to fix. Sometimes grammarly has some really wonky recommendations. We actually do not use that in our work.
With that said, I think it's absolutely disgusting the theft I see when it comes to creative content. There are even people out there who call themselves AI artists. I actually got tricked one time where I found this artist on Facebook and I thought her stuff was really amazing. She did not say that she creates her images with AI but she mentioned in a comment on one of her posts that her "artwork" is AI. This is someone that has a bustling Etsy shop. It was a real turn-off for me.
I've never been a creative person professionally but there was a time when I had a little Etsy shop (2011-2013) that featured photography from my travels in pendants. It didn't take long for another shop in China to copy my products exactly and to sell them for 1/4 the price. Eventually I got frustrated and closed my shop. This is happening on a much larger scale now with AI.
Adding that a huge challenge in AI for government is making sure our confidential information does not end up in the system for others to see
Joe, Capitalism has ALWAYS STOLEN OUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY . . . That is the American system, and it's flawed. very flawed. Think about the movie about the guy that invented the intermittent windshield wiper, or the movie about mcdonalds - business's have been stealing their employees innovations and then making themselves seem way more talented than they really are - elon musk for example (i love that i can say that my school friend took his last job at pay pal)
It certainly seems that if artists can be paid per-stream for songs, that the capability exists to trace back content to its original creator and royalties paid as their content is accessed by AI tools.
As a writer, I am frustrated greatly by the mere thought of the words I've toiled over being scraped by a bot and spit out... not only for the financial implications, but for the *soul* implications. That's my life story out there. That's my experiences, my horrors and traumas and victories and celebrations... without my story attached to it, what is it? It lacks the soul that human beings give it.
As a mother, I'd also like to add... I've worked as a freelancer writer, making pittance, while being at home raising my children. I sacrificed that income, as well as those deposits into my Social Security (which may be a moot point anyway), to ensure my kids are responsible, ethical, kind, and compassionate citizens. A universal basic income would have saved our family untold financial difficulties.
When we work down through the layers here, money has to be part of the discussion... because it's an unavoidable part of our struggle. As American families struggle more and more to just survive, less and less art, writing, and music will be created as we will have to go to some menial low-paying job just to make it. It isn't selfish or boorish to talk about the finances here; it's absolutely imperative.
You can also register your work free of charge on credtent.org. This will allow you to opt out and be part of the list that Credtent sends to these companies on a regular basis. Credtent audits these companies to make sure that they are respecting opt out requests. You also have the option to license your work so that you can be paid if your work is indeed being used and you approve of that. Credtent is a public benefit corporation that returns 85% of licensing revenue back to creative people whose work is licensed.
A well written exposition regarding technology and its intrusion into our lives, often invited by our desire to communicate with family and friends. What is dark and mysterious is the tracking of our spending habits (Amazon), internet searches (Google), and contact lists (Apple, Samsung).
I am a retired computer scientist, who started when Hollerith code on punched cards was fading away. The software industry grew so very rapidly requiring a Herculean effort just to stay informed and capable of code writing.
As a cinephile, I recall Kubrick’s “2001.”
As a computer scientist, AI is soulless; it’s a googolplex of little bit switches turning on and off in nanosecond slices of time. The result of which is that we must consider what the nature of intelligence means? We have not spent much time examining the nature of consciousness; that oneness, that animating spirit unifying all life.
Finally, we are destroying our living environment in microbursts of carbon monoxide. The pursuit of money seems to blind many to the actual realities we live day to day. Artificial indeed. Intelligent? I think not.
Fully agree. But how would we redistribute the money? If there was a tax on profits made from generative AI it would be completely impossible to track the contribution of living or dead people in the training data. To me the only viable option seems to fund UBI for everyone from the proceeds of an AI tax.
Credtent.org handles this work. We are experts in content valuation and have already built a system to be able to handle this kind of distribution. Come register your work free of charge and we will either opt you out of AI or license your work so you can earn subscription income when your work is used. Credtent is also a B Corp, which means 85% of the money earned from licensing is returned to creators. Credtent is on your side.
Awesome, thoughtful post!
Please preach it louder and louder.
Ok I came in and was worried about where this was headed and I am so glad this wasn’t an “AI is the devil Bobby Boucher” moment I can’t argue that people should be paid for their work. I can’t wait for the day that humans don’t need to do the hard/dangerous work anymore because ai is doing it for us, but until then we need to treat other like humans and make sure they are provided for.
Hiring a lawyer is expensive and impossible when you're abroad the US. This makes no new situation, and I think I saw "myself", with "my" voice, in a vintage tv series named The Tycoon. It was in the chapter South The Border, even with my name and nationality.
Now! What can I do?!!
You can also register your work free of charge on credtent.org. This will allow you to opt out and be part of the list that Credtent sends to these companies on a regular basis. Credtent audits these companies to make sure that they are respecting opt out requests. You also have the option to license your work so that you can be paid if your work is indeed being used and you approve of that. Credtent is a public benefit corporation that returns 85% of licensing revenue back to creative people whose work is licensed.
Hi, so happy I found you here, I used to follow you on Twitter. There’s very little social media I can stand these days, mainly due to AI. It’s becoming harder and harder to tell what’s real, and that has kinda sent me away from all social media except Substack and Reddit. It’s only going to get worse as AI gets smarter. I have a small business which means I have to create content, but it’s not fun like it used to be. I could write a post about why social media sucks now haha! Maybe we should make MySpace cool again.
I could be wrong, but I thought fair use meant, for example, that a book that has been out for one hundred years or more like Alice in Wonderland, could be used without a license. The picture I took of my daughter yesterday certainly doesn’t qualify. I wish we had more control over our data.
I plan to vote with my wallet, which has proven to be, time and time again, to be the most powerful tool I have, which is sad in itself. Music, films, and the arts are too important to our culture. I understand why AI is a useful tool, but where the line is drawn is what has me worried. Legalized theft is insanity. Do as I say not as I do, is getting really old.