Reid Southen

I wanted to provide a thread here of some of the things I've been involved with in the fight against unethical generative AI for easy reference, starting with my work with @GaryMarcus.bsky.social. Our article shows irrefutable evidence of blatant plagiarism 🧵 spectrum.ieee.org/midjourney-c...

We really fucked up by not embracing land yachts in the 1700's.

I want it to be autumn forever.

We found what appears to be a piece of Confederate money underneath the stairs in our basement, I think it might have been nest material for a mouse, lol.

I was on the ArtistsZone podcast last month alongside artist and attorney Stephanie Drawdy to talk AI and artists, and some of the legal stuff going on. I meant to share it sooner, but here it is now if you're interested! artistszone.net/understandin...

What is it about capitalism that is turning literally every store into versions of TJ Maxx.

To all the people who are anti-shit sandwich, I have one question: If shit sandwiches disappeared tomorrow, could you still get through an entire day without a nugget, berry, or any other remnant? Imagine shit sandwiches were suddenly banned. Would you actually be willing to give it up?

New: Police in Wisconsin used Flock to create a pretext to search a man's car for weed. Their justification? He drove from Wisconsin to Michigan, a “known source state for marijuana as it is legal there,” and Flock showed he "travels to Michigan frequently." www.404media.co/cops-used-fl...

Daaaamn. “AI is the asbestos we're shovelling into the walls of our technological society. Our descendants will spend generations digging it out again, and the longer the bubble goes on without popping, the longer it will take to repair the damage." www.thenerve.news/p/cory-docto...

We get birds hitting our windows sometimes, but today was something new. A full grown turkey slammed into our kitchen window, lol. I looked outside and she was fine, but startled, and there were something like 8 little turkey fledglings darting around. We have a humming bird friend now too.

We've been throwing corn out to our squirrels, it's so funny watching them run around trying to stash the cobs.

The Luddites are having a moment (again): they're being discussed and rehabbed everywhere from NPR to US Catholics Magazine to Psychology Today. So, adapted from my book on the subject, here's a short-ish rundown of what you need to know to understand the Luddites in the age of AI.

You would never sit down and eat two full sized potatoes while watching a movie, but turn them into chips, and it's just a little snaaack.

The entirety of Disclosure Day I was thinking about how it would've killed if it were adapted as the third and final X-Files movie.

Somewhat of an update, they're doing well it seems!

There is a bill in California that would allow creators to look under the hood of AI training datasets to see if their work was being used, but it needs your support - please sign this petition, it’ll take you 2 minutes: tinyurl.com/4uxbp963 (video credit hitrecordjoe on IG) 1/

What a ghoul she turned out to be.

Potentially huge? Google held liable for AI hallucinations in a German court. I.e. if google AI tells you to glue rocks to your pizza, they are responsible. the-decoder.com/landmark-ger...

If you want AI companies to have to divulge their training data, sign this!

🔥 Sign sign sign! This is for the AI transparency bill that would require AI companies to divulge their training data. It keeps clearing hurdles, help it clear the last few! Anyone can sign it, go go go!

Hey... I uh... I'll be speaking at ICON13 in July on the mainstage! I pulled an all nighter delivering my slides where I had to reduce it from 140 to 95, so you HAVE to go, it's only fair.

Some people treat social media like a human search engine. Instead of spending 8 seconds on Google, they'll ask easily verifiable things to strangers. It's like asking someone else to pull out their phone and tell you the time when you're already on your phone. Just wasting everyone's time & energy.

If you can make it there, I promise you it makes a difference!

I'm probing an AI image model right now for infringing material, and it's doing things I've never seen before in a way that I think proves the compression argument beyond a shadow of a doubt. I'm honestly gobsmacked.

I haven't shared my Alien: Earth work yet, but I was digging through an old folder and found a really early rough render from when I was concepting the ship crash. This was 5 years ago now if you can believe it. Will get around to sharing more soon!

Anyone who's used Da Vinci Resolve can see that he's quite literally touched nothing here in the color workspace. It's kind of like taking a picture of a cockpit at an airshow, and then telling everyone you were flying the plane. AI "filmmaking" is such a LARP.

A message from Mary, a 72-year-old Amazon worker from North Carolina projected onto Jeff Bezos’s $120 million penthouse before tonight’s #MetGala, chaired by Bezos.

had a wonderful time talking to @bcmerchant.bsky.social about why and how people destroy surveillance & AI instrastructure as political and economic protest: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z4k...

I very much enjoyed this discussion about the growing AI resistance and the destruction of surveillance infrastructure with my good friend Jason

One thing that really bugs me is people who go, "AI is here, I don't like it either, but we have to adapt," and then they gleefully post AI stuff. Yeah, you sound really cut up and conflicted about it.

My partner is playing some game on her phone and goes, "I hit the early middle ages," and I go, "Yeah you have," to zing her, but hurt my own feelings because she's only a few weeks older than me.

If you're looking to get your portfolio off of ArtStation, @atmovfx.bsky.social has a new tool that allows you to essentially import your gallery automatically to ATMO. It's a great site for professional environment artists or inspiration, check it out if you haven't already! www.atmovfx.com

Muttering, "Just one night of good sleep and I'll be back to normal," every day until you die.

Our smallest cat just brought me a whole roll of paper towel as a gift. Two nights ago it was a Prismacolor marker. By next week it could be a piece of furniture.

A selection of shots animated by Kim Kyeongbae for Scavengers Reign (2023), created by Joe Bennett and Charles Huettner, Titmouse

This song kicks ass and the video is a real treat if you love movies, too cool.

Before AI, artists used prompts to engage their own imaginations, to plant a seed and run with their own creativity. Now, prompts are something you feed into a machine so it can imagine and create FOR you. Sadly, many people don't see the difference.

I made a papercraft just for this

An unaccounted for part of the economy is how much young people virulently hate AI, despite how aggressively it's being forced on them. They realize it's making their friends dumber and ruining the world and they want nothing to do with it. From the Penn student paper: www.thedp.com/article/2026...

The fever broke already, which is quite the surprise. I think it only lasted a day to a day and a half. Feeling loads better, what a relief.

Spent last night uncontrollably shaking and oscillating between freezing and boiling and wishing I was dead. Took a test today, it's baby's first Covid!