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4chan users manipulate AI tools to unleash torrent of racist images

arstechnica.com

61–70 of 88 posts

Re: 4chan users manipulate AI tools to unleash torrent of racist images

#61
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or that's what they want you to believe - because obviously that's more lolz. Though maybe there's some that actually are, because of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1012082 Ask yourself why an actual racist without any intention to cause chaos would engage in this behavior though. It's clearly intended to offend and get a reaction - that's the main goal. Whether it's done by actual racists is secondary.

> It's clearly intended to offend and get a reaction - that's the main goal. Whether it's done by actual racists is secondary. No, you're completely off the mark here. It's done because they feel these things deep down and can't talk about them with people in real life to avoid being ostracized by what few friends they have left (or maybe they're super popular, I don't know). Yes, perhaps the _absolute_ most extreme…

[flagged]

Re: 4chan users manipulate AI tools to unleash torrent of racist images

#62

The cost of freedom is people using that freedom in ways you find distasteful. We are all better off with uncensored unaligned systems because it allows us the widest and freest expression.

Yep. No one should care what generative AI can produce, much as we shouldn't require airnail manufacturers to be responsible for how how people use or misuse their products. If DALL-E were used to make neo-Nazi posters or to promote an insurrection, the responsibility lies with the causive person(s), not with the tools they happened to use, i.e., their internet provider, Adobe Photoshop, or OpenAI. Even in the extrem…

Creating an aligned diffusion model is like trying to create an aligned axe. At the end of the day it's just a dumb tool with no real understanding. It doesn't have the ability to be "aligned".

Re: 4chan users manipulate AI tools to unleash torrent of racist images

#63
post #2

gijames1225 said: I'm a little curious as to why this is even an article. It's inevitable and has no bearing on 99.99999% of people. I get that it's low hanging fruit from a reporting / research perspective (sort of like the 'Twitter users blah blah blah' articles), but outside of the 'publish or die' mindset of churning out content this is pointless and continues to make 4-chan and these people seem much more releva…

> It's inevitable and has no bearing on 99.99999% of people. I dunno about that . 4chan memes and attitudes have diffused out into wider US politics. Not that I disagree with the jist of it. "Oh no, internet dwellers are posting something horrible... I am shocked!"

> 4chan memes and attitudes have diffused out into wider US politics.

Keyword _have_. 4chan hasn't been culturally relevant for like a decade.

Re: 4chan users manipulate AI tools to unleash torrent of racist images

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 4chan users who spam racist garbage, not because they are racist, but because they want to create chaos and are fishing for a reaction, get a reaction. No one spams racist garbage despite not being racists because they want to create chaos and are fishing for a reaction. Now, its true, that people who are racist and also attention seekers might be motivated more by the latter than the former in doing that, but that…

> No one spams racist garbage despite not being racists because they want to create chaos and are fishing for a reaction. That's a bold statement and clearly untrue. A boatload of people gets their kicks out of pretending to hold any number of offensive views just to get a rise out of people online. When I was a dumb 16 year old that was one of my favorite past times. Only works on people who don't believe anyone wou…

The naive idea that a layer of irony is 100% insulating is the issue. I'm glad that you stopped before it stuck.

But I refer you to "Popehat's law of goats". He who spams racist garbage...

Re: 4chan users manipulate AI tools to unleash torrent of racist images

#65
post #16

In today's news: 4chan users who spam racist garbage, not because they are racist, but because they want to create chaos and are fishing for a reaction, get a reaction. This is like writing newspaper articles about toilet graffiti. You're making the artist's day.

I know it brings you comfort to think they're just doing it for the lolz but unfortunately the reality is that a good chunk of them actually believe those things.

> (...) but unfortunately the reality is that a good chunk of them actually believe those things.

I'm sure that a good chunk of people who hang out on Facebook and Reddit also believe in those things, but that somehow never leads to blanket accusations targeting everyone with a Facebook of Reddit account.

Re: 4chan users manipulate AI tools to unleash torrent of racist images

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one spams racist garbage despite not being racists because they want to create chaos and are fishing for a reaction. That's a bold statement and clearly untrue. A boatload of people gets their kicks out of pretending to hold any number of offensive views just to get a rise out of people online. When I was a dumb 16 year old that was one of my favorite past times. Only works on people who don't believe anyone wou…

But do they really not hold those views? I know a lot of kids who do things to get a reaction, but I've seen one actually take an ideological perspective that they don't believe in to get one. They just broadcast ideological perspectives they do believe, which they think will get a reaction. What's some belief you pretended to have, but you really didn't?

When I was young I could entertain myself by arguing for the flat earth theory. I never for a second believed it to be true. I simply found it entertaining to frustrate people with stupid opinions. I dont know why I found this entertaining, and I dont know why I changed when I got older. Perhaps I hadn't fully developed my empathy at that young age, so I didn't see frustration in others as something bad. But this is just speculation. The only thing I know for certain is what I actually did, which was to pretend to hold stupid opinions.

Re: 4chan users manipulate AI tools to unleash torrent of racist images

#67
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or that's what they want you to believe - because obviously that's more lolz. Though maybe there's some that actually are, because of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1012082 Ask yourself why an actual racist without any intention to cause chaos would engage in this behavior though. It's clearly intended to offend and get a reaction - that's the main goal. Whether it's done by actual racists is secondary.

> It's clearly intended to offend and get a reaction - that's the main goal. Whether it's done by actual racists is secondary. No, you're completely off the mark here. It's done because they feel these things deep down and can't talk about them with people in real life to avoid being ostracized by what few friends they have left (or maybe they're super popular, I don't know). Yes, perhaps the _absolute_ most extreme…

>Don't you think doing it for a joke would have gotten old by now?

It would if it didn't keep getting results, like we see with the above news article.

Re: 4chan users manipulate AI tools to unleash torrent of racist images

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 4chan users who spam racist garbage, not because they are racist, but because they want to create chaos and are fishing for a reaction, get a reaction. No one spams racist garbage despite not being racists because they want to create chaos and are fishing for a reaction. Now, its true, that people who are racist and also attention seekers might be motivated more by the latter than the former in doing that, but that…

> No one spams racist garbage despite not being racists because they want to create chaos and are fishing for a reaction. That's a bold statement and clearly untrue. A boatload of people gets their kicks out of pretending to hold any number of offensive views just to get a rise out of people online. When I was a dumb 16 year old that was one of my favorite past times. Only works on people who don't believe anyone wou…

People have forgotten the age-old 4chan wisdom "Don't feed the trolls"

Re: 4chan users manipulate AI tools to unleash torrent of racist images

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one spams racist garbage despite not being racists because they want to create chaos and are fishing for a reaction. That's a bold statement and clearly untrue. A boatload of people gets their kicks out of pretending to hold any number of offensive views just to get a rise out of people online. When I was a dumb 16 year old that was one of my favorite past times. Only works on people who don't believe anyone wou…

The naive idea that a layer of irony is 100% insulating is the issue. I'm glad that you stopped before it stuck. But I refer you to "Popehat's law of goats". He who spams racist garbage...

Is there a law for people that nonsensically repeat stuff they read once in a comment online?

Re: 4chan users manipulate AI tools to unleash torrent of racist images

#70

Revisted 4chan the other day for the first time in years and it was awash in anti-semitic shit. Caricatures of jews with red eyes. It was interesting to see some of the threads taken over by AI generated cats killing nazis so the 4chan silliness was still there.

4chan is a large community of different boards. Which one did you visit and see that stuff on?

/pol/
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