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Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

blender.org

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Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#101

Post by panzi »

shevy-java wrote: post #8

I have mixed feeling about this. Guess they can need the money ... but still. Data goes to Anthropic here. It also will buy influence in some ways, I am sure about that. We could see this with rubygems.org - when shopify threatened to cut funding some months ago, suddenly chaos erupted. Money buys influence, this is easy to see how.

No data goes to Anthropic from Blender. At all. See also: https://fund.blender.org/funding-policy/

And Blender tries to get funding from many different donors so that no single one can have any sway over them. Anthropic, as disgusting as they are, are just one more donor. Epic, Nvidia, Google, CoreWeave are also patrons. I don't worry about that donation.

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#102

Post by jonas21 »

bakugo wrote: post #56
bicx wrote: post #43

Not sure why this is getting backlash. Just look at https://fund.blender.org . Other corporate sponsors are Google, Meta, Nvidia, Netflix, even Adidas. This just means more support for a major OSS project.

A lot of those companies likely sponsor it because they use it themselves, and actively benefit from its continued development. The incentives are at least somewhat aligned. I doubt Anthropic has much use for such a tool internally. They're sponsoring it because they want to inject their slop into it and replace the people who do use it.

Or perhaps they're sponsoring it so artists can spend less time fiddling with Blender's UI and more time creating art?

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#104

Post by mossTechnician »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #88
Raed667 wrote: post #10

> improve foundational features like the Blender Python API, which enables developers and artists alike So they want claude to be able to talk to blender

We (I) need that. "Some software" is approaching levels of complexity where, perhaps, it gets to a point where a human is barely able to even use it. At the same time (brave new world) LLM assisted software opens up the possibility of levels of complexity we would not have considered before.

I disagree that anyone should need LLMs for Blender, for example, because Blender is designed by people to be understood and used by people, even if it requires a learning curve. It sounds a bit dangerous to build new things we don't understand, or worse, reduce our understanding of what we currently use because (only after studying our use of the same technology) an LLM apears able to replicate it, mostly.

I'm reminded of Sam Altman's performative helplessness on Jimmy Kimmel, when he described being unable believe a baby without ChatGPT. That's something I believe humanity has been capable of doing for a good portion of its existence, and not something we should give up to the hands of a yet-unproven, yet-unprofitable technology.

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#105

Post by RobRivera »

Raed667 wrote: post #10

> improve foundational features like the Blender Python API, which enables developers and artists alike So they want claude to be able to talk to blender

Frankly, I love the idea of an automation engine printing out tangible works. I actually build spritesheets that way! Load a bunch of individual gimp files as layers, set them offset by a given parameter, and boom, done!

Would be rad to incorporate some statistical procedurally generated designs based on my own aparatus.

What I do not want to see is this realm of LLMs hijacking decades of hard work and consideration for integration channels to more tailor towards their LLMs, not for the diligent engineer.

If they want to put their tentacles as far as they want while making products more difficult to work with innovation of a different color, they are making enemies out of, at least me.

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#106

Post by bicx »

slopinthebag wrote: post #93
NitpickLawyer wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're sponsoring it because they want to inject their slop into it and replace the people who do use it. Oh, noes, the horrors of democratising access to an expert tool. What will onshape do now, that the free one is accessible to oom more regular people that could use a 3d shape but don't have the time to learn a very complicated yet powerful tool? I guess people have said the same about game engines / coding to…

It's not democratising access to an expert tool, it's devaluing the skill, expertise, and hard work required to create art. edit: I seem to be rate limited and unable to reply? I'll paste it here: I'm sorry but I don't agree. People care about art when it is extraordinary, in the same way people watch professional sport because it is extraordinary, or they watch cooking shows because it's extraordinary. What you call…

Sorry, this is not a good argument. It's sad that some skills are devalued when so many have invested years into them, but it is a net win when more people can create something without having to become an expert. Experts don't deserve to have a moat built around them. I say this as a software engineer with 16yoe who is dealing with the same challenges.

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#107

Post by PoorRustDev »

augment_me wrote: post #95
dsign wrote: post #40

Can you imagine going to a football match and second-guessing which are the players who look human, but skin-deep are actually androids made at a factory? This is what it feels like with music and literature right now with so much AI. There are some pockets where you still can say "that's human-made", like 3D-rendered feature films with some particular artistic direction. That, it seems, AI companies also want it to…

No-one cares dude. People like good enough, convenient things that serve their entertainment needs, which is shaped by said entertainment, so there is not really an issue here.

“No one cares” except for all the people bringing up that they care.

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#109

Post by panzi »

unshavedyak wrote: post #100
muhuk wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they should have, it does not align with their community. Could they have denied, I am not sure about the legalities. Money is good. But not antagonizing your community (as an open source project) is better.

Shame that we have to choose between better financing of Blender for features we already want (Python API quality) and placating imo overly dramatic artists.

I think the worries of artists over gen AI are valid. I guess all the better that some of the money of those "not yet" profitable AI companies goes to a good open source project and not to some of their usual practices.
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