Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

Post by theodric » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:36 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #62

theodric wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either you make money in China until the Chinese clone your tech and undercut you, or you don't make that money and they eventually clone and undercut anyway. Might as well enjoy the boost for a few months. I don't like that we're self-censoring in the West in a way that furthers the ends and whims of authoritarian regimes, but hey, it's only business...

> you make money in China until the Chinese clone your tech and undercut you, or you don't make that money and they eventually clone and undercut anyway Or you stand by something and innovate, while using Beijing trying to clone your tech as reason for Congress giving you an unfair advantage. Holz has chosen his side. I’m now in favour of unfairly advantaging his competition.

Post by adolph » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:40 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #259

mindcandy wrote: post #74

Everyone is crying Corporate Greed in here. And, I can understand why. But, here’s another perspective based on listening to David Holz answer all kinds of questions from random users for four hours a week for over a year during Midjourney’s “Office Hours”. AFAICT, Midjourney has no shareholders and David Holz is the farthest thing from a slick CEO. He’s a big dreamer hippie dork. He made all the money he cares to ha…

> teams tries to stay out of it. There is no "staying out of" politics or just "remaining neutral" on topics (edit: the context here is "when doing business with the one of the belligerents of a conflict, an oppressive regime and so on. Not universally). Not taking a stand for one side in a two sided topic means taking the other side. Either you are pro gay rights or against it. Or you are pro democracy or against it…

Post by nickthegreek » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:41 PM UTC

malaya_zemlya wrote: post #243

not-chatgpt wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there an actual source for that or are you just here to complain about Stable Diffusion users flooding your Twitter with AI waifus? If David is such a "big dreamer hippie dork," he should: 1. either open source the model or at least make it cheaper ($8/month for just 200 images is ridiculous) and 2. not bow down to dictators, or just stay out of political subjects completely.

It's 200 fast mode images and an unlimited number of images in relax mode, which is only slightly slower.

Post by krisoft » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:42 PM UTC

WiSaGaN wrote: post #182

hyperpape wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't believe how often I see this sentiment, and how nonsensical it is. We're private citizens, nothing prevents us from criticizing them for a wide variety of reasons. If you want to restrict yourself and ignore everything except the literal function of the product, you're free to do that, but you can't argue everyone else has to do the same. Or is your argument that we have some kind of social responsibility to ju…

No one is preventing you from criticizing them. I am just saying that criticism from the standpoint of free speech or sovereignty is inconsistent with the idea that you can satirize whatever or whoever you want.

Post by throwaway4good » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:49 PM UTC

himinlomax wrote: post #256

throwaway4good wrote: post #104

I am not going to defend Chinese censorship - I think it is way overdone and a huge waste of resources but all companies operating in China must uphold this regime and pay the cost associated with it. However all countries have laws and norms governing satire and free speech. For example the Mohammed cartoons (deliberately drawn to trigger a reaction / discussion of free speech and censorship): https://en.m.wikipedia…

Many countries have laws against homosexual displays of affection, so by that logic, Midjourney should remove any LGBT content.