So all the buzz in my industry is about AI and its potential impact on the work force and the use of images posted on the web. I personally have no website or social media nor do I post images of my work anywhere…except for here.
The questions I have are as follows:
Is there currently any protections within the site to prevent AI from scraping images off the forum.
If there is not , is there any intention to do so?
Is it even possible to do so?
Is there any interest in doing so?
I do think its important to share images in the community to show not only troubleshooting examples but also to demonstrate how we all use Rhino and offer tips, tricks and improvements by showing examples. As AI continues to expand and infuse itself into our daily lives I think its important to ask these questions early on.
If there is no interest or no one else shares this concern thats fine, I just want to have a sense of what the community and those at McNeel think of this.
Seems unlikely, as this is a public forum which anyone can read without creating a login… So I don’t see any way to prevent bots from vacuuming up all the images (as well as all other info) from here.
It can’t be expected I guess that McNeel can do anything, and I bet the data have already been harvested from here.
In reality, as AI is the current hip thing to do, I’d imagine there are incredibly aggressive strategies to harass image data from other people’s forums.
So many privacy policies have alreay been adjusted. Discourse as a piece of software has plugins specifically for AI use. I’d think it simply cannot be avoided by either policy or obfuscation. The former is irrelevant (good luck suing OpenAI/Google), and the latter requires continuous image modifications.
At least there is two type of scraping, one bot will view the website same as our eyes Or better! and the next one don’t load page frame just scraping through loaded html.
No shield for the first one but you can ask host to replace requested image from second bot with a gray square.
Don’t waste time for disabling bot.
I’m genuinely disappointed to see that a primary focus for many is the impact of AI on the workforce. I view artificial intelligence as an inevitable technological advancement that has the potential to democratize specialized skills, making them accessible to the average person. The capabilities of AI as demonstrated by platforms like OpenAI or SD are truly remarkable and offer a glimpse into a future where information and assistance are readily available to all.
As we look to the future its crucial to ensure that the growth of this technology is not unduly restricted. Limiting its development would likely benefit only those who already hold power, rather than serving the broader public interest. And that is my only fear. Sadly I think that the propaganda machine will ensure order is enstablished, story as old as men.
One has a tendency to imagine, as with many of the other “miracle” technological tools we use every day such as search engines, social media, etc. that these tools were created by benevolent companies for the benefit of humanity. That is patently false – although humanity certainly benefits from them (in certain aspects), the main reason for the existence of these tools is to make money for their creators.
The technology in itself is neither good nor bad, it is just technology. What is good or bad is the uses humans put the technology to. If one uses social media as an example, it is an incredible medium for exchanging information worldwide and in real time. But depending on the source and intentions it can be either good - getting a message out to the public, real-time coverage of happening events, showcasing creators work etc. - or horrible – fake news, political influencing, mobbing campaigns, etc.
AI will be more of the same and amplified. But remember that all that scraping is still principally designed to scrape money into the pockets of the people that create and control the technology.
If I look at how social media has transformed our society, I am not optimistic about the uses for AI.
I perfectly agree with you on every level, with AI, it’s the same story but on steroids. I’m also a bit wary about where it’s all heading, especially when the bottom line often trumps ethical concerns. Knowledge is power, but it’s a power that can be used for good or bad. We’ve got some serious thinking to do about how we handle it, what I know is that if we cap it, we’ll only be gate keeping ourselves.
Most likely you are right, sadly I share your skepticism.
Well, it doesn’t matter what you post. If its valuable it will be misused. People have used my pictures, models and code snippets from blog posts and added their watermarks to them. This pi**** me off. But it is like it is. You don’t need a scraper and ai for that. You have no chance to fight it. Therefore its simple, don’t publish something of value. Better, see the knowledge to create the data as the true value to protect. And to maintain this ability, care about your physical and mental health!
Just an observation: one of the most popular questions on this forum is of the form “How can I copy this XYZ?”, frequently with no acknowledgement to the original creator. The machines are just being programmed to do what people do, only more efficiently.
And that’s not necessarily illegal or considered problematic at all, depending on the context.
Anyway, with these systems a)you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube, and b)the way they work, they are not literally just copying, they ‘learn’ very much the way we do, and are ‘inspired’ very much the way we are by everything we’ve ever seen or done, so trying to legally establish that activity is some sort of illegal copying is…not going to be easy or necessarily a good idea.
Nothing should require you to post protect-worthy/real work. I have never done this, often I would have done so to prove my point. But you can definitely contribute to the community, without doing so. It would even say it is better to isolate a problem and remove all the unnecessary information. If you are honest about it, sharing your professional work with the community might be more related to your ego, than to the spirit of contribution. At least for me this was often the case.
Thank you everyone for the great feedback. As always this community delivers. Its good to see the wide range of thoughts and feelings about this subject.
