The fediverse used to feel pretty anti-ai, but over the past month or two I’ve noticed a LOT of generated memes and images, and they tend to have positive votes.
Has there been a sudden culture shift here? Or is there a substantial percentage of people just unable to tell the difference anymore?
What’s the issue with that one in particular? Isn’t the entire point of a meme just whether it’s funny or not?
I mean, they’re low effort and unoriginal to begin with. The AI isn’t really changing anything about that.
I feel like memes is one of the few places where AI doesn’t hurt anyone at all.
It’s annoying that people are downvoting you just for asking an honest question. I think the anti-ai sentiment is strong enough that in many communities, people just oppose it in any context. The arguments I usually see against using ai are:
All are real concerns, but I agree that making memes should be an effectively harmless use of it even if you otherwise oppose it. 1 and 3 aren’t really applicable to your average meme. 2 could apply depending on how you measure it, but most of the cost of ai is from training, not generation. For someone using the tool and not developing it, that training is a sunk cost they are not responsible for. I’ve seen estimates that you can generate about 9 images with the energy it takes to fully charge a phone. I think that’s more than worth it if you share it with a few other people to enjoy.