My completely biased take for which I will cite no sources is that the language barrier allowed Asian fan communities to avoid the corpo-led (Disney et al., surreptitiously through social media-based surrogates) astroturf campaign against genAI (that they don't control). Asian social media doesn't care because the normal human reaction is to not care, and the intense and overwrought negative reaction here was one that had to be specifically cultivated via bad-faith arguments put forward by people with conflicts of interest who leveraged their cults of personality to shut down and marginalize opposition.
Yes, there are no legitimate concerns about genAI, all opposition is just astroturfing that was artificially propped up by famous anti-AI companies like Disney (seen falling head over heels to partner with OpenAI less than a year ago). It has nothing to do with apocalyptic messaging that was fostered by AI companies themselves here in the West, or the culture that dictates that people are to be declared useless and discarded the moment the quality-per-dollar ratio of something made by automation surpasses theirs. It may not be good, but damn is it cheap compared to having a worker!
I'm well aware of the labor issues, and agree that the use of AI to displace workers is fraught at best, easily transcending to a sort of banal evil under common circumstances.
3) The problem isn't that people have reasonable, rational, and principled stands against how the AI industry has developed. It's that there are also irrational and unreasonable takes that end in, "Literally kill anyone tainted by genAI," and that the vociferous and zealous nature of this opposition is driven in part by fearmongers with links to corporate interests who happily use homespun AI (just don't call it that!); or who are, at the very least, protecting their own economic moat without being up-front that their opposition is largely self-interested (as was the case with anti-AI's direct antecedent, anti-crypto).
I've seen too many real artists crucified by "real artists" and their sycophants for experimenting with or working into their practice these tools.
It does not read as a principled stand, but a tantrum. You can compare the reaction of such artists to that of mathematicians, who were hit not merely with a nebulous sense that the big AI companies were doing them dirty, or enabling others to do so, but an actual verifiable instance of one platform stealing their work and attempting to publish it in official channels without attribution. They are angry, they are doing some soul-searching, but they are not excommunicating AI users or calling for their heads.
Conversely, I've been heartened by the rise of anti-data center activism, because it means that people are actually doing something productive towards the ends they profess a desire for, rather than just bitching and witch-hunting online.
But wait, how can someone who is defending AI usage be happy to see data center projects fail? Could there be actual nuance to their perspective? Life has many doors, Ed-boy.
