A piece of culture, a piece of politics #4
The Better Alternatives to AI-Generated Images & Why Trump Wants to Demolish Them
While the internet is flooded with disinformation and misinformation, this newsletter aims to bring you verified facts and explore—with a bird’s-eye view—the forces that make you say, “Damn, this world’s gone crazy.”
*This newsletter is written by a real human being.
A piece of culture: The alternatives to AI generated images
As you get more and more addicted to AI generating unique images for you, and mimicking every piece of tormented soul of an artist that someone once had, I go back to the source.
You see, AI models work like this - they scan the web, “read” any content available, and mimic it to create something new.
As their animation style went viral last month, Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki responded saying AI-generated art as an “insult to life itself.”1
Their claims of violation of copyright seems legit to me. it becomes harder for us humans to detect whether an illustration is authentic or AI generated, seems that the more technology evolves, the easier it is for them to pass the Turing Test.
Frankly, I don’t like images that look like something, but has no touch of original soul in them. Sometimes we can sense the lack of “soul”, without counting the fingers of a human in a picture, sometimes we can feel something is off, but we can’t really pin point what it is.
With the issue of copyright violation the AI companies found a solution, a very simple one - they went to public domain and common access images to train their models on.
The Creative Commons Organization is an international organization that promotes the preservation and free distribution of international knowledge and culture.
They regulate and standardize the CC license which allows copyright arrangement to art and academic content.
You’ll recognize images marked as CC02, or “public domain”, or “ open access”. These marking implies the related content have no private copyright, which means they are basically, free for any type use without need of credit.
This means you can download, modify and publish an image, as you wish, for any purpose, even commercially, without permission, without paying anyone, without reporting to anyone.
Just use it.
And here’s where you’ll find them-
A piece of politics: Why Trump is defunding IMLS
Ironically, it was the Republicans who launched the IMLS in 1996 as an organization that would empower America’s museums, libraries, and related institutions through grant making, research, and funding. Over $200 million annually is invested nationwide in various initiatives. IMLS supports literacy programs, cultural preservation, and—most relevant for this essay—digital resources. Many of the major public domain image databases listed above are directly supported by IMLS grants3.
Cutting funds for the IMLS is not an impulsive decision by the Trump administration, but a planned one.
shows a systematic attack on science and culture by the Trump administration4.Authoritarian repression and narrative control go hand in hand. Cutting funds for institutions that promote independent thought and a critical approach resonates with the cultural hegemony theory portrayed by Guriev & Treisman (2019)5. By defunding libraries and museums, the leading party can erase inconvenient histories and rewrite collective memory. Moreover, authoritarian regimes force reliance and obedience to state-approved narratives.
Trump’s tactics are not new in the past decade.
Similar approaches executed in Hungary by Viktor Orbán6—when attacking and defunding George Soros’s Central European University.
A similar situation happened in Israel, where the Ministry of Culture redirected qualifications for grants to include an obligation for filmmakers not to criticize in any way the government, the IDF, or the state regime in the West Bank and actions in Gaza7.
It’s the end of the world.
Don’t waste time doomscrolling and consuming bullshit.
Eat well, walk enough steps a day, travel as much as you can, be a tourist in your own hometown.
Call your loved ones, forgive your parents.
If you like my writings, you’re welcome to show it 👇🏻
