> David seems to think that since ridiculing politicians in China is taboo, having people ridicule Xi on MJ would make it unwelcoming to people in China.
It's taboo because a dictator forbids it. The people have nothing to do with it
It's taboo because a dictator forbids it. The people have nothing to do with it
Just because it's illegal doesn't mean it wouldn't also be culturally unacceptable and alienating.
There are are similar laws that involve depictions of The Buddha, monks etc here that would fall into the same category. I imagine this is less contentious for Western observers because religion is often a protected class in Western nations too.
The idea of the head of state being immune to criticism however hits a political sore spot however and triggers these sorts of standoff views.
I just feel this sort of nuance is lost on primarily American audiences. The world isn't homogenous and at least here in Thailand values are significantly different for better or worse.
I think this isn't quite the right word. "Off-putting", perhaps? It doesn't exclude anyone.
So why not reduce functionality in the foreign versions and allow the rest of the world to have this functionality?
In the case of MidJourney the output is in Discord for all to see. Setting community standards like no-porn is about creating a space where the most possible people will feel welcome. I would like to think a policy of "no disrespectful imagery" of legally-protected deities or figures wouldn't be that burdensome as a whole. It also helps to avoid drama. There is probably places that such drama would be a welcome addition but I get the feeling MidJourney is not one of those places.
I'm not saying we should bake such constraints into the models, that I think is in poor taste and unnecessary. If people can run the model on their own machine where the output is private to them they should be allowed to generate whatever they want and they can post that in venues where that sort of content is acceptable.
But when images are emitted into a public shared space I do think some rules on what is and isn't appropriate are fair game. At the end of the day it's meant to be an AI art community that is about the fusion of technology and creativity. It's not setup to be a place for political discourse.
Cultural my ass. It is as political as it gets. Just do a search on Lèse-majesté in Thailand. Here is one from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A8se-majest%C3%A9_in_Thai...