A Note on AI and Tumblr
Due to the news that Automattic (the owner of Tumblr) is going to allow OpenAI and Midjourney to scrape data from Tumblr blogs, I'm pausing The Picture Game until there's a full picture of what's going on.
I have opted out of having this blog used for AI training purposes explicitly, though it's unclear if that is a total solution given how reblogs work (see Mastodon posts from a former employee here, here, and here).
Bottom line is that everyone should opt out of the AI training. Unless every single Tumblr user does, things are still very thorny.
This blog was never meant to harm the artists and photographers whose work I add. For original posts, I credit every artist/photographer if I know who they are and link back to them or the artwork whenever possible. I try to only reblog posts that do the same. With this new AI deal, I'm worried that I've inadvertently added to the problem of theft and copyright infringement given that Tumblr only today added the opt out button for AI training. I hope not.
Until I know the best path for moving forward, there won't be any new posts here. Said best path may be moving this blog elsewhere, though where might be safe from AI scraping is a true cause for concern.
I'll keep you updated.
