Second Life's Gen AI Controversy Leads to Drama Over Banning of AI-Altered Images on Primfeed -- And This Primfeed Survey

Primfeed recently became the most popular website focused on Second Life not owned by Linden Lab, and so inevitably, the "Flickr-for-SL" social platform is now a flashpoint for the key controversy among SLers: Whether AI programs like LLM-powered NPCs like those from Convai and Gen AI platforms like Midjourney should exist in the virtual world at all. The drama around the platform's current "no AI images" policy became so heated, owner Luke Rowley posted this survey, asking:  

Do you think Primfeed should allow AI edited Second Life images in the Public Gallery?

Launched earlier this week and running for 11 more days, it's already garnered nearly 2,000 votes -- about 10% of Primfeed's weekly active users. (Which is quite a lot for online surveys, which typically get less than 5% engagement.)

This survey comes after hundreds of angry posts, many on other social networks (of course), complaining to Luke about Primfeed's no-AI policy -- one of them from a top SL content creator. (Who perhaps not coincidentally, used Gen AI in a recent promotional video.) Luke even created new code to make a poll on Primfeed like this possible, he tells me:

 

"I wish people would reach out to me asking for explanations instead of reading what other people say in the comments, extrapolating and often, modify what I want to say or mean," he tells me. "I've always been super transparent about the choices around Primfeed and what's also why I do the Primfeed Community Meetings. The next one is on the 6th of April." Poll results, at least, are difficult to misconstrue.

So far the survey is running heavily in the "no AI" category, but that might change over time. Anyway, the results may or may not impact Primfeed policies in the future:

"The poll doesn’t mean that nothing will change," as Luke puts it, "but I will be looking into things to make [Primfeed] work for everyone." 

Personally I think just requiring an "AI-Enhanced" tag would solve the problem, especially if people could also select some kind of "Don't show me AI-Enhanced images" option which sorted them all out. Then again, post-processing in Photoshop and other image editors are commonly used and accepted by the SL community, and those platforms include features that could broadly be called "AI" so... it's one of those controversies that opens up other nested controversies.

Where do you stand on the question, and why?

Comments

[Kate Nova]

I agree that allowing AI images and tagging them as such is fine. I don't need to have AI images banned, even though I personally dislike them.

What AI images mean in First Life is its own question. For me, in Second Life, they take me out of the experience. I guess AI users feel they look "better" (mutant fingers and other small details notwithstanding) but to me they look "Not SL".

Certainly lots of SL-photographers including me buy newer and better skins and bodies/heads over the years. We do a little or a lot in Photoshop. Yes, slippery slopes everywhere. Still, an SL image, even touched up and Photoshop ubersaturated still looks like SL avatars. My photo still looks like me.

What I don't like about the "pretty" AI-SL pix is that my image doesn't look like me. The AI-art-bots aren't trained on SL avatar images, they're trained on First Life fleshvatars. When you AI process an SL image it becomes more FL-looking than SL-looking. This isn't "evil" or "wrong". But for me, it's just not SL.

[Lee McKay]

People need to immediately learn the difference between AI and Photoshop. I'm seeing "that's AI" referring to ANY alteration of a picture, and it's getting ridiculous.

[Jennifer Fluffington]

We need to define more what is considered 'AI' to be allowed in the public forum. i.e. I use photoshop generative AI to make minor repairs that would take me 5-6 steps and layers to do in one click. Am I lazy? I don't think so, I being smart with my time spent on a project that I am making pennies on the hour for. Yes I enjoy my craft, but lets face it, we all have limited time in a day and many things to do, so if I can shave 15-20 mins off 3 different defects on a project that almost an hour saved in my day. So, because of those repairs that don't alter the overall aesthetic of the photos, are my photos going to be rejected from the public forum? This is a discussion we need.

[Peter Stindberg]

SL has always been about the social part, and SL content creation has always been about the skill part (with a mostly level playing field, so you can up-skill over time).

Generative AI has no place in either. GenAI is by definition antisocial. Every minute I talk to a robot, I don't talk to a human.

GenAI is by definition also unskilled. I don't hone and refine any of my own skills by letting GenAI do the heavy lifting. And for my area - scripting - I see an increasing amount of vibe-code posted to forums, where GenAI messed up and the "scripter" is now asking for help to get it fixed.

It has its uses, but those are grossly overhyped. When I get a new class of students, in literally the first course we go over the Gartner Hype Cycle (google it). The Hype Cycle has 5 phases for new technology: the innovation trigger, the peak of inflated expectations, the trough of disillusionment, the slope of enlightenment and the plateau of productivity. From what I experience daily in RL and SL, GenAI is rapidly sliding down the trough of disillusionment, but people coming late to the party are still climbing the peak of inflated expectations.

GenAI is here to stay, no doubt about it. But we have not found a way to deal with it yet. And right now, business decisions seem to be taken on the peak of inflated expectations, and mostly by fear of missing out, and by accumulating technical debt due to replacing skill (and its associated cost) with vibe.

[J Mohegan]

AI is extremely harmful to our (already) climate crisis. The amount of water, rare minerals and materials it takes to make and run those servers is fucking atrocious. On top of that AI needs to learn to work - where is it learn to enhance images? Other artists work that's UNPAID! Look at what's been happening with the Studio Ghibli AI craze, Hayao Miyazaki has condemned the practice because it stole the images to create the AI. It's stealing hard working artists style for lazy ppl who don't give a shit about learning a new skill. The ppl saying that AI should be allowed are lazy, probably wealthy and taking skilled work away from ppl who are starving artists. Yes I'm generalizing, but the majority of ppl I know who use is...are that.

[sirhc desantis]

Interesting responses and yes that is quite a number of votes.
From ser Stindberg that is a yes and from ser McKay (hi Lee!) very much. Ser Nova as well. Ser Fluffy needs better time management though.
Only other place I have seen this is on itch (caveat - I make circa 20 euros a week off that which fulfills my '6pack and a pack of smokes' return on fun - amazing how apk's sell but hey) where flagging stuff as 'AI' has been voluntary for a while. And the kickback has been - minimal. As most do not. Horses for courses natch.

Can't say much as I stuffed up my prim feed application =^^=