It only works until Mickey Mouse shows up on your Tiktok feed lynching an African American and doing a sieg heil salute. Are you sure Disney wants that or would not care about that??
There are clearly plenty of people who feel the same way as you, and for those people what I’m about to ask might have such an obvious answer that it could feel like I’m being rhetorical or feigning ignorance to provoke an emotional response, but it’s truly honest:
Why should Disney care?
To which you might say “because people care”, so:
Why should people care?
Back when I was a spud I used futuristic text-to-speech synthesis to make my computer say “Eye am Bill Gaytes my farts go FERT FERT FERT” - Should Bill Gates be offended? What about the people who like him? What about the Intel processor I used to create it? Or the company behind the TTS software? Would anyone think they’re involved and endorsed it? I guess the real question is: are we catering the world to people who can’t make that distinction?
People care because it's entirely unconscious. Even if you choose not to care, you can't, because you've already seen it.
The way advertisement works is that it's brain hacking - it's just associations. Over time your brain associates a brand with a product or products, and then simply by having this association in your brain you're more likely to buy the product.
This also works for negative advertisement.
Think about it. Suppose you did see mickey mouse saluting Hitler, or maybe you saw mickey mouse stick a jar up his little rat ass.
When you see mickey mouse, undoubtedly, even if just for a second, your mind will think about what you saw before. You might discount it immediately, but the damage is done. You still feel that emotion, even if only for a split second, and you have been influenced by it.
Appropriate example, more than some may realize. Walt Disney and Adolf Hitler were good friends. Walt would send him a real of cartoons every month. Adolf and his senior leaders would watch it at the resort in the Alps. One may still be able to find the silent films that one of his mistresses filmed showing them watching cartoons on the projector with his senior leaders. Adolf was big into art and appreciated the work Disney created. There was a project about 15 or so years ago to use computing power to figure out what Adolf was saying based on his muscle movements since she was filming from behind him at an angle. I can't remember what the project was called. I saw it on a TV program.
The advertising mechanism you outlined proves too much. Every parody, every satirical cartoon, every unflattering depiction creates profit risking associations? The idea that negative association might originate from AI generated Mickey doing something vile does not seem categorically distinct from the hand drawn rule 34 that has existed for decades, or from South Park episodes, or from bathroom stall drawings. Memories, sure, but I’m not sure the details of the studies support the idea that seeing childish or satirical works that are obviously not created or supported by the IP holder will have that kind of negative cognitive association. Actual acts done by the company, or willing associations with unsavory acts - absolutely. But there’s a wide distinction between taking a cartoon episode out of syndication because Epstein was a guest character voice, and fretting over a 3rd grader typing “Daffy but with boobs and stuff” into photoshop-o-matic.com. The question is whether fleeting cognitive residue constitutes actionable damage or simply the background noise of living among other minds who create things.
Kids making their computers say profane things about famous people or even making crude jokes at the expense of the disabled themselves created “negative associations” with the technology, and potentially with the companies producing it (if the effect is somehow unaffected by context), but the developers did not restrict access and blind people gained a tool that fundamentally altered their ability to navigate the world.
Now? Parents of a terminally ill child who cannot afford a trip could place their daughter in a photo with Elsa. Therapists working with autistic children who connect only with specific Disney characters could generate personalized social stories and visual supports. Teachers in underfunded schools could create engaging materials without licensing fees. Placing a real person alongside Mickey Mouse, or just making a Disney character give a thumbs up and “Happy Birthday, Billy”, required Disney's permission, professional artistic skill, and significant money. That gatekeeping is dissolving and I can’t imagine the positive impact it could have in people’s lives…apparently assuming Billy doesn’t get access to the prompt input first and ruin it for everyone.
This used to be a "zing", but don't think it is anymore. Try to make a new profile somewhere and select a few topics of interest. You will get suggested the most engaging "relevant" content. For me, I made a cycling Instagram and my feed instantly got filled with girls showing of cleavage in lycra with cycling hashtags.
...have you ever thought about the way you're using the app, then? Because I, personally, get nothing else other than dumb memes and posts from people I follow.
Look, I've gotten cartel beheadings and beatings on a YouTube search query for Jack Russell terriers.
Don't throw shade. If you haven't gotten "How the fuck did that get there?", consider yourself lucky I guess. Best I can figure, terriers have some unintentional shared vector space with much more unpleasant content.
This is a good point. Instead of policing what trolls will use it for, the same AI should be able to detect racist content and prevent it from spreading
