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A coffee shop owner used AI to make a menu poster. Then came the angry DMs

82 points · 316 comments · TMWNN

  1. tolerance · · focus · HN ↗
    > Then came a threat. An account with a much larger following DM'd her and told her to take down the sign, or they would post about it to their local artist community. The person offered to help her find an artist to pay to make a new sign, or else they would post about it.

    > They gave her a day to "think about it."

    When this is sort of behavior that the "good guys" advance then it's hard not to expect a "bad guy" with money to show up on the scene and thwart it.

    1. ratelimitsteve · · focus · HN ↗
      why is talking about this with their community a threat?
      1. jrflowers · · focus · HN ↗
        It literally is not. You can maybe phrase it to sort of sound like a threat but “I’m going to share your public ad” is never a threat. It’s like if you angrily yell “I’m going to come to a complete stop at this upcoming stop sign!” in a threatening voice and then do that, it wasn’t a threat. Great. That’s what the sign is for. That’s what everyone wants you to do.
        1. orangedog · · focus · HN ↗
          In the context of how it was done, saying that they would give them a list of people and a day to think it over, it really is a threat, it's a kind of extortion.
          1. jrflowers · · focus · HN ↗
            It is worth pointing out that the article doesn’t even imply that the business suffered any negative outcome here (ie damage or loss of sales etc.) It also doesn’t implied that the person threatened that the business might suffer any negative outcome, just that they would talk about the ad that the business made and put out for people to see and share.

            This article is very careful not to actually elaborate on what the “threat” might’ve meant because I’d imagine that baselessly speculating out loud about what they imagine it could be would open them up to getting sued.

            It’s all just uwu smol bean coffee shop chiropractor bullied by mean anti-ai mob dreck

            1. throw2836463 · · focus · HN ↗
              Search for "but at what cost" and you'll see news companies do it all the time.

              You'll find these ridiculous headlines like, "Company cures cancer, but at what cost."

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