Where we stand on AI
We often get asked about AI scraping and policies so I’m making this post to answer some of these questions!
Just a reminder that No AI is used in the writing of these posts – you’re hearing from us directly 😊
Our stance
We do not agree with the way that AI is implemented across the world today, particularly social and creative spaces. We will do our best to implement available protections and will not exploit user data and content like so many other platforms.
We hope to see more regulation and reliable protective technologies emerging in this space.
We are pro human.
As such, we do not permit AI content on Jouzt and will not use AI to exploit your content (more below).
Our promise to you
Our promise is that we won’t scrape your data, sell your data, train AI on your data or exploit your data. As a user of Jouzt, you put your trust in us and we value that highly. On Jouzt, you are not the product, you make the platform.
On what we are doing to protect our users from external threats
We would be lying if we said we had some magical technology that is guaranteed to prevent your content from being stolen or scraped. The truth is that currently, no one does.
We protect images by ensuring they are not downloadable (unless you want them to be. E.g. for references that you want people to be able to download and Jouzt). We also secure image URL’s and have implemented bot blockers at a CDN level.
But whether you’re posting on Jouzt, or anywhere else, someone motivated enough could dedicate the time and resources to finding a way to get their scrape on. It’s happened many times with other platforms that also put in protections.
The simple fact is, if your content is somewhere, it’s always a possibility.
We are aware of Glaze and Nightshade and are keeping an eye on them as possible integrations. But there are a few things making us wait:
- They do not guarantee protection of your work and there are mixed reviews on their effectiveness.
- The cost is significant for us to integrate these external technologies and given point 1, it hasn’t made sense to invest in them.
- Using these or other tech that accesses or augments your content is something we would prefer our users decide on themselves.
- AI is advancing quickly and it’s still early. Investing too early in integrations that AI has a high chance to surpass would be silly right now.
That said, we encourage users to research Glaze and Nightshade and other alternatives and protect their art in whatever ways they feel comfortable with before posting their work anywhere, not just on Jouzt. This should be treated like the decision to watermark your work.
On what we are doing to identify, remove and block AI content
With around 2000 users on Jouzt, we are luckily still in a position where we can handle manual moderation. We have only had a few users attempt to pass AI art as real which were caught by our mods, and/or reported by users and quickly dealt with.
AI art still has a lot of tells and our art community are good at picking these up. You can also inspect the profiles making them, as well as their advertised socials, to identify if you’re looking at a real artist/musician/etc or someone fake. If you see a suspicious post we encourage you to report it. Post that have been flagged by multiple users will have a flag icon while we reach out to the owner to prove authenticity.
We hope to see more technologies that reliably identify AI content emerging as we grow. If we can get to a point where we can explore and invest in creating these technologies ourselves, we are likely to. In the meantime, we are keeping an eye out and will implement whatever we can for extra protections.
For now, our biggest protection against AI is a strong culture that supports human creativity. We aren’t on the frontlines of the AI battle for now. Instead, we are offering a safer alternative. Our preference is to leave the AI vs Anti-AI fight on the other platforms and create a separate “utopia” for those who want a space without it. As a Jouzt user you’re welcome to use AI, we just ask you not to post it on Jouzt to avoid going to Jouzt jail.
Watch this space
This is an ongoing and ever evolving topic throughout the world. The next few years will be interesting. We hope more people find and support this space because we believe we can build something truly beautiful. As always thank you for being an early part of it.
