Today Anthropic joins the Blender Development Fund as corporate sponsor.

[Gast]

@Blender hey what the fuck?

[Gast]

@Blender I almost choked on my köttfärssås.

WHAT?!?!

[Gast]

@WeirdWriter @Blender - which by the way leaves us with two options: Either nobody gave a single thought to what the kind of people who use Blender would think about a move like this, or they did & said "Fuck the users, we're doing this!"...

[Gast]

@fsiddi that the blood money is ‘a donation’ is not the ethical panacea you seem to think it is.

[Gast]

bad @Blender@mastodon.social !
sprays @Blender@mastodon.social with the waterspraybottle

[Gast]

@noondlyt @Compassionatecrab Wait — did Firefox’s pro-AI management team take over Blender?

[Gast]

@fsiddi You understand you are helping them accomplish *something* right?

Anthropic isn’t a neutral party. You understand this, yes?

Stop trying to pretend this is a financial transaction that occurs in a vacuum. We’re not idiots, and neither are you.

[Gast]

@brhfl @Blender If AI enters the Blender arena then I won't, and I was about to. I'll wait.

[Gast]

@Blender This is really disappointing and really seems like you do not value artists. AI is horrible for the environment and I'd love to see Blender take a principled stance against it.

[Gast]

@fsiddi @desttinghim you're correct, criticizing a company that proudly boasts about bankrupting your entire user base isn't going to help anyone.

[Gast]

@Blender

Maybe "Blender" should be renamed "Digger" because what we have here is a case study in making a bad mistake and digging in and burying yourself.

The "controversial nature of the membership" was the problem, not the wording, if that helps.

[Gast]

@Blender

Welp, alright then.

[Gast]

@Blender Well, that answers the question of whether or not I should try Blender. I'll stick to software that doesn't steal from me or wreck the environment.

[Gast]

@Blender hey y'all, don't say tone deaf. Just not a good look.

[Gast]

@Blender fucked it, lads.

[Gast]

@Mimesatwork @Blender
I guess you can just use old versions of Blender from before they filled the program with unwanted privacy destroying bloatware

good job Blender, you threw away all the good will in the world

[Gast]

@Blender New Right now, for Blender, a community of artists who often see all sorts of ethical issues in AI, for obvious reasons, as Ton has pointed out many times, and with the newer, younger management, this choice definitely looks controversial. It’s a bit like a charity that helps crime victims taking money from Al Capone. I get the guidelines, but this is more of an ethical matter. That said, AI also has positive sides and won’t be able to be ignored forever.

[Gast]

@fsiddi @art_codesmith This is nothing. This feedback from users is really just a fraction of what's warranted given what an egregious breach of trust this announcement is.

Horrible decision. Horrible optics. Horrible sponsor.

In all seriousness, anyone involved in approving this should draft public apologies and either leave or be booted from the project.

[Gast]

@Blender My disappointment is inexorable

[Gast]

@Blender Could Blender still maintain its mission while Anthropic is a corporate sponsor? The scale of Anthropic and its nature as a corporation make me feel uneasy, sadly.