Today Anthropic joins the Blender Development Fund as corporate sponsor.

[Gast]

@fsiddi

You find it "intense".

Imagine how blender users felt, when they find out that you took blood money. Doesn't matter if it is / was a single donation.

You were naive, to say the least, thinking it will be taken like other past patrons.

We are into an AI war for survival. Either you like it, believe it, or not. When this bubble explodes, and it will do, is taking a chunk of global economy with it.

I'm even more ashamed to find out in a toot from someone else, you are accepting code reviewed or generated with AI. 🤮

https://mastodon.social/@mrmasterkeyboard/116483286991823696

Other #FLOSS projects did a stance on not accepting this #AISlop, because they know it does not work. What it is worse it polutes the source code with code that Anthropic could claim as "theirs" in the future.

What crossed your mind to take a decision that will stain Blender and the Blender Foundation forever? Even if you reject it now.

[Gast]

@Blender

of course.

[Gast]

@Blender still tone deaf here. Read the room.

[Gast]

@ChocoDrawing @Blender I mean, not to be rude, but have you literally ever donated to blender yourself? I'm just saying, statistically the chance is very low, and these things do need funding.

As far as I can tell by their blogpost this is just about API expansions which will be welcome for anyone who writes scripts that interact with blender.

(also just to nitpick, AFAIK was Anthropic the one who said 'no' to US defense contracts, and OpenAI jumped on that opportunity instead)

[Gast]

@Blender Ugh, seriously? Are you really _that_ desperate for cash? 🤮

[Gast]

@0x4d6165 @Blender have you donated to blender yet?

[Gast]

@Blender
Too late Blender, you look shady as hell right now unfortunately...

[Gast]

@Blender

[Gast]

@gruni

Yeah and how much is that company worth these days? yeah it should have been 11.5 billion, not onepointfive.

FFS.

[Gast]

@fsiddi
Q1: Of all of the previous corporate sponsors that Blender has accepted, is there one that is of the same or greater magnitude, or as controversial or socially devisive as that of Anthropic?
Q2: Are you now aware, through this onslaght of scathing comments, that this may be the most polarizing and detrimental agreement Blender has ever decided to put on paper?
Q3: And furthermore, have you weighed how much of a CEO Hero you would be if this all just 'went away' and the Blender community (both now and future) perceived you as doing the right thing and looked for more ethically and morally centered corporate sponsers?
Thanks for taking questions. This is an important open-community process.

[Gast]

@0x4d6165 @Blender there's no deal with the devil, blender is not getting worse, they are receiving money from literally every big tech company on the block, but with anthropic suddenly it's all too much and blender is a bad guy now

you are kicking the shins of your allies to have a quip about AI, and for what? so they can't siphon money out of the AI industry back to the artists?

[Gast]

@Blender You know these guys murder children right?

[ghostonthehalfshell@masto.ai]

@Blender

Take their money. Dump their commits.

For the love of god don't destroy blender with Anthropic code. The LAST thing I want is the world's most useful tool compromising my system and identity.

[Gast]

@annika ratheon? Halliburton....

[Gast]

@0x4d6165 @Blender Anthropic was the one who said No to the US defense department, you are probably thinking of OpenAI. But whatever floats your boat

[Gast]

@Blender

I realize that this is just "accepting" money from Anthropic, with the implication (especially given your Funding Policy) that Anthropic won't get to dictate anything about Blender development.

It still looks EXTREMELY BAD to your userbase who, in a large number of cases (myself among them), are vehemently opposed to generative AI, and are specifically learning to do our own art as a to Anthropic and their fellow purveyors of genAI technology.

Is their money really worth it?

[Gast]

@Blender Think about it again – you’re on the wrong track

[ghostonthehalfshell@masto.ai]

@Blender

Perhaps understandably the Blender foundation doesn't provide an online contact mechanism like email or form but physical address.

I think I would be speaking for men here and saying it's fine for Anthropic to throw pocket chain your way, but where the user base will have a problem is comes from any software that might be committed to the code base + QA tests.

The central problem with AI code generation is its well-deserved reputation for generating unreadable spaghetti.

1/2

[Gast]

@0x4d6165 Okay- Touche, but it's still very onesided to be upset about Anthropic while not being upset about any of the others.

99.9% of the blender users (actual numbers) do not donate. They're not new to big tech. I frankly don't see the problem, unless you want to completely defund Blender.

[Gast]

@Blender
Yikes