Welcome Anthropic as a Corporate Patron sponsor of the Blender Foundation’s Development Fund! This support will be dedicated towards general Blender core development. More details at https://www.blender.org/press/anthropic-joins-the-blender-development-fund-as-corporate-patron/
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We hear your concerns around how Blender relates to AI topics.
Here is an update regarding upcoming Blender Development Fund and AI Policies: https://www.blender.org/news/upcoming-blender-development-fund-and-ai-policies/
Write this down and remember it:
"Blender is a tool for artists and creators, it’s made by humans for humans. No generative AI functionality is currently available or planned to be integrated in Blender."
We shall see how it holds up.
From reading the comments seems like there are still questions.
Is generative AI code used or permitted to be used in Blender development?
Are integrations between Blender and AI companies permitted?
Are Ai companies going to be able to train their models on Blender user's content?
@mastodonmigration I'm sorry that I keep being critical about this, but I really feel like I have to point out that these questions hardly make sense
> Is generative AI code used or permitted to be used in Blender development?
It's impossibile to determine for sure whether a PR contains AI generated code. Any big FOSS project will contain AI generated code pretty soon, regardless of it's policy.
> Are integrations between Blender and AI companies permitted?
Blender exposes an Python (1/2)
API, it seems absurd to me that Blender would police who can use the API. I doubt it's even possible.
> Are Ai companies going to be able to train their models on Blender user's content?
If models are publicly available then it probably already happened. If not, then obviously not. How would a donation change anything here?
@mastodonmigration @Blender For second qn, early in 2022 someone created a Stable Diffusion plugin for Blender and you could generate stuff (I think it was only textures). I toyed with it for a few days (I believe like every other artist checking out the new fad) but eventually removed it. (This was on user end, though. Not development. But someone could fork blender and use AI..)
For the third question BF has no control over user content, or even access to it unless the users send it to them.
@Blender I want to say I appreciate how difficult & scary this would've been to walk back. Thank you for that!
@Blender A turn in the right direction, but you need to walk that path all the way. You're still taking money from an AI company that's helping destroy the internet, our culture, and the environment. That's not acceptable. Not even once.
@Blender Disappointing to read, not only as someone that taught Blender in several countries, broadly promoting it as a cultural good way back when the project was still building its audience.
Please understand there are no companies as culturally parasitic and destructive as Anthropic. It would be less ethically bankrupt to take money from a gangster.
It is painfully foolish to pretend this is anything akin to sponsorship.
@Blender This going how you thought?
@Blender I don't begrudge any FOSS org from shaking pennies out of corporate couch cushions so to speak to keep the lights on, *but there's something real ick* about taking money from a source that is hellbent on destroying FOSS communities—and worst, allowing their slop to enter your codebase. 🤢
@Blender perhaps not
@Blender blender has been the biggest success story in FOSS since Linux. Why do this? Are there no actual artists or creators involved in these decisions?
Anthropic is also significantly involved with war and violence. Does the project accept those kind of sponsors now?
I feel like accepting this sponsorship is going to have knock on effects for the project that go much further than the size of the cheque you’ll get - you’re damaging trust, not just with the users ( not that the project leadership cares about what users/artists think, clearly ) but with devs and the people who contribute to the project. They’re not dumb, and they don’t have to donate their time if they don’t feel the project deserves it
> In these uncertain and divisive times, we appreciate Anthropic offering support to the Blender project [...]
I wanted to write some thoughtful reply to that, but you know what..
Simply, fuck off.
@Blender so sorry to hear about the collapse of this project. Wishing you all the best in your future endeavours.
@Blender Uh so, you are taking money from a company that enables war crimes, destroys our planet, destroys our society and steals from the very ppl that made blender successful, the art community?
No matter how it's "worded", this should be declined and Antropic be told to… to put it politely to just go away. So if Palantir comes waving with money, you'd accept that as well?
@Blender Just please don't add AI slop into Blender
It may not be tomorrow but, yeah...
All right, Francesco here - CEO at Blender. I'm going to spend some time to try and respond. If you have direct questions or comments, reply here!
Why take corporate money? Why take THIS corporate money? Why not throw this out to the Blender community at large and include them in this decision BEFORE accepting this money? The complete disregard for user's very valid concerns with regard to AI and especially Anthropic AI money in a beloved FOSS project is insulting in the current world. How could you not foresee the blowback?
@noondlyt Blender has accepted a lot of corporate funding over the years. In the press release we try to make it clear that this donation will be used at Blender's discretion, but the origin of the donation is very much not appreciated ideed.
And this is how they benefit. This was the trade off. No one wants this except Anthropic.
@fsiddi sure, I'll bite.
1). Did you do any market research whatsoever before deciding to tank your reputation?
2). Are you planning to use Claude to draft your resignation letter in light of how badly you screwed up?
I definitely got some negative feedback , comparable to past corporate memberships. Which is normal, and once clarifying that this is just a donation, there was understanding.
@fsiddi @titania Just a donation, right? RIGHT?
So I guess this announcement from today is completely unrelated:
@fsiddi
1. Why even accept donations from a company that isn't profitable?
2. How come you didn't realize the PR disaster?
@Blender this is a big fail. Really deeply disappointed in Blender as a project and organization for taking blood money like this.
Note: partially reworded the social media announcement so it sounds less tone-deaf about the controversial nature of the membership.
@Blender It's not the announcement, that's tone-deaf. It's the actual acceptance of dirty money by a bad actor that's tone-deaf.
Just in case you forgot: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y4jpg922qo
They paid $1.5bn because they were IRREFUTABLY CAUGHT PIRATING.
@Blender Didn't reword the whitewashing paean to the corporation on your website, though. You'd whitewash anyone.
Pathetic.
@Blender even if this does not give anthropic any control over blender, the messaging is tone deaf, especially on the fediverse. If you're going to accept money from a company as toxic as Anthropic, the announcement needs to at the very least critique them, not blandly heap praise for the donation. Community trust is hard to win and easy to lose, so I would think hard about the message this post is sending to your community.
@desttinghim I try to keep messaging consistent and not cater to specific audiences. That would be misleading. Criticizing Anthropic is not going to help, what we actually do with the funding matters.
@fsiddi @desttinghim you're correct, criticizing a company that proudly boasts about bankrupting your entire user base isn't going to help anyone.
@Blender no, it's not welcome :/
Nein.
Non.
No.
Nah.
Niet.
Make sure to check out the full message on https://www.blender.org/press/anthropic-joins-the-blender-development-fund-as-corporate-patron/ and the funding policy at https://fund.blender.org/funding-policy/ to get the complete picture.
@Blender I'm looking for the rationale for whitewashing a horrific conpany while helping to super-heat the world, but I'm not seeing it. Help me out here?
@Blender I have read both and I still don't understand why Blender is accepting financial dependence on a corporation that is actively destroying the open web with scraping, fueling the ongoing slop contribution denial of service attack against foss maintainers, is a major player in the industry that is actively harming digital artists, and numerous other harms; nor do I understand how you expect us not to be angry and heartbroken by this news. Perhaps you could explain it to us.
@Blender This is a company whose technology is actively being used to bomb people randomly. This is one of the companies fueling the demand for overproduction of data centers, which in turn is bringing coal plants back online to meet the electricity demands. They have done so much harm to everybody in this world, I don't think we are going to be able to fully heal from it for decades.
@Blender *everybody* in your mentions right now has been harmed by anthropic. *you* the human being reading this post has been harmed by anthropic.
@Blender Anthropic is a defense contractor and works with the US Government and Palantir to do some absolutely horrific shit. Claude Code was recently used to bomb a little girl's school.
That's just the tip of the ice berg. Anthropic is a really horrible company with no ethics:
@Blender you guys... I have been financially supporting you for like 15 years, and I help run the SLC Blender User Group to promote free and open tools for everyone. Reading this breaks my heart. As an artist who's art has been stolen by this plagiarism machine, and as a coder who's code has been stolen by this plagiarism machine, this feels like a pretty hard slap in the face. Your community doesn't want you taking dirty money like this from unethical tech bros. Please reconsider.
@Blender to expand a little on the wave of disappointed replies you're seeing, genAI has been a scourge within a huge range of artist communities for the past few years. on balance it has made the lives of a large % of visual artists worse, has been used as justification to pay them less or not at all - despite being trained on their work without their permission.
the boosters are loud and very well-funded. please instead listen to your community.
@mastodonmigration @Blender Blender is completely inaccessible BTW. Too busy taking the war money.
