One of the founders (Francis Pettygrove) was originally from Portland Maine, and the other was from Boston. They both wanted to name the new city after their hometown.
It’s entirely possible that part of Pettygrove why wanted to name it after his hometown is because he thought it would be fitting for river port city. But idk if he ever stated anything to that effect.
Nope, the name was decided with coin flip. Lol Could ended up as Boston.
I honestly find it fascinating that you view artists as the “rich kid narcissists” in comparison to AI proponents as more of an everyman. My personal experience is those the most engaged in AI stuff are college educated, often in STEM fields, silicon valley with money types, whereas the generally the working artists I know come from middle income or poor backgrounds. I don’t say this trying to attack you, or invalidate your experience, I’m genuinely curious. Would you be willing to elaborate on why you view them this way?
Because AI bros love the smell of their own farts and they get off by convincing other people that they should also smell their farts. (Only partly /s)
But more seriously, I’d say it’s just a symptom of the world we live in where there is tremendous pressure to commodify and commercialize everything in the most “efficient” way possible, including creativity.
I think Lemmy’s general demographic skews towards techy early-adopters and lots of STEM background folks and it shows with topics like this. I’m not saying that’s a negative thing, just that it’s the vibe here.
Art is just such a broad topic, it gets messy. Plus I think the verbage around discussing it isn’t as universally defined as in other topics. It doesn’t always fit neatly into categories and boxes that can make it harder to have nuanced discussions.
I think many people are able to make a distinction between the technology companies and the technology. However in this particular discussion…how many companies are there actually offering smart glasses as a product to consumers? I’d argue as far as the general public is concerned the answer is only Meta right now. A company with a HORRIBLE reputation in regards to privacy. That makes it more theoretical in separating the idea of what smart glasses could be versus the reality of what they currently are. And right now, to me, smart glasses, particularly Meta’s glasses feels like a product with SO many privacy issues that I would question the judgment of anyone who chooses to use that product. Maybe that won’t be the case in the future, but unless things drastically change in regards to consumer data privacy standards, I’m going to stick to being very suspicious of them.
Also I’ll add— I did not downvote you but to me some of your other replies in this thread come across as almost a little intentionally obtuse.