Jo Gretton
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jogretton.bsky.social
Jo Gretton
@jogretton.bsky.social
43 followers 130 following 5 posts
Usually hungry.
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Reposted by Jo Gretton
moonjam.com
Every facet of generative AI has made my professional life worse, without question, but THIS specific aspect has been driving me NUTS.

Clients, who have made me toil for weeks over indescribably small details, are now approving & producing in-house commercial artwork that looks like a fever dream.
December 8, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Reposted by Jo Gretton
number10cat.bsky.social
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree. Ate it.
December 1, 2025 at 8:27 AM
Reposted by Jo Gretton
mooseallain.bsky.social
Porktrait

If you like this cartoon, I can draw one for you! Amazing! Or any of the others on my website. What a thrilling idea!

www.worldofmoose.com/products/por...
Cartoon drawing of a vertical rectangle containing a pig and a horizontal rectangle containing a lamb - the captions read Porktrait and Lambscape
January 23, 2025 at 10:05 AM
Reposted by Jo Gretton
jackbern.bsky.social
I've sent this email to my MP after doing the public consultation on AI, not sure it will do much but I would encourage anyone else in a similar situation to do the same
Dear Ms Stella Creasy, I am writing to voice my extreme concern at the direction taken by the UK government with regard to artificial intelligence in the creative industries. In particular I am alarmed by the plan, recently outlined in a public consultation, to allow AI companies to access copyright material for training as the default (and to make creatives 'opt-out' if they do not consent). As a writer, I took part in the public consultation - I have attached my response here, but I also wanted to get in touch with you as you are my local MP, and you have always been receptive to the problems and concerns of your constituents. Moreover, I believe Walthamstow has a relatively high number of people working in the creative industry, and I wanted to impress upon you just how poorly these plans have been received in your constituency specifically. To be blunt, I believe that giving tech companies the right to train their AI models with copyrighted material will be a terrible mistake which will decimate an already struggling creative industry. It is effectively giving tech companies carte blanche to do what they have done for many years previously - to steal copyrighted material - but this time with the government's blessing. Moreover, the "opt-out" model is woefully inadequate. On paper it makes sense - and I can see a world in which celebrity writers, artists and musicians use it to their advantage - but in practice, it would be merely a fig-leaf for the continued exploitation of the majority of creatives. This is already an industry where artists are frequently exploited by production companies and made to work well below an appropriate rate for the promise of future jobs or exposure - the reality of the industry means that production companies would fairly quickly pressure artists into abandoning their rights to any "opt-out" (with the threat of taking the job away if they refused). It is staggeringly naive to present this as a workable solution. I also have to stress how dispiriting it was to read this consultation and to see just how little the government understands the concerns of the creative industry with regard to artificial intelligence. At every turn, this consultation assumed that we should be accommodating big tech companies and their desire to foist generative AI on us, without acknowledging either the massive copyright infringement they have already committed to build their models, or the devastating effect their product will have on the creative industry. What's more, the consultation assumed that writers and artists are excited about this tool, and they can work with tech companies to use artificial intelligence to enhance their art. I speak with artists and writers on a daily basis and I have found no-one who can see an actual artistic benefit to this technology. I am frequently told by those foisting AI upon us that using generative AI will improve me as a writer - it has been four years and I still have not had an adequate answer as to how. AI can write a script in thirty seconds, but that is not useful from a writing perspective, because it is poorly written nonsense with no understanding of structure, tone or language - it takes much longer to fix than starting from scratch. It is a product that creates bad, careless art quickly. That is not something that benefits artists - that is a tool that benefits people who don't care about art, who just want to flood the market with slop and denigrate the very concept of art. Generative AI is not a tool - it is a weapon, used by exploitative production companies who don't want to pay for artists an appropriate amount to write something good, but instead use a machine to write a bad version of it and then pay artists a fraction of the fee they should be paid to punch it up. Generative AI will never write anything a fraction as well as a human - but it doesn't need to, to destroy their livelihood. I also must say how frustrating it is to see multiple government announcements extolling the virtues on AI while this public consultation is still active. The Prime Minister told a select committee a few weeks ago that "AI is going to be transformative for the better in art, culture, industry, government, public services", and just today the government has announced they are "unleashing" AI (whatever that actually means) in an attempt to "boost growth". This announcement had actually very little qualitative detail in it (apart from a mention of using AI to find potholes), and sadly reminded me a lot of the bluster and boosterism of the previous Tory governments - but it also seems to me that by announcing these things before the end of the consultation, the government has made up its mind already. Just last week the UK Labour Tik Tok account posted a video that used (truly ugly) AI art (and was later taken down not because of the AI art but because of an inappropriate music choice) - I was distressed by the complete lack of respect for UK artists and animators who could have made a much better video (for a fraction of the environmental cost, I should add), and it really doesn't inspire confidence that this government will actually listen to any criticism of generative AI that comes out of this consultation. I do hope that I am wrong, and that this government can be convinced of the folly of this specific plan. I hope that, given your constituency's high number of people involved in the creative industries, you could be a voice that warns against this - and to stop a policy which threatens to torpedo an already struggling creative industry. Thanks very much, Jack Bernhardt
January 13, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Jo Gretton
icelandcricket.bsky.social
The Blue Lagoon's car park is disappearing by the second. Photo from RÚV.
November 21, 2024 at 1:44 PM
Reposted by Jo Gretton
watsoncomedian.bsky.social
I don't care how brazen this is: if this gets 20 reposts I'll post about one of the greatest tasks of my Taskmaster series, which would be talked about today as much as the trouser theft/texting/song etc, but which was NEVER BROADCAST ON THE SHOW. Or 10, whatever. I'd probably do it for 1.
November 15, 2024 at 5:24 PM
jogretton.bsky.social
I thought I’d give this a go. What’s the worst that could happen? Oh yes, Twitter. Twitter is the worst that could happen.
November 15, 2024 at 12:36 PM
Reposted by Jo Gretton
jay.bsky.team
We’ve put a lot of work into making Bluesky a healthier social network. This app is designed to give you a choice — in what you want to see, what you don’t want to see, and how you want to interact.

Some tips on how to customize your experience:
November 14, 2024 at 11:01 PM