The absolute Brainrot-state of an average GenAI subreddit

A thread on the OpenAI subreddit recently caught my eye, presenting a perfect case study in the absolute brainrot infecting GenAI discourse. The original poster's argument was so fundamentally flawed it left me wondering: are they arguing in bad faith for internet points, or do they genuinely lack the critical thinking skills to be that stupid? Ofcourse, this is Reddit, so a whole chorus of geniuses chimed in to defend a multi-hundred-billion dollar corporation's right to steal.

Let's start with their primary "gotcha": the claim that since Japanese fans create LoRAs and doujinshi "without issues," Japan's official stance against OpenAI is hypocritical. This is a stunningly ignorant take that confuses a unique cultural ecosystem with a corporate free-for-all.

First, the premise is just factually wrong. Companies like Square Enix have forced individuals to take down LoRAs, and this is just purely from my own memory without having to look up. Second, and more importantly, it’s a ridiculous false equivalency. The doujinshi market exists in a specific, symbiotic gray area tolerated by publishers because it builds an engaged fan community and poses zero economic threat. A fan selling a comic at Comiket isn't competing with the official manga release. The power dynamic is clear: the publisher holds all the cards and can shut it down at any time.

The comparison to OpenAI is absurd. The company operates as a foreign mega-corporation in a parasitic relationship with the IP. It takes everything, gives nothing back, and its product is designed to compete on a global scale, threatening the livelihoods of the original creators. Equating the two is a bad-faith argument that attempts to justify industrial-scale IP theft under the guise of creative freedom.

To be absolutely clear on this doujinshi point, because the defenders of IP theft love to bring it up: they point to a market full of fan-made adult content and scream "hypocrisy" without understanding the context. That entire market functions on the tacit consent of the IP holder. Publishers tolerate it because it fosters a hyper-engaged community and keeps franchises relevant between official releases, all without directly competing with their primary products. The scale is microscopic, and the intent is fandom.

This relationship is a strategic choice made by the IP owner. OpenAI's actions, by contrast, involve no consent, no community building, and no strategic benefit to the creator. It is a hostile, industrial-scale operation designed for market replacement. Using a tolerated fan community to defend a parasitic corporate entity is a pathetic deflection. It deliberately conflates a publisher's choice to allow fandom with a corporation's decision to steal.

On Japan Copyrights and AI laws:

Then you have the geniuses calling it hypocrisy, claiming Japan's own laws supposedly allow this. So, let's look at what the Japanese law on copyright and AI actually says.

The entire argument hinges on a single, misunderstood point: Article 30-4 of the Japanese Copyright Act. On the surface, it seems permissive, allowing copyrighted works to be used for data analysis, which includes AI training. This is the one-line summary the GenAI crowd parrots.

Of course, the average Redditor, who has a pathological aversion to reading sources, sees "Japan allows AI" and their critical thinking faculty shuts down. They completely ignore the massive exceptions built into the very same law:

• The permission is voided if the purpose is for the "enjoyment of the thoughts or sentiments expressed in the work." Generative AI, by its very definition, is built to create expressive content for human enjoyment. It is a creative competitor.
• The permission is also voided if the action would "unreasonably prejudice the interests of the copyright owner." A foreign company worth $500 billion, building a tool that directly threatens the business model and livelihoods of Japan's entire creative industry, is the textbook definition of "unreasonable prejudice."

To make it even clearer, Japan's own Agency for Cultural Affairs has recently confirmed this, stating that training AI to generate similar creative works is not what the law was intended to protect.

You cannot be that braindead to think a country wouldn't protect its artists (who already make little as it is) and its core IP holders from a foreign mega-corporation profiting off their theft. This is a matter of common sense, not complex debates.

But...but China!

Finally, we come to the most cowardly argument in the entire thread: the geopolitical scare tactic. The logic goes: "If OpenAI doesn't scrape all this data, then China will, and they'll win the AI race because they have no respect for IP."

This is the kind of brain-dead tribalism that would have people cheering on Brad Pitt's crew in Inglourious Basterds. In their minds, the target's "badness" justifies any and all brutal methods used against them. China's disregard for IP is the enemy, so we must abandon our own principles and engage in the same theft to fight them.

Let's be clear: China's approach to intellectual property is a massive problem. But using that as a shield for our own theft is a pathetic intellectual manoeuvre. It's an argument that asks creators in Japan, Europe, and the US to sacrifice their rights and livelihoods today so a US-based corporation can get a leg up on a Chinese one tomorrow.

This race to the bottom is an industry-wide disease. You have OpenAI's defenders making these excuses, and then you have companies like Anthropic, dripping with virtue-signalling about 'safety' and 'ethics,' all while their models are built on the same foundation of mass-scale data theft. The entire sector wants a free pass for its behaviour.

This entire line of reasoning is the last refuge of someone with no actual principles. It’s the logic of a brainwashed nationalist, chanting "USA! USA!" while cheering on a domestic corporation as it bulldozes an ally's house, all because a foreign rival might have done it first. They've embraced a race to the ethical bottom so enthusiastically that they've become willing cheerleaders for the very corporate theft that will eventually hollow out their own culture too.